O Magnum Mysterium

We're singing Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium" in choir this semester. I think it might be the most beautiful choral piece I've ever sung. Thinking about all the glory of God in a helpless infant, lowly and rejected by His society, born "out of wedlock"...the amazing love of God, that He would come to us not in power and terror but in humility and poverty.

The Hebrew word for "to bring good news," or to bring the gospel, is yevaser, from the root basar or flesh. So the power, beauty and glory of the gospel is that God, infinite in glory and majesty, became flesh--human, weak, ordinary--to show us what real love is, and to give us real life. This is a truth of incomparable beauty, and I can't think of a more beautiful song to express it.

Here are the words (in Latin, then English):

O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum
ut animalia viderent Dominum
natum, jacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera
meruerunt portare
Dominum Christum.

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-
born Lord, lying in their manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear the
Lord Jesus Christ.

(Video of the song can be seen here.)