There Is but One, and That One Ever

Allow me to present a first in the history of this-a-here web-log: a repost. There is no other Easter poem I like better than George Herbert's "Easter", and Ralph Vaughan Williams's setting of it (from his Five Mystical Songs) is very fine indeed.


EASTER, +George Herbert (1593-1633)

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.  Sing his praise
                                                  Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
                                                  With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
                                                  With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
                                                  Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
                                                  Pleasant and long:
Or, since all musick is but three parts vied
                                                  And multiplied,
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to strew thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, & th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

Spy Wednesday

There is a tradition for calling the Wednesday in Holy Week "Spy Wednesday", though I am not certain how widespread this usage is. At first I thought it might be exclusive to certain Romans (among whom, indeed, I first heard it), though I am informed that Anglicans also use the term. In any case, I like it: it is certainly more evocative than "Holy Wednesday", just like "Maundy Thursday" is better than "Holy Thursday". (Though I have found multitudes of people who pronounce Maundy as "Maun-day", as if it were some sort of bastardization of "Monday". The name probably comes from the Latin mandatum, referring to the new commandment Christ spoke of, shortly after washing the disciples' feet. This is the sort of thing people should know.) The name "Spy Wednesday" presumably comes from the trouble Judas Iscariot was getting up to, agreeing to betray Jesus to the chief priests. (So Judas was a spy, I guess? Expect to see my screenplay, Judas Iscariot: International Man of Mystery, any day now. I'm sure there's a clever tagline for that to be written. A Bond pun, perhaps? Or something about thirty shekels?)

It is no surprise that the character of Judas should be a matter of some fascination for modern man. What could drive someone to betray Jesus? Doubt? Disillusionment? Mere greed? No single reason really seems sufficient.
Borges addresses the idea of Judas in a pseudo-scholarly article (or, perhaps more accurately, a scholarly pseudo-article), Tres versiones de Judas. The work is short enough that I recommend you go ahead and read it presently. If you are accustomed to Borges, it is a deliciously characteristic article.

(An aside: Borges writes that

Judas buscó el Infierno, porque la dicha del Señor le bastaba. Pensó que la felicidad, como el bien, es un atributo divino y que no deben usurparlo los hombres.

This resonates curiously with something else I have been pondering, the idea of Christian happiness. I sent a spoof comparing horrible prosperity theology to Schopenhauer to a correspondent, who wrote back with some salient points about the nature of Christian suffering. Apparently, in her essay collection The Sovereignty of Good — which I must needs pick up sometime — Iris Murdoch writes that the idea of Christianity's emphasis on suffering as the chief end of human life is a misconception, brought about by Enlightenment thought. Borges had read his Schopenhauer, to be certain.)

Anyway, Borges presents an altogether not-unsympathetic view of Judas, though, as always, it is difficult to determine how sincere he (Borges) is. It is all absurd heresy, anyway. I suppose Borges delighted in the thought.

Dante, of course, places Judas in what is presumably the very worst part of hell, being eternally eaten by the most unpleasant of the three mouths of the devil. In other literature, however, Judas is afforded some small mercies. In the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, St. Brendan and his explorers find Judas sitting on a miserable rock in the middle of a storm-tossed sea. Yet this is in fact a respite compared to the torment he suffers in hell: Ego sum infelicissimus Judas atque negociator pessimus, he says; non pro meo merito habeo istum locum sed pro misericortia ineffabili Jhesu Christi. (In an oddly specific listing, Judas is spared on Sundays, between Christmas and Epiphany, from Easter to Pentecost, and on the feasts of the Purification and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.) Even for the worst sinner, the "ineffable mercy of Jesus Christ" applies. We might take some comfort in this.

Organ Preludes and Postludes through Whitsunday

17 March (Lent V, Judica):
Flor Peeters: Audi, benigne Conditor
Johann Philipp Kirnberger: Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten
24 March (Palm Sunday):
Jehan Alain: Litanies, JA 119
28 March (Maundy Thursday):
Gerald Near: Ubi caritas et amor
30 March (Easter Vigil):
Théodore Dubois: Toccata in G Major
31 March (Easter Sunday):
Johann Pachelbel: Christ lag in Todesbanden, P. 58
Théodore Dubois: Toccata in G Major (reprised)
7 April (Second Sunday of Easter):
Jean-François Dandrieu: Offertoire sur «O filii et filiae»
Joseph Renner: Victimae paschali laudes, Op. 33, No. 6
8 April (Annunciation, transferred from Holy Week):
Dieterich Buxtehude: Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn, BuxWV 191
Max Reger: Wie schön leucht't uns der Morgenstern, Op. 135a, No. 29
14 April (Third Sunday of Easter):
Johann Pachelbel: Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, P. 218
J.S. Bach: Erstanden ist der heilge Christ, BWV 628
21 April (Fourth Sunday of Easter):
Harold Darke: Meditation on Brother James's Air
Max Reger: Christ ist erstanden, Op. 79b, No. 8
28 April (Fifth Sunday of Easter):
Horatio Parker: Revery, Op. 67, No. 2
J.S. Bach: Heut triumphieret Gottes Sohn, BWV 630
5 May (Sixth Sunday of Easter):
Joseph Jongen: Chant de mai, Op. 53, No. 1
J.S. Bach: Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, BWV 626
9 May (Ascension):
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Bryn Calfaria
Marcel Dupré: Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein, Op. 28, No. 58
12 May (Seventh Sunday of Easter):
J.S. Bach: Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 654
Johann Heinrich Buttstedt: Christ lag in Todesbanden
19 May (Pentecost):
Dieterich Buxtehude: Komm, heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BuxWV 199
J.S. Bach: Komm, Gott Schöpfer, heiliger Geist, BWV 667

Pure and Costly Nard

(Or "pure and costly nardus", as Coverdale puts it; "and the house was full of the savoure of the oyntment.")

As sometimes happens, I found today's Gospel reading to be interesting. John's account of the woman with the alabaster box — we presume it is the same story as that related by the synoptics (Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9; Luke has an account of a sinful woman anointing Jesus, but it takes place in a Pharisee's house, so I will leave discussion of that story for another time) — adds some notable details. John identifies the woman as Mary, whom we take from the context to be the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Rather than merely pour the ointment on Jesus' head, the woman in John's account anoints his feet, wiping them with her hair (a messy detail that always stuck in my mind; how does one get nard-and-foot-dust out of one's hair?). In all three accounts, disciples protest the extravagance of spending 300 denarii (nearly a year's wages) on perfume, but in John the complainer is none other than Judas (who is said to be embezzling from the apostolic purse). Now, on the face of it, this seems a rather reasonable objection, given Scripture's emphasis on providing for the poor (and orphans and widows and whatnot). But Jesus dismisses the idea: leave her alone, as she anointing me for my burial. In Matthew and Mark he foretells that the (here unnamed) woman will be known the world over for her act. In all three versions the scene ends rather abruptly. In the synoptics it is followed by Judas going to the chief priests to agree to hand over Jesus. (And yet Judas, in relation to the ointment-incident, is only mentioned in John. But it is tempting to connect his rebuke and his decision to betray Jesus, isn't it?) In John it is immediately followed by the Palm Sunday account.

What are we to make of the woman with the alabaster box? She is, like the Magi, a saint whose offering to the Lord appears unnecessary. Such saints offer a measure of hope to those of us whose profession is, ultimately, quite useless. The world needs its Marthas, to be sure: they are the people who accomplish the real and quite necessary work that needs to be done. But it is also acceptable to God — apparently — that we should, from time to time, sit at his feet. The Benedictine ethos sums it up quite nicely: we are to work, yes, but also to pray. Devotion — expressed in its various useless guises of art, music, verse; the bow before the altar, the incense arising, the overpriced perfume anointing the Lord's feet — is no less necessary.