Libera me

It's Maundy Thursday but I won't be attending the somber service at sundown.  Nor will I be singing Faure's Requiem with St. George's choir on Good Friday.  Traditions are important. They stick with you.  When all else fails, when you don't know what to do, traditions provide the muscle memory to carry on.  To endure.

I can still hear Hayward Cox read this passage from Exodus -- as he did every year.  Hayward sounded like an educated Foghorn Leghorn.  He read it with emotion. With feeling.  I miss him.

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. [Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.] This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Here's just one of the songs that we won't be singing.  But you can still listen. Peace be with you.

Faure: Requiem: "Libera me"
Ensemble Orchestral de Paris

VI. Libera me Baritone solo Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna in die illa tremenda Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem	Deliver me, o Lord, from everlasting death on that dreadful day when the heavens and the earth shall be moved when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire
Choir Tremens factus sum ego et timeo dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira	I quake with fear and I tremble awaiting the day of account and the wrath to come.
Dies illa dies irae calamitatis et miseriae dies illa, dies magna et amara valde	That day, the day of anger, of calamity, of misery, that day, the great day, and most bitter.
Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis	Grant them eternal rest, o Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna in die illa tremenda Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem	Deliver me, o Lord, from everlasting death on that dreadful day when the heavens and the earth shall be moved when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire

(translation by Nordin Zuber )


Don Brown
April 9, 2020