Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter present...

...from the wife. A couple weeks ago she calls me from somewhere in the city of man.
"I'm at the bookstore. You need anything?"
Umm, lemme think. Okay, get me something by Walker Percy if they have it. Anything but The Moviegoer.
"Okay."
Calls back a few minutes later. "They don't have anything. I'd have to order it."
Nothing by Walker Percy? What kind of bookstore is it?
"Borders."
Nevermind, I say. I don't have time to read anyway.

She goes out of town to spend Easter with one of the girls. Today I get a call to look in a certain place for my Easter present. So I look. I find it. On the day of the Lord's resurrection I now hold in my hands Lost in the Cosmos.
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You want something for Easter? Then listen to the Hallelujah Chorus. Or the Exsultate Jubilate.

Or, if you feel like working, you can read a circumstantially convincing case for the reality of the Resurrection made by Lydia and her husband.

Me, I'm just going to rest in a line of Chrysostom's found by Dylan: Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again, for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
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Update: From my mother, via a retired Episcopal priest, a hymn I don't think I've heard before - "At the Cross Her Stations Keeping", taking account of Mary's sorrow at the Crucifixion. Music composed by John B. Dykes, an Anglican priest, lyrics translated from the Latin by Edward Caswall, initially an Anglican as well, who by 1847 had become Catholic and took up residence at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, which means, I presume, that he lived and worked alongside John Henry Newman. Their graves lie near each other.

Personally, I like the painting that accompanies the lyrics.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We sing that hymn (At the Cross...), but to the Stabat Mater tune at our church fairly frequently.

Our Anglican heritage is showing!

Lydia McGrew said...

How can it be part of the Anglican heritage if the words were translated from a Latin hymn? It sure sounds like they must have been--Stabat Mater dolorosa, right, says the cyberhymnal site? Sounds like it's the Anglicans who got it from the Catholics. Not that I happen to like the Stabat Mater tune, and I haven't had a chance to look up the other one. But in the interests of accuracy, credit where it's due, and all that.

Anonymous said...

There appear to be three Stabat Mater tunes all set to lyrics (translated into English) that go way back to Pope Gregory I, since whose time the words seem to have been added onto or variously altered or something. One of the melodies is called a Mechlin church melody (I have no idea what that is). Another was written by Anglican Fr. Dykes, and another by an H. Knight, also English about whom not much is known. I assume Terry means she sang one of those in her Anglican days, but I don't know which one. I liked them all. Not the greatest stuff, but pleasant.