As we enter into Passiontide, for our musical selection this week we present Palestrina’s O Bone Iesu, a short motet for four voices composed in 1588, just as the Protestant ‘Reformation’ was kicking into high gear, with persecutions a-plenty. The true reform is only through Christ, and His redemptive sacrifice. The text runs as follows:
O bone Jesu, miserere nobis,
quia tu creasti nos, tu redemisti nos
sanguine tuo praetiosissimo.
O good Jesus, have mercy on us,
Because you created us, you have redeemed us
With your most precious blood.