Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

This morning, the readings incorporate one of the penitential psalms, which has me thinking about a musical setting I would like to share with you today.

Traditionally, there are seven psalms that take the epithet penitential — 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. Perhaps the example par excellance of such psalms is the Miserere, Psalm 51, which carries with it a particularity we associate with the Ash Wednesday or the Tenebrae liturgy, an emphasis on repentance and introspection we sometimes associate more broadly with Lent or Passion Week.

However, the same text also fits into the Daily Offices, those seven monastic liturgies that punctuate the days of ora et labore (prayer and work) characteristic of the Benedictine Rule. I remember attending a French Benedictine monastery some years ago feeling impressed that Tierce (the service at the ‘third hour’) concluded with Psalm 51, and the monks processed from the church to the refectory to eat lunch while chanting ‘Have mercy on me, O God…’ Suffice it to say, I didn’t have a way to categorize this practice!

Although the most famous choral setting of this psalm is by Gregorio Allegri, originally confined to the Capella Sistina and its choir, there’s a wonderful modern setting by the Scottish composer James MacMillan.

I love this work because it combines several unlike elements: a quasi ‘Moorish’ melody, harmonized Gregorian psalm tones, and a lush Celtic ballad. By taking these bits and stringing them into a larger structure, MacMillan creates a powerful emotional arc, ultimately spanning the distance from lament to a kind of integration, signaled by the return of the original ballad, now in a glowing major key. I love how this music embodies the shift from grief to joy as it passes through a difficult process and finds resolution.

I hope you enjoy this wonderful rendition of MacMillan’s Miserere by the Ora Singers.

Yours in Christ,
Justin