Last week we heard Jesus telling us that He
must be lifted up to bring eternal life.He said this in the third chapter of John in a conversation to
Nicodemus, the elder at the Temple.It
was a mysterious comment that is picked up again and elaborated on nine
chapters later, this time to a crowd in Jerusalem who had come for Passover.But as a lead in to that, Jesus first speaks
of life and death as a grain of wheat.
Some Greeks who had come to
worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from
Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, “Sir, we would like
to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and
told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of
Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to
the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much
fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this
world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my
servant be.
The Father will honor whoever
serves me.
“I am troubled now.Yet what should I say?
‘Father, save me from this hour’?
But it was for this purpose that I
came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven,
“I have glorified it and will
glorify it again.”
The crowd there heard it and said
it was thunder;
but others said, “An angel has
spoken to him.”
Jesus answered and said,
“This voice did not come for my
sake but for yours.
Now is the time of judgment on
this world;
now the ruler of this world will
be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the
earth,
I will draw everyone to myself.”
He said this indicating the kind
of death he would die.
~Jn
12:20-33
This is a complicated passage.There is much going on.First the Greeks coming to Philip, and him
and Andrew taking them to Jesus; then the grain of wheat metaphor; then the
embracing of death; then the glorification and the voice of the Father; then announcing
the time of judgement; and finally the lifting up description.This will require more than one exegesis to
grasp it all.
First let’s listen to Brant Pitre to get the
gist of the Gospel reading.
Second, Bishop Robert Barron provides the
more theological implications of the passage.
Finally Jeff Cavens provides a connection to
our personal lives.
Gosh, I think I have in the past missed the
voice of God the Father, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”There is so much in this passage that it must
have never sunk in that the Father actually speaks.The voice of God enters here to verify His
approval of the glorification.
Another striking element to the passage is
that Jesus seems to ignore the Greeks.They come to greet Him and what does He say?Tangentially He announces the hour has come
for Him to be glorified.Does the crowd
now understand the lifting up image?I
don’t think so.I think one can only
understand that after one sees His crucifixion.
So this week I gave you a triple play, but if
you want a grand slam search out Fr. Geoffrey Plant’s homily on this passage.That’s worth watching as well.
Meditation: “Now is the time of judgment on
this world.”
Petronius writes another letter to Vinicuis.He is shocked about the recent happenings with
Vinicius, especially of the ability of Ursus to so easily defeat Croton.But he cannot understand the Christians and
their religion.He asks Vinicius to meet
him in Beneventum with the rest of Nero’s entourage.Vinicius, now back to his home, feels no
desire to reply.He is torn about
staying in his home or going back to that Christian abode he was nursed.He rejects going to Beneventum entirely and
writes to tell Petronius that Christian kindness and forgiveness has moved him,
and this has increased his love for Lygia.He tells Petronius that Lygia has run off again because of the
impossibility of their relationship.He
tells him also of meeting another leader of the Christians, Paul of
Tarsus.He tells Petronius that he is
thinking of embracing Christianity but there is something in him that revolts
at the idea.He tells him of the little
crosses Lygia has left for him made out of twigs.He concludes with a confession that the
Christians have changed his soul.
Vinicius now lives in his house shut off thinking only
of Lygia and the Christians.He senses
that Lygia loves him in return, and contemplates receiving baptism to join
their community.At home, his soul
struggles between his life as a Roman and his potential life as a
Christian.In an excursion into the
countryside he meets Chrysothemis, a loose upper class Roman woman, who tries
to seduce him but which he rejects.In
time Petronius returns to Rome and tries to get Vincius to travel abroad to
break these doldrums he is in.But Vinicius
has no desire.Petronius gets angry at
what the Christians have done to him.Petronius, as an Epicurean, tries to entice him with other women.He even shows him the pleasure he receives
from his woman slave Eunice.But all
this just deepens Vinicius’ desire for Lygia, and he rejects all of Petronius’s
enticements and tells Petroinus they no longer understand each other.
Nero, upon returning back to Rome, wants to travel
again and yet can’t, wants to change the buildings of Rome and yet can’t.He has become even more of a
megalomaniac.He is now infatuated with
Rubria, the young Vestal Virgin.A
conversation ensues where Vinicius tells Nero of how Ursus killed Croton, and
Nero wants to see this barbarian.He
asks of Lygia, and Vinicius does not respond.But he invites Vinicius to another of his feasts.
At this feast, held at the pond of Agrippa, on a raft
in the pond, all sorts of entertainment was provided: music and song, dancers,
mock naval battles on the pond, exotic foods, and wines.Poppea seemed to be infatuated with Vinicius,
who was seated next to her.At dusk the
raft touched land and all the entourage scattered into the woods where tents
were arranged for illicit wanton liaisons.Vinicius too was stirred into lust and ran into the woods, but his
recall of Lygia held him back, and when he was about to get away a masked woman
approached him.She pushed herself on
him and he rejected her.At that moment Petronius
approached and the veiled woman ran off.When the two could speak privately, Petronius tells him that Nero has
committed the grave sin of having sex with the Vestal Virgin Rubria.Vinicius wondering who that veiled woman
could be is told it was Poppaea.Filled
with disgust, Vinicius wishes to leave Rome.
Afterward, Petronius contemplates the trouble Vinicius
is in.If Vinicius succumbs to Poppaea’s
advances, Vinicius will be under Nero’s wrath.If he continues to resist Poppaea, he will be under Poppaea’s
wrath.It would be safer for Vinicius to
leave Rome altogether.In addition he
plans to suggest to Nero that he expel all the Christians from Rome, and so
Lygia would be away from Vinicius.Hoping to meet again with Lygia, Vinicius rejects leaving Rome.Despite Petroius explaining all the dangers
around him, Vinicius can only think of finding Lygia.As it turns out, Chilo returns to Vinicius’
house and informs him he knows where Lygia is now.He could take her to this new house where she
was staying with a priest named Linus.Passion
took Vinicius again.He realized he
could go to this house and seize her.But this would never allow Lygia to love him.He felt the tension again between his Roman
consciousness and a Christian one.At
that moment, Chilo standing before him disgusted him.He ordered that he be whipped with three
hundred lashes.Begging, Chilo
pleaded.But Vinicius’s Roman heart was
unmoved and his slaves pulled Chilo away to be whipped.Chilo begged “in the name of Christ.” And
while Chilo was being flogged, Vinicius repented, also “in the name of
Christ.”When Chilo revived, Vinicius
had him lead to the house where Lygia was staying.
At the house, Vinicius finds Miriam, her son, Peter,
Glaucus, Crispus, and Paul.He greets
them in the name of Christ.He explains
to them that his love for Lygia has been a suffering, and that he cannot take
her by force but through Christianity must have her love him.Christianity he explains has changed
him.Though it be unnecessary to ask, he
requests her hand in marriage through them.He acknowledges he has an incomplete understanding of the faith but is
predisposed to accept it.He even sees thorough
the misconception of Christianity bringing no joy of life.Peter especially is pleased and welcomes
him.Lygia then arrives and is surprised
to find Vinicius.Peter asks her if she
loves Vinicius, and she says she does.
Together in a garden, Vinicius and Lygia express their
love for each other and plan to marry.As they go over the events that led to their initial meeting and their
final betrothal, Lygia points out it was the hand of Christ that had shaped the
circumstances, and Vinicius agrees.He
envisions them in the future living at his home in Rome.They plan the wedding and sit to eat with the
others.
###
My
Comment:
I think Chapter 33 is
just about the midpoint of the novel, and there the conversion of Vinicius is
completed.So the main thrust of the
first half is to bring Vinicius from a young, Roman aristocrat and soldier to
his conversion to Christianity.He is
clearly the hero and central character of the novel.I am surprised to find that we see the
Christianity from an outsider’s perspective.Sienkiewicz has done a superb job of credibly creating the ancient Roman
consciousness and worldview and then looking at Christianity through that
worldview, capturing both what would repulse the Romans about the Christians
and what would make the pagan world attracted.And also he’s created a credible love story of what would seemingly be
impossible two to bring together.
Michelle’s
Comment:
Vinicius' conversion was
so wonderfully written. It wasn't an instantaneous light switch, but an ongoing
struggle with him toggling back and forth between the two sides of himself.
I also started to like
Petronius more by this point. He was genuinely upset about the effect of
Christianity on his nephew's state of mind.
Kerstin’s
Reply and Comment:
Manny wrote: "I am
surprised to find that we see the Christianity from an outsider’s perspective.”
Isn’t this the way most people encountered Christianity at the time? Very few
at the time were born into the Christian faith. We get to discover and explore
what is so special about the faith from the perspective of someone who truly
has never encountered the Christian world view. That’s no small feat, since
we’ve been so inculturated over the millennia we often no longer recognize many
aspects of Western Culture originating in Christianity.
My
Reply to Kerstin:
Yes, that is true and
perhaps that is why Sienkiewicz wrote it that way. I was pondering if my
approach to the subject would have gone that way. If I had sat down to write a
novel where the early Christians are the subject I might have written it from
the perspective of a Christian. The novel Ben-Hur is written from the
perspective of a Jew who becomes Christian in Roman times. Sienkiewicz makes it
work because Vinicius is so integrated into both worlds and converts over. If
Sienkiewicz had written this from the perspective of say Petronius, for
instance, I think it would have faced a lot of obstacles. I don't know if it
then could have worked. You would not get a sympathetic view of the Christians.
Kerstin’s
Reply:
Manny wrote: " If
Sienkiewicz had written this from the perspective of say Petronius, for
instance, I think it would have faced a lot of obstacles. I don't know if it
then could have worked. You would not get a sympathetic view of the
Christians."
I agree. Petronius has no reason to look at the Christians in any other way but
as a group of people with strange and questionable beliefs. With Vinicius we
have a young man in love who wants to know everything he can about Lygia and
who she is. His heart is already open. When he finds out that the rumors
peddled about the Christians are not true he is liberated to see and learn what
this religion is all about.
Kerstin’s
Comment:
The decadence at the
feast at the pond of Agrippa was masterfully done. The whole affair is so over
the top that one gets repulsed by it, and that is long before the lascivious
events of the evening.
###
Excerpt
from Chapter 31, Nero’s floating feast on the Pond of Agrippa:
But the "floating
feast" pleased Cæsar, for it was something new. Besides, such exquisite
dishes were served that the imagination of Apicius would have failed at sight
of them, and wines of so many kinds that Otho, who used to serve eighty, would
have hidden under water with shame, could he have witnessed the luxury of that
feast. Besides women, the Augustians sat down at the table, among whom Vinicius
excelled all with his beauty. Formerly his figure and face indicated too
clearly the soldier by profession; now mental suffering and the physical pain
through which he had passed had chiselled his features, as if the delicate hand
of a master had passed over them. His complexion had lost its former
swarthiness, but the yellowish gleam of Numidian marble remained on it. His
eyes had grown larger and more pensive. His body had retained its former
powerful outlines, as if created for armor; but above the body of a legionary
was seen the head of a Grecian god, or at least of a refined patrician, at once
subtle and splendid. Petronius, in saying that none of the ladies of Cæsar's
court would be able or willing to resist Vinicius, spoke like a man of
experience. All gazed at him now, not excepting Poppæa, or the vestal virgin
Rubria, whom Cæsar wished to see at the feast.
Wines, cooled in mountain
snow, soon warmed the hearts and heads of the guests. Boats shaped as
grasshoppers or butterflies shot forth from the bushes at the shore every
moment. The blue surface of the pond seemed occupied by butterflies. Above the
boats here and there flew doves, and other birds from India and Africa,
fastened with silver and blue threads or strings. The sun had passed the
greater part of the sky, but the day was warm and even hot, though in the
beginning of May. The pond heaved from the strokes of oars, which beat the
water in time with music; but in the air there was not the least breath of
wind; the groves were motionless, as if lost in listening and in gazing at that
which was happening on the water. The raft circled continually on the pond,
bearing guests who were increasingly drunk and boisterous.
The feast had not run
half its course yet, when the order in which all sat at the table was observed
no longer. Cæsar gave the example, for, rising himself, he commanded Vinicius,
who sat next to Rubria the vestal, to move. Nero occupied the place, and began
to whisper something in Rubria's ear. Vinicius found himself next to Poppæa,
who extended her arm and begged him to fasten her loosened bracelet. When he
did so, with hands trembling somewhat, she cast at him from beneath her long
lashes a glance as it were of modesty, and shook her golden head as if in
resistance.
Meanwhile the sun, growing
larger, ruddier, sank slowly behind the tops of the grove; the guests were for
the greater part thoroughly intoxicated. The raft circled now nearer the shore,
on which, among bunches of trees and flowers, were seen groups of people,
disguised as fauns or satyrs, playing on flutes, bagpipes, and drums, with
groups of maidens representing nymphs, dryads, and hamadryads. Darkness fell at
last amid drunken shouts from the tent, shouts raised in honor of Luna.
Meanwhile the groves were lighted with a thousand lamps. From the lupanaria on
the shores shone swarms of lights; on the terraces appeared new naked groups,
formed of the wives and daughters of the first Roman houses. These with voice
and unrestrained manner began to lure partners. The raft touched the shore at
last. Cæsar and the Augustians vanished in the groves, scattered in lupanaria,
in tents hidden in thickets, in grottos artificially arranged among fountains
and springs. Madness seized all; no one knew whither Cæsar had gone; no one
knew who was a senator, who a knight, who a dancer, who a musician. Satyrs and
fauns fell to chasing nymphs with shouting. They struck lamps with thyrses to
quench them. Darkness covered certain parts of the grove. Everywhere, however,
laughter and shouts were heard, and whispers, and panting breaths. In fact Rome
had not seen anything like that before.
A
second excerpt from Chapter 33.Vinicuis
professes before Peter and Paul that he loves Lygia and is moved to the faith
of Christ.Vinicuis first speaks of his
difficulties with Christianity.
He spoke with head erect
and decisively; but still he was moved, and his legs trembled beneath his
mantle. When silence followed his words, he continued, as if wishing to
anticipate an unfavorable answer,—
"I know what
obstacles exist, but I love her as my own eyes; and though I am not a Christian
yet, I am neither your enemy nor Christ's. I wish to be sincere, so that you
may trust me. At this moment it is a question of life with me, still I tell you
the truth. Another might say, Baptize me; I say, Enlighten me. I believe that
Christ rose from the dead, for people say so who love the truth, and who saw
Him after death. I believe, for I have seen myself, that your religion produces
virtue, justice, and mercy,—not crime, which is laid to your charge. I have not
known your religion much so far. A little from you, a little from your works, a
little from Lygia, a little from conversations with you. Still I repeat that it
has made some change in me. Formerly I held my servants with an iron hand; I
cannot do so now. I knew no pity; I know it now. I was fond of pleasure; the
other night I fled from the pond of Agrippa, for the breath was taken from me
through disgust. Formerly I believed in superior force; now I have abandoned
it. Know ye that I do not recognize myself. I am disgusted by feasts, wine,
singing, citharæ, garlands, the court of Cæsar, naked bodies, and every crime.
When I think that Lygia is like snow in the mountains, I love her the more; and
when I think that she is what she is through your religion, I love and desire
that religion. But since I understand it not, since I know not whether I shall
be able to live according to it, nor whether my nature can endure it, I am in
uncertainty and suffering, as if I were in prison."
Here his brows met in
wrinkle of pain, and a flush appeared on his cheeks; after that he spoke on
with growing haste and greater emotion,—
"As ye see, I am
tortured from love and uncertainty. Men tell me that in your religion there is
no place for life, or human joy, or happiness, or law, or order, or authority,
or Roman dominion. Is this true? Men tell me that ye are madmen; but tell me
yourselves what ye bring. Is it a sin to love, a sin to feel joy, a sin to want
happiness? Are ye enemies of life? Must a Christian be wretched? Must I
renounce Lygia? What is truth in your view? Your deeds and words are like
transparent water, but what is under that water? Ye see that I am sincere.
Scatter the darkness. Men say this to me also: Greece created beauty and
wisdom, Rome created power; but they—what do they bring? Tell, then, what ye
bring. If there is brightness beyond your doors, open them."
"We bring
love," said Peter.
And Paul of Tarsus
added,—"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am become sounding brass."
But the heart of the old
Apostle was stirred by that soul in suffering, which, like a bird in a cage,
was struggling toward air and the sun; hence, stretching his hand to Vinicius,
he said,—"Whoso knocketh, to him will be opened. The favor and grace of
God is upon thee; for this reason I bless thee, thy soul and thy love, in the
name of the Redeemer of mankind."
Vinicius, who had spoken
with enthusiasm already, sprang toward Peter on hearing this blessing, and an
uncommon thing happened. That descendant of Quirites, who till recently had not
recognized humanity in a foreigner, seized the hand of the old Galilean, and
pressed it in gratitude to his lips.
Peter was pleased; for he
understood that his sowing had fallen on an additional field, that his
fishing-net had gathered in a new soul.
Those present, not less
pleased by that evident expression of honor for the Apostle of God, exclaimed
in one voice,—"Praise to the Lord in the highest!"
This week’s Gospel takes a turn from where to
meet God (the desert, the mountain, the temple) to preparing us for the
crucifixion and Holy Week events.Today
we have the famous conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, the elder Pharisee
at the Temple. The Gospel passage comes in mid conversation,
but it would behoove you to read the previous thirteen lines of John, Chapter
3.Here is only the Gospel reading.
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“Just as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted
up,
so that everyone who believes in
him may have eternal life.”
For God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in
him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into
the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved
through him.
Whoever believes in him will not
be condemned,
but whoever does not believe has
already been condemned,
because he has not believed in the
name of the only Son of God.
And this is the verdict,
that the light came into the
world,
but people preferred darkness to
light,
because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked
things hates the light
and does not come toward the
light,
so that his works might not be
exposed.
But whoever lives the truth comes
to the light,
so that his works may be clearly
seen as done in God.
~Jn
3:14-21
This week, Bishop Barron has the best
homily.
In listening to Bishop Barron, it dawned on
me why we Catholics put a crucifix up in the sanctuary of every church, and why
we put crucifixes in our homes.I
remember a Protestant woman asking this once.She said Protestants emphasize the Resurrection, and so the cross should
not have the corpus on it.I responded
that the crucifixion shows our redemption and the love Christ showed for us,
and that is true.In the future I think
I should add to this analogy that Christ makes Himself, that is, just as the
bronze serpent was raised in desert that saved the Jews, Christ raised on the cross
saves us!
Meditation: “Just as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone
who believes in him may have eternal life.”
I
almost let this day pass by without commemorating the 750th
anniversary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas. I have a special love for St. Thomas,
not only because I love all things Dominican and St. Thomas is probably the
most famous of the Dominican friars.But
he comes from a town roughly an hour and half north of my family’s home town in
Italy.And he taught at the University
of Naples for a time which is the main city of my region.I won’t say I feel related but he feels like
a paisan.
One
could write for hours on the achievements of St. Thomas Aquinas, so I’ll just
refer you to his Wikipedia entry.He is
the preeminent theologian of the Catholic Church and a Doctor of the
Church.He is commonly referred to as
the “Angelic Doctor.”A procession of
his relic was held in his honor at the Italian town of Priverno, less than 50
miles from his birthplace.From the
Catholic News Agency:
On the eve of the 750th
anniversary of St. Thomas Aquinas’ death, a skull revered as a relic of St.
Thomas Aquinas was carried in a solemn procession through the cobblestone
streets of the southern Italian town of Priverno.
Bishop Mariano Crociata
led the procession to honor the medieval philosopher and theologian widely
considered one of the greatest thinkers in Western civilization who died in the
nearby Fossanova Abbey on March 7, 1274.
I
find that somewhat remarkable, that a man who had travel all over Europe and
had made many a college town his home would die so close to his home town.He also died at the age of only 48, which was
not unusual but his written output for a man of that age is stunning.
The
article also recites the famous anecdote of how Thomas stopped writing.
Three months before he
died, Aquinas experienced an intense revelation while offering Mass when he was
nearly finished with his most significant work, the “Summa Theologiae” or
“Summary of Theology.” After experiencing this revelation, Aquinas told his
friend and secretary Brother Reginald of Priverno: “The end of my labors has
come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things
that have been revealed to me,” and he never wrote again.
Fr.
Gregory Pine, O.P. of the Thomistic Institute provides a succinct biographical
video.
Pope Francis sent a
message to the academics participating in the conference to mark the 750th
anniversary.
“The Angelic Doctor was
profoundly convinced that since God is the truth and the light that illumines
all understanding, there can be no ultimate contradiction between revealed
truth and the truths discovered by reason,” the pope wrote.
“Central to his
understanding of the relationship of faith and reason was his conviction of the
power of God’s gift of grace to heal human nature weakened by sin and to
elevate the mind through participation in God’s own knowledge and love, and
thereby to enable us to understand and correctly order our lives as individuals
and in society.”
“Here, Thomas points out,
we see the heart of the Christian life as an act of priestly worship aimed at
the glorification of God and the sanctification of our world,” he added.
To
sum up, Aquinas points out that there cannot be a difference between scientific
(or natural) truth and Biblical and Spiritual truths.There cannot be a distinction between
physical truth and truths of faith, and it is up to the theologian to harmonize
what might appear to a contradiction.
EWTN
News Nightly had a segment on the anniversary.
Bishop
Robert Barron is a long admirer of St. Thomas.Here he is from quite a few years ago, before he was made a bishop I
think, speaking on his love of Thomas and why Thomas was so important.
In
this Jubilee year of Thomas’ death (750th anniversary) and of his canonization
(700th anniversary) Pope Frances has granted a plenary indulgence by
visiting “any church, shrine, or chapel currently entrusted to the Dominican
Order.”The detailed requirements can be
found here.
Finally,
I want to conclude with St. Thomas Aquinas’s final words from his deathbed after
having taken last rights.
“I receive you, price of
my soul’s redemption. I receive you, viaticum of my pilgrimage, for love of
whom I have studied, watched and labored. I have preached you. I have taught
you. Never have I said anything against you, and if I have done so, it is through
ignorance, and I am not stubborn in my error. If I have taught wrongly
concerning this sacrament or the others, I submit it to the judgment of the
Holy Roman Church, in obedience to which I now leave this life.”
His
humble submission to God and the Church is something we all need to model and
uphold.
I
haven’t had a Music Tuesday post in a while.I came across this piece on my local classical music station (WQXR, you
can get it on the internet) while driving.I had never heard of it, nor of the composer, Alan Hovhanass.
Alan
Hovhanass (1911-2000) was an American composer of partial Arminian ethnicity,
and he would eventually embrace that ethnicity and compose from that cultural
perspective, at least at first.He would
later expand into other world musical perspectives.His music embraces many international forms
and styles.I probably should be
embarrassed I had never heard of him.He
was immensely prolific—67 symphonies!—with over 500 known compositions.And he destroyed over a thousand pages of
youthful compositions which he didn’t consider worthy.He wrote his first composition at the age of
four!
Prayer
of St. Gregory is a trumpet piece with accompanying strings.There is an alternate arrangement with an
organ replacing the strings.I’ll embed
both and we can decide which we prefer.
The
Prayer of St. Gregory piece is part of Hovhannas’s opera, Etchmiadzin.Etchmiadzin is an alternate name to the
Armenian city of Vagharshapat where the holy Etchmiadzin Cathedral resides.It is not clear to me whether
the opera refers to the city or the cathedral.The Cathedral dates back to the fourth century.Construction is supposed to have begun back
in 303 AD, and attributed to St. Gregory the Illuminator, the founder of Armenia’s Apostolic Church, which is currently not in communion
with the Catholic Church.As an aside, I should add that there is
currently an Armenian Catholic Church which is in full communion with the Bishop of Rome and is one of the 23 Eastern
Rite Catholic Churches.
The
Armenian Apostolic Church was in 301 the first official Christian religion of a
national state in history.The Catholic
Church was still being persecuted under pagan Imperial Rome and would not reach
toleration under the Emperor Constantine until 313 but not made the state
religion of the empire until 380 by the Emperor Theodosius I.Armenia had last been part of the Roman
Empire in 117 under the Emperor Trajan but Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, decided
to not defend it in 118.Parts of
Armenia in subsequent years would both be incorporated and then fall away from
both the Roman and Parthian Empires which were in struggle against each other.But Christianity took root in Armenia in as
early as the year 40, supposedly under the apostles Jude and Bartolomew.
Gregory
the Illuminator, however, is credited with evangelizing the country in the late
third and early fourth centuries.Prior
to the conversion of the country, Gregory is to have spent fourteen years in
jailfor
refusing to sacrifice to a pagan goddess, a jail cell which sounds like it was
not much different than a well.He would
eventually be released and then convert the king, and the country
followed.I am guessing that the Prayer
of St. Gregory is alluding to the prayer Gregory must have made while in the
desolation of the jail pit.The trumpet solo
voice represents the prayer of desolation, sadness, and appeal of the saint toward
providence.The strings (or alternative
organ) establishes the context and ambiance of Gregory’s predicament and
perhaps represents the voice of God.On
that you will have to judge for yourself.Let’s listen first, and then I’ll try to describe what my amateur ears
hear.Of the various orchestra versions
on the internet, I prefer this orchestra version with David Krauss on trumpet
and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (The Met) accompanying.
There
are three trumpet entries into the piece.I think that is the key characteristic in conceptualizing the score’s
structure.The strings—the first voice—initiates
the piece and sets the context of what feels like prison walls.At about thirty seconds the trumpet makes its
first entry and plays what I’ll call the desolation melody.The phrasing seems to emulate a vocal prayer.The first trumpet entry lasts for about 40
seconds.That diminishing phrase that
concludes the trumpet melody seems to be the defining fragment of the melody and
expresses the emotional core.
Then
the strings have a short moment of prominence picking up what I think is part
of the desolation melody.In just 20
seconds, the trumpet enters for the second time, again with the desolation
melody but this time the prayer developing to a greater appeal.It reaches a higher pitch of notes with more
dynamism and longer note duration.The
energy momentarily surges but then retreats to the melancholy phrasing of the
first entry.
Then
the trumpet goes silent for almost two full minutes, almost 40% of the
piece.In this stretch, the strings
develop its melody, what seems to me a response to the desolation melody.This second melody seems to pick elements of
the trumpet phrasing but its ebbing and flowing feels like this is a voice of
comfort, or trying to comfort, perhaps even a voice of explanation.Is the trumpet comforted?I feel a tension in the extended silence, and
when it comes in for its third entry the melody has not changed and its appeal
seems even greater.It returns to the
dynamism of the second entry only with even higher pitched notes.But after its burst of energy the trumpet returns
to its desolation phrasing, but, it should be noted, the piece concludes with
the strings and trumpet ending on an extended harmonic note together.While desolation melody has remained prominent,
the piece does seem to conclude in intimacy.
But
these are all my reactions.You could
make the argument that it ends in an unanswered appeal.That is for you to decide.
Now
let’s hear the version with organ as accompanying voice.Wynton Marsalis is on trumpet and Anthony
Newman on organ.This alternate version
is a shade shorter, the forty seconds taken from the trumpet’s silent section.
Marsalis
is magnificent on trumpet but I have to admit, the organ seems to be lacking in
the response.It’s just not a fuller
voice than the strings, and it doesn’t feel equal to the trumpet voice.I definitely prefer the version with the
strings.How about you?