Continuing through Lent, I have been listening to Tallis’s settings from the Lamentations attributed to Jeremiah. Understood to have been written in the 1560s and setting the Latin vulgate (despite the English church’s general adoption of the vernacular), the setting in part one is of the first two verses of the first lamentation and the second part covers verses 3-5 of the same poem.

Included in the musical setting are the liturgical announcement of the reading (incipit lamentation Jeremiae prophetae and de lamentation Jeremaie prophetae respectively) and, as was not infrequently the case, the Hebrew letters at the beginning of each verse – each of the five lamentations is, in Hebrew, and alphabetical acrostic: that is to say verse one begins with the first letter of the alphabet (Aleph, א), the second verse with the second letter (Beth, ב) and so on (except that the third Lamentation has three verses beginning with א, then three beginning with ב etc.).

Tallis also ends each reading with the response Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum, which alone suffices to steer listeners to the theological point the music seeks to make: we are constantly called to return to God – and the Babylonian exile, the reason that Jerusalem was called to lament at the time of Jeremiah, is a reminder that God’s love for us can remain even while it appears have lost or are losing whatever struggles we might be in. God never stopped caring for the people in exile; God will continue to care for us. How are we, in our various trials and lamentations, to hear God’s continuing call on our lives.

We may not have the talents of a Thomas Tallis, but can we also take our trials and lamentations and use them to make beautiful music (or any allegory of music) to the greater glory of God?