Preparing for Holy Week
Jonathan Grant
When I was searching through a list of hymns to accompany the lectionary texts for Holy Week this year, I keep re-discovering the idea of God’s Majesty and Diety... not ideas on which I normally focus during Holy Week. I had envisioned creating an object that revolved around the concept of pain and suffering... perhaps a dark experience in the garden, or a prickly crown of thorns. With this meditation and new direction I have drawn towards the poems of our shared hymn tradition that point toward the combination of a suffering yet triumphant divinity. It might seem like an odd combination... or perhaps a bit premature... but in the songs and poems inspired by the Holy Week lectionary I am finding inspiration for our project.
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.
Bernard of Clairvaux
Here is the melange of inspiration I have compiled for my upcoming installation for the American Church in Paris:
PAX,
Grant