Entering Holy Week, we are called to participate in the mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ with our whole person—mind and heart, soul and body. In allowing ourselves to accompany our Crucified Lord, we can glimpse the immensity of God’s love for each of us. For while we were lost and gone astray, still in our sins, He died for us. Applying His precious blood to us, He has cleansed us of our sins. In destroying death, He has become the bridge to Life.
Let us reflect on these images from the Isenheim Altarpiece, and the words of the hymn Faithful Cross as a meditation on the love of Christ and how He gave Himself up for us and continues to draw us to Himself.
Faithful cross! Above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be:
Precious wood and precious fast’ning,
Precious Weight upheld in plea.
Bend thy boughs, O Tree of glory,
Let thy rigid sinews bend:
For a while the ancient rigor
That thy birth bestowed suspend,
And the members of the High King
On that softened trunk extend.
Thou alone–wast counted worthy
This world’s ransom to sustain:
Ark provided, that the shipwrecked
Might a port of refuge gain:
Ark with sacred blood anointed
Of the lamb for sinners slain.
Laud and honor to the Father,
Laud honor to the Son
Laud and honor to the Spirit.
Ever Three and ever One,
Consubstantial, co-eternal,
While unending ages run. Amen.[i]
Lenten Resources:
Learn about the Isenheim Altarpeice[ii]
Want to listen to beautiful Lenten hymns?
Praying the Stations of the Cross is a devotional practice that allows to meditation on Our Lord’s Carrying of the Cross to Calvary.
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Grünewald , Mathias. “The Isenheim Altarpiece.” Wikimedia Commons, December 31, 2017. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grunewald_Isenheim1.jpg.
[i] Fortunatus, Venantius, and John Mason Neale. “The Summit Choirbook: Faithful Cross! Above All Other.” Essay. In The Summit Choirbook, 60. Summit, NJ: The Dominican Nuns, Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary, 1983.
[ii] Bagdanov, Kelly. “Matthias Grunewald – The Isenheim Altarpiece.” YouTube. YouTube, June 18, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4aAGZ6nqIw.
Palm Sunday 2021 – Posted March 27, 2021
