From the recording Celtic Lamentations, Healing for Twelve Months And A Day….
Created by anonymous authors in an Irish monastic setting, somewhere between the 8th and 12th centuries, this song is unusual in the way it mixes Gaelic and Latin.
Traditionally, vernacular and church music were separate, but this song combines strands of both musical traditions. It is a song of praise, beseeching the light and love of God, but it is also a song full of tension, between the praise of God and the rage and grief of mourners.
The way in which this song reflects the chasm between our highest possibilities and the losses we endure brings to mind a quote from Kahlil Gibran:
".. you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy."