“Uni trinoque”— “the one in three” — stands as the central mystery around which every Christian feast day dances. In Ēriks Ešenvalds’ setting of “O Salutaris Hostia” — the soprano soloists soar at the climax of the piece, splitting open the veil as they sing the opening lines of the second verse: uni trinoque. One in three. A mystery we are soaring toward, but never reach.
Wait a minute — “O Salutaris Hostia”? The Latin hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas might not come to mind instantly for you as a paradigmatic Advent hymn, given that it infrequently gets airtime outside of Eucharistic adoration. And, no shade to the Angelic Doctor, but you may not find yourself spinning it nonstop, given that, on the surface, this Eucharistic hymn can wend a little creaky and medieval rather than sublime.
But Ešenvalds, a Latvian composer, gave Thomas Aquinas’ hymn a new setting as fresh as driven snow in 2008, originally writing the piece for a women’s chorus. Sitting with Ešenvalds’ music — now frequently sung by a full mixed-voice choir — is an experience of bathing in the sound of mystery.
And isn’t Christmas all about trying to make the mystery visible, tangible, audible? The Saving Victim, entering the world in a manger, comes to reveal who God is to us, Emmanuel, the God who has always been here with us, who walks with us. Emmanuel, revealed, not in hypothetical, but in sounds, scents, a face we can touch. This God comes, as “O Salutaris Hostia” proclaims, to bring us back home, to our native land, to our true selves. In Ešenvalds’ setting, we feel that longing, as C.S. Lewis might say, for the home we have never seen.
We feel the joy of homecoming as Ešenvalds’ first verse builds up to that sublime proclamation of faith; the one in three — uni trinoque. Because the mystery Christ who has come is not just a revelation for us to contemplate, but rather is a reality he invites us into. Sit with the music, step into the mystery, answer the call to come back to who we have always been. What clearer mode can the Word speak than through a music both intimate and otherworldly? The light breaks through.
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