Justin Appel

Dear Friends in Christ,

This morning’s readings recount the importance of repentance, and of the myriad ways we can and often do sin against God.

The story of Moses receiving the tablets of the law and the Israelites’ idolatrous worship of the golden calf is set against the author of Hebrew’s exhortation to encourage each other in perseverance, being “partners of Christ” (Deut. 9:13-21 and Heb. 3:12-19).

Given this ongoing dynamic, one of our duties during Lent is to try to be present to God in prayer, to the One who has done everything for us: by sending his Son to be amongst us and to take up his cross, and by sending his Spirit in whom we are “born from above”—through “water and Spirit” (John 2:23-3:15).

I suppose that this attempt to be present and our struggle to pray may at times resemble the disciples’ own attempt to stay awake in the Garden of Gethsemane. One of the texts in Francis Poulenc’s four Lenten Motets is a a bit of the Responsory at Matins on Maundy Thursday, which encapsulates this moment. As Christ waited on his Father and asked that “Thy will be done,” so we too may be able to “stay awake” and be willing to shoulder our own cross.

Of course, we too, like the disciples, will likely fall asleep from time to time “in the despondency of sin,” but Christ calls us back to himself—in our case, through the necessary acts of prayer and repentance.

Here is the text of Tristis est anima mea, from Poulenc’s motets:

My soul is sorrowful even unto death ; 
stay you here, and watch with me.
Now ye shall see a multitude, that will surround me.
Ye shall run away, and I will go to be sacrificed for you.

Behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Ye shall run away, and I will go to be sacrificed for you.

Yours in Christ,

—Justin