SACRED MUSIC

This antiphon or sequence to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is generally sung during Passiontide. Like many other medieval musicians, the composer of this moving antiphon is unknown. Giovanni Vianini, 76, founder of the Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis, defines it as a Cistercian chant and attributes it to San Bernard. Again, as with other texts attributed to the Abbot of Clairvaux, this attribution cannot be certain.
Yet, since the antiphon was composed in the late Middle Ages, it could very well be attributed to a Cistercian.
In the translation, we cannot do justice to the beauty of the Latin text, especially the expression spirant amorem, which captures the moment when Jesus breathes His Spirit and thus pours His love upon us. I chose ‘radiates” as the Spanish.
IIn two sentences, the author encapsulated the long Cistercian tradition of devotion to the wounds of the Lord, which was inspired by St. Bernard’s commentary on the Song of Songs. As we read in Sermon Sixty-One: “Where can the weak find safe, sure rest except in the Savior’s wounds? My secure dwelling depends on the greatness of his saving power. The world rages, the body oppresses, and the devil lays his snares. Yet I do not fall, for I am founded on a rock…’The iron pierced his soul,’ and his heart has drawn near, so that he is no longer one who cannot sympathize with my weaknesses. The secret of his heart is laid open through the clefts of his body; that mighty mystery of loving is laid open, laid open too the tender mercies of our God, in which the morning sun from on high has risen upon us. Surely his heart is laid open through his wounds!” (SC 61:4).
Today, the devotion to the Wounds of Christ continues to influence the lives of many Cistercian monks and nuns. It is evident in the biography of St. Lutgarde, the book “What are these Wounds?” by Thomas Merton, and in the recent work, “Healing Wounds” of Bishop Erik Varden.
He writes: “We tremblingly affirm what John the Evangelist teaches: in and through the cross God’s glory erupts as Christ’s annihilation manifests a sacrificial love so utter that it subverts and opens up from within the very word ‘love’, making it at once terrible and sweetly comforting. For if love is present here, no circumstance is beyond love’s reach.”

While we sing: “O quantum in crucem spirant amorem caput tuum, Christe, inclinatum, manus expansae, pectus apertum!”

We tremblingly affirm the splendor of love. The healing power of the wounded Heart of Jesus radiates the glory of the Godhead.

The first Gregorian mode, often defined as serious and noble melodically, expresses the seriousness and nobility of the Passion. The melody rarely goes above the dominant note A and rarely goes as high as B flat. The B-flat notes emphasize the words perditios, clamatium, criminum, bringing forth their poignant plea. Otherwise, the melody evolves within the interval between the final D and the dominant A, imparting a sense of contemplation. ◼