Lamentations for Tenebrae - lectio 3 | Gregorian Chant for Good Friday

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 is the third lesson reading on Good Friday and the tone is taken from an 10th century codex from Leon, Spain known as the "Codex Biblicus Leonensis."

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:

(Lamentations 3:1-9)
1 Aleph. I am the man that see my poverty by the rod of his indignation.
2 Aleph. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light.
3 Aleph. Only against me he hath turned, and turned again his hand all the day.
4 Beth. My skin and my flesh he hath made old, he hath broken my bones.
5 Beth. He hath built round about me, and he hath compassed me with gall and labour.
6 Beth. He hath set me in dark places as those that are dead for ever.
7 Ghimel. He hath built against me round about, that I may not get out: he hath made my fetters heavy.
8 Ghimel. Yea, and when I cry, and entreat, he hath shut out my prayer.
9 Ghimel. He hath shut up my ways with square stones, he hath turned my paths upside down.
Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Return unto the Lord thy God.

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