Suffering With Joy

St. Ephrem, Harp of the Holy Ghost

June 18, 2010

I was born in the way of Truth:  Though my childhood was unaware of the greatness of the benefit, I knew it when trial came.

Today is the feast of St. Ephrem, the Prophet of the Syrians, Harp of the Holy Ghost, Father of Hymnody, Mary’s Own Singer, and other grand titles including Doctor of the Church. He lived from around 306-373 and we are very fortunate to still have large remnants of his writings.

You might think that anything he wrote so long ago  be would be old-fashioned or irrelevant to today’s world, but like all the Doctors of the Church, St. Ephrem’s writings get down to the simplicity and truth of life as found in sacred Scripture. Here is part of a poem he wrote:

There lie those who improved their complexions,

And artfully disguised their faces;

There lie those who painted their eyelids,

And the worm corrodes their eyes…

There lie those who were enemies,

And their bones are mingled together.

The scroll St. Ephrem holds in the icon above says: “Take thou refuge in God, who passes not away nor is changed.” He wrote about the Holy Eucharist, Penance, the primacy of Peter, about the Blessed Virgin and the sufferings of Christ.

St. Ephrem is known as “The Deacon of Edessa” and is the only male Doctor of the Church who was not ordained a priest or bishop. He lived for some time as a hermit and wrote many poems illustrating the doctrines of Christianity. This beautiful work from the Nativity series gives words to Mary:

The babe that I carry carries me, saith Mary, and He has lowered His wings, and taken and placed me between His pinions, and mounted into the air; and a promise has been given me that height and depth shall be my Son’s… [O Lord Jesus,] In her virginity Eve put on the leaves of shame: Thy Mother put on in her virginity the Garment of Glory that suffices for all.  She gave the little vest of the body to Him that covers all.

Blessed is she in whose heart and mind Thou wast!  A King’s palace she was by Thee, O Son of the King, and a Holy of Holies by Thee, O High Priest!

St. Ephrem organized choirs of women and taught them verses to replace the heretical hymns of Bardesanes, a Syrian writer of the early 3rd century who had written 150 of them, while keeping the music.  Today many of the hymns of St. Ephrem are part of the Syrian liturgy.

Pope Benedict XV proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church on October 5, 1920.

Below is a YouTube recording of John Tavener’s Ikon of the Nativity taken from St. Ephrem’s Nativity hymns.  Tavener is a convert to the Orthodox Church and has written a great deal of music for its liturgy that I think is utterly heavenly. You can also find a recording of a Maronite choir singing St. Ephrem’s Hymn of Light. Unfortunately, embedding is impossible.  Just type in “Hymns of St. Ephrem” and it will come up.

Given the deplorable and sometimes heretical hymns foisted upon Catholics since the 1960s, perhaps it would be wise to call on the patronage of St. Ephrem in the restoration of the sacred liturgy.

Tags: Catholic Church, music

Good Friday Reproaches – Victoria

April 1, 2010

Tomás Luis de Victoria

The most spiritually impressive part of the Good Friday sacred liturgy for me as a child were the Reproaches, chanted during the adoration of the cross.  This is not to say the chanting of the Passion and the Great Intercessions were not equally impressive, but the music and words of the Reproaches took the prayers of the liturgy to a much higher level for me.

As I was always in the choir from first grade on, the Gregorian chant is well engraved in my brain.  However, some great composers have also written music for the Reproaches.  Tomás Luis de Victoria and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina are two well-known names representing the kind of music the fathers of Vatican Council II wanted to preserve.

The Reproaches, otherwise known as the Improperia or Popule Meus are twelve in number.  I had intended to post each one with some commentary, but the death of my Mother last week intervened so the project will have to wait until next year.

Today I have the best partial recording (the first three Reproaches) I could find of Victoria’s composition with choir and cantor.  Two choirs are traditionally used to sing alternately in Greek first and then in Latin the words most people today associate with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and which are repeated throughout the Reproaches:  O holy God!  O holy mighty One!  O holy immortal One, have mercy upon us! As was often done by composers of his time, Victoria alternated Gregorian chant with polyphony.

For those who are too ill to attend the traditional Good Friday liturgy, listening to Victoria’s Improperia and following along in a missal is a good option if you are able. In fact, carving out time to read the entire Good Friday liturgy and meditating on it would bring many graces to those who wish to join with Mary, the holy women, and John spiritually at the foot of the cross on this day.

A little about the composer: Victoria (c. 1548 – 27 August 1611) was one of the most important composers of the Renaissance along with Palestrina and Orlando de Lassus.  He is a glory of Spain, having written music for many feasts including Marian solemnities.  Victoria was ordained a priest in 1574 and served the Church in both Italy and Spain in various capacities.  He died in 1611 and was buried at the Monasterio de las Descalzas de Santa Clara at Madrid but his grave unfortunately remains unidentified.

Last week I posted Popule Meus by Jose Angel Lamas which is also very beautiful and appropriate for the sacred liturgy.

Tags: Catholic Church, liturgy, music

Popule Meus – Reproaches of Good Friday

March 21, 2010

Crucifixion, c. 1450 Panel, Andrea del Castagno (b. 1423, Castagno, d. 1457, Firenze) National Gallery, London

Between now and Good Friday I’ll be posting about the Reproaches.  While Gregorian chant is the major musical form in the Latin liturgy, many compositions of the Popule Meus from the Reproaches have been written by great composers the world over.  Today I want to introduce readers to an exceptionally beautiful composition by Jose Angel Lamas.

Knowledge of composers from Latin  and South America is uncommon in North America, but thanks to YouTube, their music is now available.  Jose Angel Lamas is one such composer.  He only lived to be 39 and the composition here is his most important and well known.

Lamas was born in Caracas, Venezuela on August 2, 1775 and died there December 10, 1814.  He was buried in St. Paul’s Church but when it was torn down to build the Teatro Municipal de Caracas his bones were never found.  The composer lived during the colonial-provincial period and dedicated his life to religious music, being a member of the Cathedral orchestra.  This piece, Popule Meus, was composed in 1801 and premiered at the Caracas Cathedral.

I could not find a recording of this at Amazon so unfortunately, I can’t put this in my store.  The sadness of the Popule Meus exudes not only from the melodic line, but from the silences that punctuate the composition and the choral vs. solo voices. Enjoy.

Tags: art, music, Reproaches

Dvorák’s Stabat Mater

March 8, 2010

Many great composers have set to music the beautiful Stabat Mater hymn Catholics are so familiar with because of the Stations of the Cross.  Probably none had a greater appreciation of the grief of Our Lady than Antonin Dvorák.  On September 19th, 1875 his infant daughter Josefa died. On August 13, 1877 his eleven-month-old daughter died in a household accident.  Within a month his son Otakar contracted small pox and died on September 8, the composer’s 36th birthday.

By November 13, 1877 the composer had completed the work, but its first performance was not done until December 23, 1880. The piece brought Dvorák such popularity he was besieged for autographs wherever he went, a sign that he wrote in a universal language everyone can understand.  I highly recommend this very moving work for Lenten listening if you are into classical music.

Dvorak: Stabat Mater is available in my Amazon store or you can click on the link here to order. You can hear excerpts from it at the Amazon page.

About the Stabat Mater: this well known 13th century text was most likely composed by the great Franciscan, Jacapone da Todi  or otherwise known, Jacapone Benedetti (1228-1306).

Tags: music