Psalm 44:1
planning a wedding
Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, for the sons of Core, for understanding. A canticle for the Beloved. (Psalm 44:1 DR)
In this verse the Psalmist prepares a wedding song—what St. Augustine refers to as an Epithalmia— which according to him is sung in honor of the Bride and the Bridegroom, Christ and the Church, respectively.
In his thought the nuptial union is found in the Incarnation, the joining of the Word to the flesh. Recounting Psalm 18 he says:
Is there then no Bridechamber in that marriage-feast to which we are invited? Whence then does another Psalm say, “He has set up His tabernacle in the Sun; and He is even as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber.” The nuptial union is that of the Word, and the flesh. The Bridechamber of this union, the Virgin's womb.
(St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 18, 2)
There is, however, a mystical dimension to this. For while it is certainly true that Christ assumed flesh in an individual sense in that he was a real individual person with a human body, he also assumed unto himself the Church, as the Church is the mystical body of Christ:
For the flesh itself was united to the Word: whence also it is said, Henceforth they are not two, but one flesh. The Church was assumed unto Him out of the human race: so that the Flesh itself, being united to the Word, might be the Head of the Church: and the rest who believe, members of that Head... (ibid.)
It is also in this sense that the Blessed Virgin Mary is called the Mother of the Church, for as Jesus Christ assumes into himself the Church out of the human race as his mystical body, himself being born of the Virgin’s womb, so the Church as the mystical body united to Christ is also in this sense born of her womb.
There is finally a parallelism of sorts between Jesus and Mary (typologically the fulfillment of Adam and Eve) in that as Jesus as God Incarnate is both Creator and creature, so Mary as a part of the Mystical Body of Christ is both the Bearer and the born.
All of this the Psalmist foretells in the poetics of his Epithalmia which for the rest of the psalm will dwell upon these mystical themes.
For this animation I found this great image on Unsplash and cut it out in Photoshop. I added an ellipse to the end of the arm so I wouldn’t have to have it hang out of frame.
In After Effects I placed it in the Composition and added a simple wiggle hold expression to the Position and Rotation transform properties to get the slight movement. Next I added the rarely used but in some circumstances useful Colorama effect and set up some earth tone colors. I then animated the cycle to get the colors to cycle.
The rest was simply setting up the text in a compositionally pleasing manner. Pretty simple but I like it.
Enjoy.
Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, for the sons of Core, for understanding.
A canticle for the Beloved.
(Psalm 44:1 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: