(no subject)
I'm having a quiet Good Friday. The Three Hour Vigil this afternoon was beautiful. We have Revd Dr Leslie Griffiths preaching for us this Holy Week and he's been very good. One of the sermons today he spent talking about his work in a cancer unit for teenagers and about a boy who had been told he was dying and had told him to look after his mother (with obvious connection to the crucifixion) and all I could think about was my friend A who lost her son to cancer not that many weeks ago and how glad I was that she had chosen not to come.
The second half of the service involves the adoration of the cross and communion and our choir, as usual, sang the Passion and the Reproaches perfectly. I think the Reproaches are one of the most beautifully heartbreaking pieces of music I know but in a service that also gives us Lotti's Crucifixus that's a hard choice to make.
I'm so tired at the moment though, I struggled to stay in the moment quite a lot and came home and fell asleep for an hour. And now of course I feel dreadful and probably won't sleep properly tonight. Oh well.
GOOD FRIDAY - Christina G. Rossetti
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky.
A horror of great darkness at broad noon -
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.
The second half of the service involves the adoration of the cross and communion and our choir, as usual, sang the Passion and the Reproaches perfectly. I think the Reproaches are one of the most beautifully heartbreaking pieces of music I know but in a service that also gives us Lotti's Crucifixus that's a hard choice to make.
I'm so tired at the moment though, I struggled to stay in the moment quite a lot and came home and fell asleep for an hour. And now of course I feel dreadful and probably won't sleep properly tonight. Oh well.
GOOD FRIDAY - Christina G. Rossetti
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky.
A horror of great darkness at broad noon -
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.