During the season of Lent and through the Octave of Easter, FaithND will provide meditations on this season of preparation through musical offerings from the many Notre Dame choirs and sacred music ensembles. Songs will be featured on Ash Wednesday, each Tuesday and Saturday of Lent, and every day of Holy Week through the Octave of Easter.

Notre Dame Glee Club – The Notre Dame Glee Club is a 75-voice, all-male choral ensemble that first took the stage in 1915 and traditionally hosts four campus concerts, sings during home football weekends, and participates in international and domestic tours (some changes to performance schedules are currently in place due to the pandemic).

Today’s song captures the liminal nature of Holy Saturday as we transition between Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, which is now complete, and his resurrection, which is yet to come.

Jesus bids us farewell and tells us that he is traveling through the wilderness, bound for Canaan. Canaan was the “promised land” for Israel and Jesus now travels through the wilderness of death to arrive at the new promised land for all who believe in him: the Kingdom of Heaven. On this day when Jesus’ death seems like so much uncertainty and loss before we come to know the power of the resurrection, the words “I go away, behind to leave you,/ Perhaps never to meet again…” carry a weight of sadness. But we know that’s Christ’s passage through death in his tomb make it possible for us to meet him again “on Canaan’s land.”

(Lyrics)
Farewell, my friends, I’m bound for Canaan,
I’m trav’ling through the wilderness;
Your company has been delightful,
You, who doth leave my heart distressed.
I go away, behind to leave you,
Perhaps never to meet again,
But if we never have this pleasure,
I hope we’ll meet on Canaan’s land.

“Farewell, My Friends” arranged by Curtis Heard
Copyright: Public Domain.

For more songs, please visit Songs of Notre Dame: A Lenten Offering