The Recovering Choir Director

Here’s a wonderful post by Gordon Zaft about experiencing that power while presenting Morten Lauridsen’s setting of the O nata lux with the Lane Justus Chorale of Tucson, Arizona. Below is a poetic translation of the Latin text.

O nata lux de lumine,
Jesu redemptor saeculi,
Dignare clemens supplicum
Laudes preces que sumere.
Qui carne quondam contegi
Dignatus es pro perditis.
Nos membra confer effici,
Tui beati corporis.

O Light of light, by love inclined,
Jesu, Redeemer of mankind,
With loving kindness deign to hear
From suppliant voices praise and prayer.
Thou who to raise our souls from hell
Didst deign in fleshly form to dwell,
Vouchsafe us, when our race is run,
In thy fair Body to be one.