As we journey through Holy Week, the blog is taking a slightly different format with short reflections on Marcel Dupré’s Le chemin de la croix, a musical version of the Stations of the Cross. Instead of one reflection released on Wednesday, these episodes are to appear through the week from Palm Sunday until Good Friday.

Jésus est dépouillé de ses vêtements

‘When all was sin and shame’.

The tenth movement of the cycle is a diptych – that is a piece in two parts. In terms of time for performer and listener the two parts are roughly equal, though in the score the first is nearly three times the length of the second. That is a simple effect of the number of notes written in fast music, but nevertheless quite striking. Listening to the music with the title in mind the association I found myself naturally making is to the line of the hymn ‘Praise to the Holiest in the height’ quoted above. Whether or not it was Dupré’s intention in this station I find it compelling to hear the first, fast, furious and violent half of the movement as a representation of sin, and the second, more muted, slow moving and somewhat bleak part as the related but differentiated idea of shame. Jesus is here reaching towards the low point of His κένωσις (kenosis), His emptying out of Himself; He takes on for us both physical and emotional violence.

Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi: quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum