PALM SUNDAY

VEXILLA REGIS the hymn we sing at Vespers from Passion Sunday to Holy Thursday and on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, was written by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) and is considered one of the greatest hymns of the liturgy.

Fortunatus wrote it in honor of the arrival of a large relic of the True Cross which had been sent to Queen Radegunda by the Emperor Justin II and his Empress Sophia. Queen Radegunda had retired to a convent she had built near Poitiers and was seeking out relics for the church there. To help celebrate the arrival of the relic, the Queen asked Fortunatus to write a hymn for the procession of the relic to the church.

The last two verses which form the concluding doxology are not by Fortunatus, but is rather the work of some later poet.

For Holy Week I offer verses from this poignant hymn along with images of Mathis Grunewald’s Crucifixion from the  Isenheim altarpiece (Colmar, France), to me one of the most beautiful pieces ever painted. The first time I saw it I sat for an hour just gazing on its intense drama.

Sometimes words we have prayed for years, take on a new meaning if we but stop and listen to the Spirit.

The altarpiece was commissioned for the hospital chapel of Saint Anthony’s Monastery in Isenheim, Alsace (then part of Germany), where monks ministered to victims afflicted with the disfiguring skin disease known as Saint Anthony’s Fire. Monks, hospital staff, and patients at St. Anthony’s would have related in a very personal way to the ravaged body of Christ as it appears in the Crucifixion scene. Jesus’s green-hued skin appears covered in lacerations. His body is strained and taut, his limbs twisted and contorted. His presence is at once horrifying and compelling.

 This poignant scene is a paean to our human suffering  as well  as an essay on faith and the hope  the life to come.

The Royal Banner forward goes,

The mystic Cross refulgent glows:

Where He, in Flesh, our flesh who made,

Upon the Tree of pain is laid.