HOLY SATURDAY- DAY OF REST

To You eternal Three in One

Let every living creature laud;

Whom by the Cross Thou did restore,

O guide and govern evermore! Amen.

St. John has just been given the duty to care for Jesus’ Mother as his own. 

In this dramatic, painfilled scene we see Mary swept away with great anguish to the point of transparency, as John holds her up.  It is as if he weeps for her, as well as His beloved friend! 

This is one of those pieces of art that has to be seen in the flesh to appreciate the color, the movement (or lack of) and artistry.

THAT FRIDAY WE CALL GOOD

O Cross! all hail! sole hope, abide

With us now in this Passion-tide:

To give fresh merit to the saint

And pardon to the penitent.

Grunewald's dark and harrowing portrayal of the Crucifixion shows a horribly wounded, twisted Christ, nailed to the cross.  Christ's flesh bristles with jagged splinters, as well as the developing sepsis and necrosis.

His nail-pierced hands seem to acquire movement through rigor mortis. The emotional intensity and terrible realism sets our teeth on edge and at first glance keeps us spellbound, while we try to look away!

HOLY THURSDAY- BODY GIVEN FOR US

Hail wondrous Altar! Victim hail!

Thy Glorious Passion shall avail!

Where death Life's very Self endured,

Yet life by that same Death secured.

  

At the feet of  St. John the Baptist is a lamb bearing a cross, whose blood flows into a goblet, symbolizing the union between the Old and New Testament as well as the redemption of mankind.

Today we are given His Body and Blood from that great sacrifice so long ago.  He has become our own life blood!

WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK

.

O Tree of beauty! Tree of light!

O Tree with royal purple dight! (*)

Elect on whose triumphal breast

Those holy limbs should find their rest.

On whose dear arms, so wildly flung

The weight of this world’s ransom hung,

The price of humankind to pay,

And spoil the spoiler of his prey

* clothed

TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK

Fulfilled is all that David told

In true prophetic song, of old:

Admidst the nations, God said he,

Has reigned  and triumphed from the Tree.

In this painting we see the  agonizing stance  Mary Magdalene  as she partakes of her Beloved's suffering and death, not knowing that in a few days she will meet Him in the garden.

MONDAY OF HOLY WEEK

Behold! The nails with anguish fierce,

His outstretched arms and vitals pierce:

Here our redemption to obtain,

The Mighty Sacrifice is slain.

Where deep for us, the spear was dyed,

Life's torrent rushing from His side

To wash us in that precious flood

Where mingled Water flowed, and Blood.

It is thought that Grunewald's intensely realistic imagery and iconography were inspired by the revelations of St Bridget of Sweden, published in a best-selling devotional book during the 14th and 15th centuries.

This is no sanitized version of the Crucifixion. The tortured body of  Jesus conveys the pain and agony of a man close to death, nailed to the cross.  His wounds bleeding from thorns and beatings. The disfigured, twisted body, with hands outstretched to the heavens, expressively lay bare the gruesome reality of His unimaginable suffering. Jesus is depicted as suffering from the same sores, as the patients in the hospital , a sign to them that He shared in their afflictions. 

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.