Holy Saturday Liturgy, Music, and Poetry

Holy Saturday liturgy

Please take time to pray through the Holy Saturday liturgy and read the Scripture readings.

Music: Heinrich Biber, "Passacaglia"

Passacaglia is a piece based on four notes, which bring to mind walking, for me the walking of Christ to the cross. The variations touch on a wide range of emotions and conclude in a quiet peace. In its sombre simplicity, this is a piece suited for meditation. -Danielle Burke

Listen to a performance of the piece by Danielle Burke.

Poems: Osip Mandelstam, "Cathedral, Empty"; Geoffrey Hill, from "Tenebrae"; Richard Crashaw, "Christ Crucified"

Lately I've been interested in poems about empty churches—there are quite a few, it turns out—since most of our churches are empty right now. The cathedral cleared of people gives Mandelstam a painful, exposed encounter with Christ, as visible in stained glass. For others, clearances lead to reflections on the absence or total death of Christ, a possibility which is still there in Mandelstam's poem and which in my mind must have shaped the mood on the day before Easter, when the apostles had given up hope. Beyond the problem of Christ's absence in death, the latter two poems by Hill and Crashaw examine the crucifixion itself. They are more in line with the meditativeness of the Pasacaglia, in this case relying on paradoxes or riddles, rather than repetition, to draw the mind to the problem of Christ crucified. -Jordan Burke

Listen to a recitation of these poems by Jordan Burke.

“Cathedral Empty”; “Tenebrae”; “Christ Crucified”

Exsultet

In the absence of the Easter Vigil, please listen to the Exsultet recorded by Johanna Suffern. You may find it on our Holy Week page here. You may want to look over the Easter Vigil liturgy here.