Grief’s Liturgy

A Lament

Gerald J. Postema

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610971829
  9781498259453
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621899334
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

At once a lament-psalm and a love song, Grief's Liturgy records Gerald Postema's work and worship of grief upon the loss of his wife, a year's work aided by the companions--poetry and prayers, icons and images, music and silence--that sat patiently with him. Structured around the liturgy of the Divine Office, reflections in each "hour" take on a distinctive expressive and emotional tone and fall into a jagged, broken rhythm over the course of each "day" yielding ultimately an understanding of the life-affirming necessity of grief.

References

Introit I

1. “Sleep, O sleep”—“The Ebba Compline,” in Celtic Daily Prayer: A Northumbrian Office (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), p. 41.

Introit II

“We are summoned”—John Bell, “Since We Are Summoned,” in The Last Journey: Songs for the Time of Grieving (The Iona Community: Wild Goose Resource Group, 1996).

“Set[ting] it all in order”—From “Requiem for a Friend,” in The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell (New York: Random House, 1982), p. 73.

“the terrible mystery of death”—From the funeral hymn used in the Greek Orthodox funeral service written by John of Damascus. (John wrote: “Terror truly past compare is by the mystery of death inspired.”)

“such shattering of love”—Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), p.43.

“intersection time”—T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” in Four Quartets (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1971), line 105. The garden reference is to “Burnt Norton” in Four Quartets, lines 20–43.

Introit III

“Selig sind, die da Leid tragen” Matthew 5.4 (Luther Bible, Deutchen Bibelgesellshaft, 1984). Brahms opens Ein Deutches Requiem with these words.

Day I: Dawn

“I have always known”—“Narihira LVI” in Kenneth Rexroth, trans., One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (Verona, IT: New Directions, 1955), p. 58.

The phrase “My dearworthy darling,” sometimes attributed to the fourteenth century poet Richard Rolle’s meditation on the passion, “My truest treasure so traitorly was taken.” See Richard Rolle: The English Writings, Rosamund S. Allen, trans. (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), p. 206, n. 19.

Day I: Noon

“Loud as a trumpet”—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, (New York: Riverhead, 2005), p. 205.

“I would have painted you in one broad sweep across heaven,” Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, (New York: Riverhead, 2005), p. 83.

Day I: Afternoon

“Lord help us to gather our strength . . .” from Zbigniew Preisner, Requiem for my friend, Audio CD, Erato, 1999.

Day I: Twilight

“Bereavement is a universal”—C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 50.

“the earthly beloved”—C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 66–67.

Day I: Close of the Day

In manus tuas—Roman Breviary, www.breviary.net/ordinary/ordincomp.htm.

Day I: Night

“Time is the canvas”—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, (New York: Riverhead, 2005) p. 115.

“I am so deep inside it . . . makes me small”—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, (New York: Riverhead, 2005) p. 191.

“The pain continues”—Ann Weems, “Lament Psalm Thirty,” in Psalms of Lament (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995), p. 57.

“Remembered happiness is agony”—Donald Hall, “Midwinter Letter,” in Without: Poems (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), p. 76.

“How much does matter matter?”—Mary Jo Bang, “Heartbreaking,” in Elegy: Poems by Mary Jo Bang (Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2007), p. 48.

Lamenting Virgin (TheotokosThrenousa), from diptych at the Monastery of the Tranfiguration, Meteora, Greece.

“Alone she saw”—George of Nikomedeia (ninth century), “Oratio in sepulturum Jesu Christi,” Patrologiae cursus completus, Series graeca, J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1897–1904), vol. 100, p. 1489.

Lady of Vladimir, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

Epitaphios [Lament] with Gold-thread Embroidery, Theodosia Poulopos (1599), Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece.

Day II: Dawn

“God speaks to each of us”—Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, (New York: Riverhead, 2005) , p. 119.

“This is another day”—The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Seabury, 1979), p. 461.

Day II: Daytime

“Ungiven gifts”—Ann Weems, “Lament Psalm Seven,” in Psalms of Lament (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995), p. 12.

Day II: Noon

“What is left”—Mary Jo Bang, “The Role of Elegy,” in Elegy (Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf, 2007), p.64.

“the dwelling-place of absence”—...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introit
• Day I
• Day II
• Day III
• Day IV
• Day V
• Day VI
• Day VII
• Day VIII
• Day IX
• References
• Permissions