Justin Appel

Remember your word to your servant,
because you have given me hope.

This is my comfort in my troubles,
that your promise gives me life.
-Psalm 119:49-50

Dear Friends,

This beautiful pair of verses falls at the beginning of the Zayin section of Psalm 119 (read it here).

Perhaps due to the saturation of my mind with all things pertaining to Duruflé and his Requiem, which our choir will sing this All Souls Day – these verses cause me to think on the Agnus Dei from that work.

O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace.

You see, I’m a musician, and I have spent the last 13 years listening to and performing settings of this text. I can tell you that nearly all of these settings emphasize some dimension of penitence, sorrow, fear, or other subdued responses. The same could be said of the Kyrie eleison. My training in liturgics and my ecclesial experiences have led me to see this as a Western Christian tendency, one which began in the high Middle Ages – and which has subsequently been accompanied by expressions of penitence, such as gestures (kneeling or beating the breast) and prayers (‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter my roof…’).

Now, if you know anything about me, you know I’m not against penitence – I say that prayer at communion, in fact! However, it’s particularly Western to be unidimensional about such things: everything is either good or bad, happy or sad, praise or penitence, licit or fake. When I began to hang out with Eastern Christians in grad school and earlier, I discovered that many Christians mean something quite different when they say ‘Lord, have mercy’.

If you think of the litany – indeed, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is brimming with litanies (litanies were the original movement texts; they accompanied moving or ‘stational’ elements in the liturgy) – you will understand something of the Eastern ethos. It is one of total trust, of dependence, of loving and humble submission: you ask God for mercy because that’s what you need to take the next breath. There is more complexity here, a mixture of humility with friendship, of need with absolute sufficiency, of mystery and certainty.

Well, Duruflé’s Agnus Dei is unusual for Western liturgical compositions because it strays from a more unidemensional model. It expresses ‘tranquility, faith, and hope’ – those are Duruflé’s words – without being saccharine or simplistic. The melodies (both Duruflé’s and the plainchant’s) played by the strings will cut your heart. Please do listen to the video attached. This music reveals deep and profound things about God's mercy. I think you will be encouraged by it.

Blessings,
Justin