The title gives the movement its meaning before the first phrase: praise of eternity, addressed to Jesus as the Word. Messiaen does not make that idea public through grandeur or argument. He makes it audible as extreme slowness. In a work born from captivity and framed by the end of Time, the cello's long line and the piano's patient ground refuse the ordinary demand that music keep moving forward.

That refusal is the point. Around 0:32, the listener has to accept a different scale of attention; around 1:39, a small re-entry makes return feel like faithfulness rather than repetition. By the late thinning after 9:13 and the terminal decay after 10:09, the movement has made eternity feel less like endless extension than disciplined waiting. The piece praises by holding one line long enough for haste to fall away.