Stabat Mater: standing beside Mary in Holy Week

Here in Sydney, two of our classically trained seminarians are doing a series of Holy Week performances of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. If you're in Sydney and would like to come along to a performance, the details are on Facebook. I wrote this short reflection on the Stabat Mater for the programme notes:

Holy Week is more than a memorial. It is a time of participation. We celebrate Holy Week as a way of participating in the great story of Jesus’ rejection, suffering, and death. We are among the crowd that cheers and waves palm branches when Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey. We are with Jesus when he shares his last meal with his friends. We share in their astonishment when our Lord stoops down to wash our feet and tells us to do likewise. The next day we join our voices to the crowd that cries out, “Crucify him!” And we are there when Jesus takes up the cross and lays down his life for the ones who have rejected him.

The 13th-century hymn, Stabat Mater, is a powerful expression of our participation in the events of Good Friday. In the Gospel of John, we read that Jesus’ mother was standing by the cross as her son hung dying between two criminals (John 19:25-27). The Stabat Mater places us there with Jesus’ mother. We contemplate the cross with her. We see it through her eyes. We shed her tears. Our heart is pierced like hers. We identify with her shattering experience of grief and trust.

The Stabat Mater leads us from the grief of Christ’s mother to the sufferings of Christ himself. As we stand with Mary beneath the cross, we ask that our own lives would be pierced by Christ’s wounds. The hymn invites us, like St Paul, to “bear in our bodies the death of Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:10). It reminds us that the crucifixion is not just a mournful spectacle observed from a distance. We don’t watch the death of Christ in the same way that we watch a sad movie, shedding a few tears so that we will feel better afterwards.

When we fix our eyes on the crucifixion, we are contemplating the depths of God and the hidden depths of our own lives. The cross reveals the deepest truth about ourselves. It tells us who we really are. It shows us that we are loved; that we are wanted; that our lives have already been fully judged and fully forgiven; that “neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Composed in the final weeks of his life, as he lay dying from tuberculosis at the age of just 26, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s setting of this hymn is a profound musical exploration of human mortality, grief, solidarity, and ultimate hope. 

If you don't know the hymn, the words are below with their lovely melancholy Latin rhymes. You can see a performance of Pergolesi’s setting here – or better yet, come along and join us for a live performance in Sydney!

I      Stabat mater dolorosa                 The grieving mother stood
juxta crucem lacrimosa                 weeping beside the cross

       dum pendebat filius                      where hung her son.

II    Cuius animam gementem           Her soul, lamenting,

       contristatam ac dolentem             sorrowing and grieving,

       pertransivit gladius.                     pierced by the sword.

III   O quam tristis et afflicta             O how sad and afflicted

       fuit illa benedicta                         was that blessed

       mater unigeniti                             mother of an only son.

IV   Quae moerebat et dolebat           Mourning and grieving

       et tremebat cum videbat              and trembling to behold

       nati peonas incliti.                       the torments of her glorious child.

V    Quis est homo qui non fleret        Who would not weep

       Christi matrem si videret              to see Christ’s mother

       in tanto supplicio?                        in such agony?

       Quis non posset contristari          Who would not grieve with her,

       piam matrem contemplari            looking upon the blessed mother

       dolentum cum filio?                     suffering with her son?

       Pro peccatis suae gentis              For the sins of his people

       vidit Iesum in tormentis              she saw Jesus in torment

       et flagellis subditum.                   and subjected to the scourge.

VI   Vidit suum dulcem natum           She saw her own sweet child

       morientem desolatum                  dying, forsaken,

       dum emisit spiritum.                    as he gave up his spirit.

VII  Eia mater fons amoris                 O Mother, fount of love,

       me sentire vim doloris                 that I may feel the power of sorrow,

       fac ut tecum lugeam.                   let me mourn with you.

VIII Fac ut ardeat cor meum              Let my heart burn

       in amando Christum Deum          with the love of Christ the Lord,

       ut sibi complaceam.                     That I may be pleasing to him.

IX   Sancta mater istud agas               Blessed mother, do this:

       crucufixi fige plagas                     impress the wounds of the Crucified

       cordi meo valide                           firmly upon my heart.

       Tui nati vulnerati                         The precious pains of your wounded

       tam dignati pro me pati                child, suffered for my sake:

       peonas mecum divide.                 share them with me.

       Fac me vere tecum flere              Let me truly weep with you,

       crucifixo condolere                      mourn the Crucified One

       donec ego vixero.                        as long as I live.

       Iuxta crucem tecum stare             To stand with you beside the cross,

       te libenter sociare                         to freely join you in your weeping,

       in planctu desidero.                      this is my desire.

       Virgo virginum praeclara             Virgin, peerless among women,

       Mihi iam no sis amara                  be not now harsh to me:

       Fac me tecum plangere.               grant that I may weep with you;

X    Fac ut portem Christi mortem      That I may bear the death of Christ,

       passionis fac consortem               share his passion,

       et plagas recolere.                        remember his wounds;

       Fac me plagis vulnerari                That I may suffer his wounds,

       cruce hac inebriari                        inebriated by this cross

       ob amorem filii.                            with love for your son.

XI   Inflammatus et accensus              Ablaze and aflame,

       per te virgo sim defensus              may I find a defender

       in die iudicii.                                 on the day of judgement:

       Fac me cruce custodiri                 Guarded by the cross,

       morte Christi praemuniri              armoured by Christ’s death,

       confoveri gratia.                           cherished by grace.

XII  Quando corpus morietur             When the body dies,

       fac ut animae donetur                  may the soul be granted

       paradisi gloria.                             the glory of paradise.

       Amen.                                             Amen.

Heretical typos: von Balthasar's Origen

Where copyists are concerned, Origen was the unluckiest of all the church fathers. Rufinus complained that heterodox copyists had cunningly inserted heresies into Origen's writings. They "poured the poisonous filth of their own doctrines" into the texts of Origen in order to give their ideas a false aura of authority and antiquity (Rufinus, On the Falsification of the Books of Origen, 2). When Rufinus translated Origen into Latin at the end of the fourth century, he scrupulously omitted or erased anything that looked like a heretical interpolation. As he says in the preface to his translation of First Principles: "Wherever I have found in Origen's books anything that contradicts the devout statements he makes elsewhere about the Trinity, I have either omitted it as a corrupt and interpolated passage, or reproduced it in a form that matches the doctrine that he often affirms elsewhere." And then Rufinus adds that he has also made some interpolations of his own, inserting "explanatory comments" wherever Origen's "obscurity" calls for expression "in a fuller form" (Rufinus, Preface to First Principles).

Poor Origen! Interpolators on every side! Well, Christian reader, I'm sorry to be the one to break the news to you, but the bad luck of this great teacher has continued right down to our own time. One of Origen's greatest modern defenders, Hans Urs von Balthasar, inserts a very peculiar heresy into Origen's soteriology:

"... and by his death destroyed life."
Quotation from Origen in Balthasar, Origen: Spirit and Fire, p. 184.

To be more precise, it is Balthasar's English translator Robert J. Daly who has inserted this latest heresy into Origen. I am not certain, but I believe it may have something to do with Daly's unwholesome fascination with sacrifice.

If only Rufinus were here, he would have tidied things up quite nicely and removed every trace of heresy – something like this (translated freely from Rufinus' Latin):

For although the only-begotten Son of God, whom the holy church acknowledges homoousios with the Father before all worlds, became truly human and suffered for the salvation of the human race, and by his death destroyed death (for let all those who claim that Christ's death was a destruction of life be accursed), and by his resurrection restored life, just as marvellous, apart from the incarnation of the eternal self-subsistent Word, were the things brought about by the Holy Spirit, who is worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son, world without end.

Trusting in drunkenness: a note on Clement of Alexandria

At the start of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observes that moral action does not arise from deliberation. In order to think clearly about virtue, one must first already have a virtuous disposition formed by good habits. Aristotle drily remarks that the endless ethical debate of some philosophers is really just a sophisticated way of doing nothing. You become virtuous – and thus able to understand virtue – by acting virtuously. Nobody ever reasoned their way into right living.

Clement of Alexandria’s second-century Exhortation to the Greeks has a similar view of the priority of acting over deliberating. Clement’s Hellenistic friends don’t first need to comprehend all the complexities of the Christian faith. What they need first of all is a change of disposition. They need to be charmed by the magic of Christ, enchanted by Christ’s music. The first step is to accept Christ and to begin to follow his way. Understanding what it’s all about comes later.

In a typically affable illustration (he is the most affable of all the early fathers), Clement explains the point by comparing conversion to getting drunk at a party:

Let me give you an illustration. You might have some doubt about whether it’s right for a person to get drunk. But it’s your practice to get drunk before considering the question. Or in the case of self-indulgence, you don’t first make a careful examination: you hurry to indulge. Only when divine things are in question do you first inquire. When it’s a question of following this wise God and his Christ, you think this calls for deliberation and reflection, even though you have no idea what would be pleasing to God. Put faith in us, just as you do in drunkenness, that you may become sober! Put faith in us, just as you do in self-indulgence, that you may live! (Exhortation to the Greeks 10.77)

This is not to suggest that the Christian faith is irrational. For the one who has had a change of disposition, Christ also begins to shine as a rational light. Clement assures his readers that he has "an abundance of persuasive arguments about the Logos" – but these are for those people who have already had their desire awakened and have already begun to "contemplate this clear faith in the virtues", i.e., in the way of life that it initiates.

On the faulty perfection of the saints

“Bad saints everywhere”–Kevin Hart

Everyone in the church knows that the saints are a bunch of rascals. We could never venerate a faultless person, though we could fault a blameless person. We churchy folk tolerate the ignorance of the heathen about the morality of the saints. We are quite content to let them believe the saints to have been impeccable moral exemplars. But when someone in the church misunderstands the sanctity of the saints and demands faultless perfection, then we sharpen our quills. It is for this reason that John Wesley—lover of perfection that he was—found himself appalled upon reading the work of Rev. Conyers Middleton.

Middleton presumed that it was meaningful to point out that the saintly fathers of the church occasionally demonstrated questionable behaviour and opinion (and he deplored the accounts of their miracles). It takes a perfectionist like Wesley to identify someone who does not have a proper appreciation of Christian perfection.

There are those who will argue against the adjectival use of “Christian”—especially when it is applied to nouns such as “music”, “t-shirt”, or “weight loss programme”. However, when applied to “perfection”, it is an essential modifier. The saints, after all, are not a row of flag poles, but a field of trees. A tree is perfect not because it is rigid and straight and looks like every other tree, but because it is wild. The perfection of the saints comes not because they are blandly flawless, but because they are wildly Christian.

Perhaps it is true to say that Wesley is more credulous of the miracles of the ancient church than is advisable, but he still saw through Middleton’s scepticism to the heart of the matter—Middleton had no love for the fathers. Love, the apostle tells us—rascal that he was—covers a multitude of sins. Christian perfection, Wesley knows all too well, is not faultless performance. Christian perfection is not “sinless perfection”, as he had to remind his critics constantly. The good Lord, after all, had nothing to do with sinless people.

It is not hard, Wesley observes, to find in the Fathers “many mistakes, many weak suppositions, and many ill-drawn conclusions” if one wants to. A saint is not untouched by human infirmity, but one who bears their infirmities with Christian fortitude. “A saint”, G. K. Chesterton once mused, “only means a man who really knows he is a sinner.”

“And yet I exceedingly reverence them”, Wesley concludes, “and esteem them very highly in love.” If the saints were flawless, they could be no example to us. The saints inspire only if they bear the blemishes of human life. Otherwise they would be horribly glorious gods.

Christian perfection, Wesley teaches, is not sinlessness, but love. Wesley’s prayer is nothing more than to be a Christian like the fathers, living a life of love in the service of the God of love. That, he says, would be a perfect life.

Singing in the first person: on “I” and “we” in worship

Recently I went along with a friend to a Hillsong worship service. I was reminded again that one of the distinctive marks of Pentecostal worship isn’t just the style of music but also the prominence of the first person singular. In mainline Protestant worship, the prevailing trend has been to replace the worshipping “I” with the communal “we.” The “I believe” of the creed is changed to “we believe.” The newer hymns are all about “our” needs, “our” lives, “our” relationship to God and one another. When older choruses are sung, the pronouns are often updated to reflect the plural preference. I have been in a service where the deeply personal Geoff Bullock song, “The Power of Your Love,” was amended, from:

Lord, I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace that I’ve found in You
And Lord I’ve come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love.

To:

Lord, we come to You
Let our hearts be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace that we found in You
And Lord we’ve come to know
The weaknesses we see in us
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love.

Now in principle there’s nothing wrong with either “I” or “we” as far as singing to God is concerned. And the good Lord is probably long-suffering enough to figure out what we mean when we sing a line as daft as “the weaknesses we see in us.” Let’s face it, where hymnody is concerned, the Christian church will only be saved (if it is saved at all) as though through fire.

But I’m sceptical of the assumption that “we” is somehow the more Liturgically Correct word to use – as if the believers who turn up to church on Sunday morning cannot be trusted to remember that they are worshipping in a community. The whole thing smacks (if you’ll pardon the dirty language) of socialism. Are the clergy anxious to make us ever-mindful of our communal loyalties, as if they knew deep down that we would all rather be worshipping on our own at home?

Interestingly, St Augustine’s view of the worshipping “I” was exactly the opposite. In his exposition of Psalm 121, Augustine argued that the “I” is the proper symbol of corporate worship, while the “we” is too individualistic:

Let [the psalmist] sing from the heart of each one of you like a single person. Indeed, let each of you be this one person. Each one prays the psalm individually, but because you are all one in Christ, it is the voice of a single person that is heard in the psalm [Cum enim dicitis illud singuli, quia omnes unum estis in Christo, unus homo illud dicit]. That is why you do not say, ‘To you, Lord, have we lifted up our eyes,’ but ‘To you, Lord, I have lifted up my eyes.’ Certainly you must think of this as a prayer offered by each of you on his or her own account, but even more you should think of it as the prayer of the one person present throughout the whole world. (Expositions of the Psalms, 122.2).

Augustine’s point is that the language of “we” can easily give the impression that the congregation is a collection of atomistic individuals. But when believers sing to God in the first-person singular, it is as if the whole body of Christ were crying to God with one voice. The “I” is intensely personal: I sing as if the song applied to me alone. But it is also mystical and communal: beneath and above and around my own individual “I,” I hear the surge of a greater voice, a corporate “I” of which my own voice is a part. In Augustine’s view, this corporate voice is the voice of Christ. It is Christ himself who sings the psalms and who cries out to God in one voice from one body through the Spirit.

I implore you, my liberal Protestant comrades, don’t be too proud to admit that the Pentecostals might actually have got something right! And don’t be afraid to confront the question whether the experience of community in those ostensibly oh-so-individualistic Pentecostal churches is less intense and meaningful, or more, than what is found in our mainline churches with our theological propriety, our liturgical spit and polish, and all our earnest bluster and blather about we, us, and our.

Rock songs for (named) Gospel characters

• Zechariah: “Shut Up and Dance” (Aerosmith)
• Elizabeth: “A Woman Half My Age” (Kitty Wells)
• Mary (mother of Jesus): “Send Me an Angel” (Scorpions)
• Gabriel: “Undercover Angel” (Alan O’Day)
• Joseph: “I Don’t Know Where I Stand” (Joni Mitchell)
• Simeon: “This Old Heart of Mine” (Isley Brothers)
• Anna: “Battered Old Bird” (Elvis Costello and the Attractions)
• Herod the Great: “Children of the Grave” (Black Sabbath) 
• John the Baptist: “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (Bob Dylan)
• Simon Peter: “I Am a Rock” (Simon and Garfunkel)
• Andrew: “Gone Fishin’” (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
• James: “So Long, Dad” (Manfred Mann)
• John: “Thunder Rolls” (Garth Brooks)
• Philip: “Come On” (Wynn Stewart)
• Nathaniel: “What’s Going On?” (Marvin Gaye)
• Matthew: “After Taxes” (Johnny Cash)
• Thomas: “Touch Me” (Doors)
• James (son of Alphaeus): “Who the Hell Am I?” (Hoobastank)
• Thaddeus: “Hey Jude” (Beatles)
• Simon (the Cananaean): “Street Fightin’ Man” (Rolling Stones)
• Judas Iscariot: “Friend of the Devil” (Grateful Dead)
• Herod Antipas: “Political Man” (Cream)
• Herodias: “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (Cyndi Lauper)
• Nicodemus: “In the Still of the Night” (The Five Satins)
• Joseph of Arimathea: “A Well Respected Man” (Kinks)
• Mary Magdalene: “Respect” (Aretha Franklin)
• Joanna: “Uptown Girl” (Billy Joel)
• Susanna: “Rich Girl” (Hall and Oates)
• Jairus: “Child of Mine” (Fleetwood Mac)
• Bartimaeus: “Sweet Blindness” (Laura Nyro)
• Zacchaeus: “Short and Sweet” (Espernaza Spaulding)
• Martha: “Take It Easy” (Eagles)
• Mary: “Listen to What the Man Said” (Wings)
• Lazarus (John): “Stayin’ Alive” (Bee Gees)
• Lazarus (Luke): “Who’s Sorry Now?” (Connie Francis)
• Caiaphas: “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” (Sparks)
• Pilate: “Hands Clean” (Alanis Morissette)
• Simon of Cyrene: “Walk Like a Man” (Four Seasons)
• Mary Magdalene, Mary (mother of James and Joseph), Salome: “Honkey Tonk Women” (Rolling Stones)
• Cleopas: “Liberty Road” (Elf)