Gij Die Ons Kent -- Voorbede = You Know Us -- Biddings, 1978 - 1981

Oosterhuis continues to address the Deity as Gij die.... meaning You who. His title for this piece is Gij die ons kent - You who know us. You who is also a way of addressing the Deity and more than a mere descriptive phrase. The traditional Latin missal collect prayers would always began, Deus,qui - God, who.... followed by attributes of what had been promised and done on our behalf. However, in English, You who would generally be a non-starter, because of its banality as a colloquial form of greeting. Initial attempts to avoid this in translating this, simply rendering the form of address as You know us well, we felt was not faithful to Oosterhuis' intent or economy of language, since the entire text flows from You who.

Oosterhuis capitalizes You throughout, respecting tradition in honoring the One Who is beyond all names. Gij is the formal form of address for You, whereas jij is informal, the commonplace way of addressing you at a one-to-one level of equals. This succeeds reaching beyond ourselves to the One Who is So Near yet So Far from Us. But where I have translated die as who, this is as the second person singular, addressing the Deity with the corresponding verb form.

The text is self-explanatory. Couched as intercessions, the first section identifies the One Whom we are addressing. The second half is an expression of the human condition, in which we need the presence of the One to Whom we belong. But first, we begin with an echo in our memory and hearts before we even open our mouths. This echo is of a Voice which hasn't yet spoken, yet one which transcends all time and space. It is the Voice not of a remote, Absolute Being, but of One Who, through covenant with us, is relational. The intercessory nature of these verses acknowledges our dependence not on One Who is Source of all Being, but on One Who is Being Itself, the fons - fountainhead, from which we draw our existence, from whom we become who and what we are.

Huijbers' chosen melody is Miserere, a setting of Psalm 51 for Lent, one of seven penitential psalms. It is Gregorian psalm tone 2, identifiable as the later Aeolian mode. Huijbers' intention was to identify with the meaning of the psalm for God's healing presence, not only in times of despondency but as the wellspring or source from which we draw nourishment with every breath we take.

The psalm sings of the need to empty ourselves, kenosis, to embrace a new outlook the need to empty ourselves, kenosis, to embrace a new outlook, metanoia, thereby becoming a fulfilled community, pleroma, of people of new ways, koinonia. The challenge, struggle, to achieve this involves intercessory prayer, since we cannot accomplish this on our own.While we may not expect direct answers, we undergo this conversion experience through constantly discovering our own self worth in Covenant relationship. We sing in Psalm 139 of how God knows us through and through, Who already knows our innermost secrets and the words which ring through our minds. We live in this echo of a voice which is yet unspoken, but for which we are attentive, daily. Perfection has yet to be achieved.

We are each bilingual. We are born into a linguistic culture. But there is an even more primary language which is natural to us, the thoughts and intentions we formulate, unspoken, in our heads. We are constantly talking to ourselves, weighing up pros and cons, often listening to dreams as they emerge from the subconscious. Through meditative and intercessory prayer, we articulate these thoughts and intentions and so acknowledge our covenant relationship with God and what this might entail. With the support of community, by expressing our intentions through intercessory prayer, we talk to ourselves as well as to the One whom we are addressing. -- Tony Barr