The Biblical theme of Jerusalem, the holy city of God, is one of the several motifs running through the Old and New Testaments. Connected in its beginnings with the historical city of David, it was to find its culmination in St. John’s vision of “… the city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, surrounded with the divine glory,” (Apoc. XXI:10, 11).

Jerusalem, situated on the highest and most impregnable hills of the Promised Land, did not pass  into the hands of Israel until the time of King David. To his prestige it owed the greater part of its fame. His conquests won for it a political pre-eminence, which, however, didi not endure for long. The chapters of Israel’s history, which relate to the division of the realm and the subsequent development of the twin kingdoms, show and almost steady decline, leading to the chain of events that resulted in the Babylonian exile. Jerusalem,

Intoit-Laetare, Jerusalem Mode 5

Laetare Jerusalem is the introit for the Fourth Sunday of Lent taken from Isaiah 66.10, 11. Looking forward to her Paschal joy, the Church invites her children, the children of the new Jerusalem, to rejoice in anticipation of the consolation of Easter. This introit was recorded by the schola of St. Joseph’s Abbey in the 1950’s.

Gradual-Omnes De Saba Mode 5