Incipit Oratio Jeremiae Prophetae | Gregorian Chant for sacred Triduum

The Lamentations of Jeremiah are sung during the liturgy of Tenebrae (divine office of Matins & Lauds) on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday on simple, mournful tones. In addition to the standard tones provided, there are optional, more elaborate tones taken from various medieval Mozarabic manuscripts from Spain. This tone is taken from an 11th century codex from Silos, Spain known as the "Missal of Silos." This lesson, "Incipit Oratio Jeremiae Prophetae," is the third lamentation on Holy Saturday.

These lamentations - like the Psalms - can be interpreted in a number of different ways.
1) Historical. It is a prophesy of the destruction of the Jews and Jerusalem for their innumerable evils, especially for their rejection of the Messiah and their Deicide.
2) Spiritual. Jeremiah is a "type" or "prefiguring" of Jesus, like Moses and many others. In that sense, the personal words/prayers of Jeremiah to God can be seen as Christ's words to the Father. And, in as much as we are baptized into Christ and have him dwelling in our souls by sanctifying grace, they can be our words to God also.
3) Spiritual. In as much as we willfully sin, we too are like the Jews, condemning Jesus to death, mocking Him, spitting on Him, crucifying Him. In this sense, the evils we read of concerning the Jews can also be applied to our own souls, broken and desolate with sin, until we repent and return to the Lord our God.

English Translation:
Lam 5:1-11
"[Thus begins the prayer of Jeremiah the Prophet.]
1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach.
2 Our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers.
3 We are become orphans without a father: our mothers are as widows.
4 We have drunk our water for money: we have bought our wood.
5 We were dragged by the necks, we were weary and no rest was given us.
6 We have given our hand to Egypt, and to the Assyrians, that we might be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne their iniquities.
8 Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand.
9 We fetched our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the desert.
10 Our skin was burnt as an oven, by reason of the violence of the famine.
11 They oppressed the women in Sion, and the virgins in the cities of Juda.
Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Return unto the Lord thy God."

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