If I do not have the early Mass, I spend a morning hour in the chapel as our choir school practices on the third floor. As I rest with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, or read the daily Gospel, I often hear snatches of sacred music wafting from across the schoolyard. This morning, as I beheld the Sacred Host, two 8th grade voices floated through the walls of the chapel. They were singing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu. In 2001, The New York Times referred to Webber as "the most commercially successful composer in history.” If you’ve heard musicals such as Cats or Phantom of the Opera or Evita, you’ve heard his delightfully capturing melodies. While Sir Andrew described himself as an agnostic to the same The New York Times, his high Anglican boyhood has inspired pieces like the Requiem he wrote in memory of his father. It is from that Requiem that the two eighth grade girls we harmonizing this morning as I sat before Jesus.
“Pie Jesu” is a Latin verse from the Mass of the Dead (the “requiem”). The verse goes: “Tender Jesus, grant them rest….” Andrew Lloyd Webber, however, expands the verse for pious effect, repeating “pie Jesu” four times:
Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem.
Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu....
Webber wrote these verses, and this devout melody, for his father, who had died, and whom his son hoped would be granted eternal rest after a life of toil and struggle. Webber, the agnostic, hopes yet that “Jesu” (Jesus in the nominative case) will show tenderness to his father, because, in the face of death, no one else can. Death is the great leveler, but even agnostics, mostly, hope for some tenderness even after death. Only Jesus can do what no one else can when someone dies.
Today is “Spy Wednesday,” when the daily Mass gospel tells the tale of Judas, selling Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Tender Jesus is betrayed and yet, going to His death, He is serene. He knows His Father will care for Him, as our Father cares for all His children. We do have a Father in heaven, and we do have a Savior on earth. I was looking at Him this morning, reading about the greatest tragedy in human history, but hearing a prayer for a tenderness that will undo even that tragedy.
May we all find Jesus in this year’s Sacred Triduum, and a blessed Easter to you all.
“Pie Jesu” is a Latin verse from the Mass of the Dead (the “requiem”). The verse goes: “Tender Jesus, grant them rest….” Andrew Lloyd Webber, however, expands the verse for pious effect, repeating “pie Jesu” four times:
Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem.
Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu....
Webber wrote these verses, and this devout melody, for his father, who had died, and whom his son hoped would be granted eternal rest after a life of toil and struggle. Webber, the agnostic, hopes yet that “Jesu” (Jesus in the nominative case) will show tenderness to his father, because, in the face of death, no one else can. Death is the great leveler, but even agnostics, mostly, hope for some tenderness even after death. Only Jesus can do what no one else can when someone dies.
Today is “Spy Wednesday,” when the daily Mass gospel tells the tale of Judas, selling Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Tender Jesus is betrayed and yet, going to His death, He is serene. He knows His Father will care for Him, as our Father cares for all His children. We do have a Father in heaven, and we do have a Savior on earth. I was looking at Him this morning, reading about the greatest tragedy in human history, but hearing a prayer for a tenderness that will undo even that tragedy.
May we all find Jesus in this year’s Sacred Triduum, and a blessed Easter to you all.
Elise and Natalie harmonizing Andrew Lloyd Webber's prayer at our spring concert
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