on Angels

[reprinted from my old LiveJournal: Feb. 22, 2008]

I have always felt a little guilty about believing in angels. They are like something out of a fairy-story – like Ents, or Hobbits. There is no evidence whatsoever of their existence in the Real World of the scientists. Rational men and women should have laid such fantasies aside by the age of nine or ten, along with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Nonetheless, if we are to give the slightest credence to Holy Scripture, the words of our Lord Jesus, and the universal testimony of the church (well, almost universal; many liberal clergy and professors of theology do not believe in angels any more than they do in the Resurrection), angels are as much a part of this Real World as trees and elephants and bumblebees.

It is as if Gandalf were to show up for supper, knocking on our front door with his staff, a dozen dwarves in tow.

"The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls 'angels' is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition." (Catholic Catechism, paragraph 328).

What are angels like?

We have evidence from Scripture, which I will leave for the reader to explore. My mental image of them owes much to Tolkien. The author Poul Anderson and his wife Karen noted in an essay that many of JRRT's species – dwarves, orcs, trolls, for example – are stock figures of northern European folklore. But not his elves; JRRT's elves are quite different from the sidhe. The Andersons suggested that instead, they are like angels.

I think of Glorfindel at the ford, shining like a flame of fire, or Galadriel, wise and strong and true, seeing into the darkness even while the darkness could not penetrate the light of the Golden Wood, and all the while capable of being as merry as a child. Or the company of elves with which Frodo and Sam dine while leaving the Shire. Or Legolas, sturdy friend and companion in good times and bad. I can imagine that angels could be like this.

I can also believe that angels can be like Fëanor of old, falling from brightest light and skill into pride. For Lucifer is an angel, one of the mightiest, and it was not Lucifer alone who fell into darkness.


How do angels help us?

Guardian angels? So the catechism says (paragraph 336, with a half-dozen Scriptural citations in support). I am less confident of this than I am of the more general presence and work of angels in the economy of God's providence to us, and perhaps to others of God's creatures. But it could be true. It is hard to explain several occurrences in my past without resorting either to “what some call chance” or the action of God, directly or mediated through an angel.

It is well to not rely overmuch on a guardian angel: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” as our Savior said when presented with Psalm 91's promise that “he shall give his angels charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” We should not expect unlimited protection when the Lord of all the heavenly host, who could have called ten thousand angels to his rescue, was nailed to the cross. No angel helped him that day. No angel can do for us those things which are given us to do. They can strengthen us with hidden graces, as they helped our Lord in the desert and at Gethsemane. But they cannot bear our cross, or his.


The catechism reminded me of another way, one that is so obvious that I had forgotten it, and perhaps more important than all the rest:

They help us sing.

“Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts....”

Our poor efforts at song are riddled with mistakes and missed opportunities. They are never sufficiently rehearsed; they never live up to what the song ought to be. But we human singers and instrumentalists are not the only ones in the choir loft, or the congregation, or the orchestral stage, or the opera house, or gatherings of Celtic or bluegrass or jazz musicians, or any other place where there is effort to offer a song that is true. There is more to the song than what we can hear.

Ye holy angels bright,
who wait at God's right hand,
or through the realms of light
fly at your Lord's command,
assist our song,
for else the theme
too high doth seem
for mortal tongue.
(Richard Baxter)

Grown-up, rational men and women must recognize that there are Things out there for which scientific evidence cannot account. Some of these Things are even more wonderful than all the angels of heaven and all of the songs, ours and theirs – the presence of God in the church and in the Blessed Sacrament; the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting; the Son seated at the right hand of the Father; Our Lady and all the saints around the throne; the promise that we will one day join them.

Soli Deo gloria.

some thoughts on Money

Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (St. Luke 16:13)

Well, that is clear enough.

The rest of this morning's Gospel lesson (St. Luke 16:1-13, the parable of the Unjust Steward) is puzzling. What are we to make of this scoundrel, who cheats his master and is commended for doing so? It sounds to me like Jesus is telling us in verses 8 and 9 to go and do likewise, to use the "unrighteous mammon" in any way we want with disregard for such niceties as honest dealing and stewardship of what belongs to others.

He then seems to contradict what he has just said:

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? (v. 10-11)

This at least makes more sense: money is a passing trifle, not to be compared with the "true riches." But it is a testing ground for us; if we cannot be faithful with money, we will not be faithful with anything.


So, what are we to do? Experience shows that Jesus was right: "no servant can serve two masters" (v. 13). St. Paul gives this advice:

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. (I Timothy 6:6-11)

Yet, we must pay some attention to money in order to at least have "food and raiment." St. Paul says in another place that "if any would not work, neither should he eat" (II Thessalonians 3:10). More specifically, in this society we must normally have a job, for which we are paid with money. What are we to do with it? And should we lay some of that money aside for future days, so that we may have food and raiment when we are old and can no longer work?

In my parents' day, this aspect was easier. Most Americans had jobs that promised a retirement pension, plus social security at age 65. They did not need to give any further thought to these matters; the checks would be in the mail when the time came. Almost no one currently in the workforce has a defined benefit pension nowadays, and social security is on shaky ground.

Instead, if we have a pension at all, it is a "defined contribution" plan, where we have considerable responsibility for how it is invested. That means we should know a little about the subject, enough so that we can be faithful stewards in this matter.


In light of these thoughts, I suggest three books that have been helpful to me.

The first book is "Your Money or Your Life," by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. It has gone through several editions since the first in 1992; I read it in the late 1990's, and again last year. Mr. Dominguez died in 1997; Vicki Robin maintains a website that is a helpful introduction to the ideas in this book and much else, such as sustainable living and local foods:

Here is a summary of the book.

A related website is this.

It has a longer guide to the "financial integrity" program, based on the work of Dominguez and Robin: this is a 132-page PDF.

One concept from the book that helped me was to think of money as a representation of "life energy." For example: my effective salary is $16 an hour. When I ate lunch today at the Chinese restaurant, it cost me a little less than $7. I can think of this as roughly a half-hour of "life energy," the amount of time I needed to work in order to earn that $7. Was that a worthwhile use of that half-hour? I think so.

But what about that $16,000 car on the dealer's lot? One thousand hours of life energy, plus more to insure it, fuel it, and repair it. Is it worth that much time out of my life? Probably not, especially when I have an older car that is all paid for and still runs well.


In the earlier editions of "Your Money or Your Life," Mr. Dominguez recommended that once you are out of debt and begin to have a little money left over, you should invest it by purchasing 30-year U.S. Treasury Bonds. Every time you get $1,000, buy another bond. If you had done that in the 1990's when he wrote this advice, you would have done well. But it is a less attractive investment plan nowadays, given current interest rates. So, for this aspect I would turn to two other books:

"The Intelligent Investor" (Benjamin Graham). This was written in 1949 and remains a classic. It outlines a simple approach to asset allocation and investing. Several differing editions are in print, some considerably expanded by more recent authors such as Warren Buffett.

"The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" (John Bogle, 2007). This follows many of the same ideas espoused by Graham, providing a more recent perspective. The basic principle of both books is to have a balance of bonds and equities, and pretty much leave them alone except to rebalance when one or the other goes up or down. Most of all, "chasing the market" is a fool's game, certain to lose most of your money.

I also recommend the website of the Vanguard company, which has a lot of educational material for someone new to investment. Our IRA accounts are with Vanguard, and I recommend them.


So I have gone from St. Paul's "having food and raiment, [being] therewith content" to being an Investor. My wife and I have managed to stay out of debt and save some money, mostly in our retirement accounts, and considering our age, this is a good thing. But it lays us open to "temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts," and some aspects are harder now than they were when we had little or no money. It is perhaps not helpful that I find the subjects of economics, finance, and investment to be fascinating. They can easily consume a lot of time -- more of that "life energy," that properly belongs elsewhere.

Perhaps the key is simply to remember whose money it is. We are stewards of it, responsible for using it in a manner appropriate to the Kingdom. And (borrowing from Dominguez and Robin), we are equally stewards of the "life energy" that is granted us and that is in part represented by money. "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much."

a choral warmup

A choral warmup exercise, developed in our youth choir rehearsal today:

Have the full choir begin on the C above middle C (third space treble clef). The tenors and basses are in unison with the trebles, in their head voice (not an octave below them)

Sing down the scale, using solfas (Do - ti - la - sol...)

At middle C, the trebles go back up (Do - re - mi ...) while the tenors and basses continue down another octave, down to the tenor C. [If there are male altos, they should take whichever part is more comfortable, probably singing with the trebles and female altos. But if they have the low notes, they can go on down with the tenors and basses.]

The two parts turn around and come back down/up the scale to meet at middle C.

Not every choir is capable of this.

I am very proud of our tenors and basses and altos. Nearly all of them have beautiful and comfortable head tones in the range from F or G of the treble clef up to the third space C, and a couple of them beyond that. I have tried to model this for them by singing that way myself, and it amazes me that they have picked this up. I hope that some of them might move with better freedom among the three male parts (alto, tenor, bass) than I have done, and maintain a wide vocal range throughout their adult lives -- I was well into my forties before I learned to properly sing in my upper range.

In my experience, the best way for a young man to develop his voice is to first establish the head voice, in a sound that some would call "falsetto," and at first it may be more of a falsetto and not a developed head voice.

Each day, after the first preliminary warmups (Posture, Space, Breath: sustained note on "ee" in comfortable range -- low voice or high voice -- yawn-sigh on "Oh", then "over the top" on "Oh" - start low, go high, slide back down low), sing several sustained notes in the high head voice, middle of treble clef. "Oh" is a good vowel to start, then use other vowels.

After establishing this sound, sing scales downward across the passagio [register "break" or "change"] into the lower voice. Then scales down and back up [not up and back down! Start high, go down first.] Then other patterns, such as arpeggios, melodies with skips, etc.

In my own singing practice, I improvise at this point, consciously seeking to make melodies that cross the passagio. This is enormous fun, one of the most enjoyable parts of my day.

It is important to develop the low voice as well, and to carry some of the power the low voice into the high voice. The "mezza di voce" is excellent for this. At first, do it on pitches that are well within the low voice or the high voice and not near the passagio. Then, work on pitches nearer to the passagio, where the exercise takes the voice from the higher register to the lower register and back.

Evensong: Sunday of Proper 17, Year A

Psalms for the First Evening: 6, 7, 8
I Kings 8:22-40
St. John 8:47-59

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
What is man that you should be mindful of him? *
the son of man that you should seek him out?

Eleven weeks ago in the middle of June, we started this cycle of Lessons from the Old Testament for the Daily Office with Hannah and Samuel. We have read of Saul son of Kish, of David son of Jesse. And now we are at what must have seemed the high point of the narrative: Solomon son of David and the dedication of the temple.

By the time the Books of the Kings were most likely set down in order as we have them, the temple lay in ruins, not one stone left upon another. The prophet Isaiah wrote of this: "Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste." (Isaiah 64:10-11)

It is no wonder that the editors who assembled First Kings under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost devoted eleven chapters to the reign of Solomon, four of those chapters to the building and dedication of the temple. It was a Good Day, the best of days. In a few short years the kingdoms would be divided and begin their spiral into ruin. Never again, even to this day, would the land have rest from all its enemies round about. Never again could it be said that "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry." (4:20)

But what is that to us? The days of the Temple rituals are past, and we worship One who is greater than the Temple. "Before Abraham was, I am," he said to the people (St. John 8:58), identifying himself as not only one who is greater than Abraham and the prophets, but as the one who is the Son of the Father, the "I AM" revealed to Moses at the burning bush: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father."

And yet... we continue to build places that are called by his name.

Many people come into this place during the week to pray -- on Sunday, but also throughout the week. They often kneel in silence, most often well back in the church. Or they kneel at the side altar. Perhaps they light a votive candle. Others walk by outside and leave prayer requests in the book, or tie a ribbon on the tree as a symbol of their petition.

I count myself blessed to spend many of my working hours in this room, on the organ bench or at the piano, and I pray that I may never take it for granted.

Some of us would say that our Lord Jesus Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, reserved in the tabernacle up there by the candle. Whatever we may think of that, most of us in the Anglican tradition would say that this place is more than what the Puritans would have called a "meeting house," simply a convenient place to gather on the Lord's Day. This, and every other Christian church, is a place that is called by the name of Christ, and where, in some manner, he chooses to dwell among his people. As we shall recall shortly in the prayer of St. Chrysostom, "when two or three are gathered together in his Name, [he] will be in the midst of them."

Why should God pay attention to us this evening, or any time that we pray in this place, or even when we remember it from afar and pray "toward this place," as Solomon phrased it? "What is man that you should be mindful of him, the son of man that you should seek him out?"

Part of the answer is in the sign that Our Lord Jesus gave after cleansing the Temple, saying that it must be a house of prayer for all people. In chapter two of his Gospel, St. John recounts it in this manner:

Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. (vv. 18-22)

And another part of the answer comes from St. Paul, in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: "... ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (6:16b)

The Temple was but a figure of "a greater and more perfect tabernacle" (Hebrews 9:11): Jesus Christ Himself is the holy place, the One in whom all the fullness of God doth dwell (Colossians 2:9). When St. John the Divine described the holy city, new Jerusalem, he stated that he "saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:22-23).

Through him, we "as lively stones, are built up an spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (I Peter 2:5)

In connection with this we must consider a detail that is omitted from the narrative in First Kings. We find it in the parallel account of Second Chronicles:

And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place: (for all the priests that were present were sanctified, and did not then wait by course: Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)

It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God. (5:11-14)

In Psalm 22, we read that the Holy One is "enthroned upon the praises of Israel" (v. 3). This is as true now as it was on that day in the Temple: the presence of God is in some manner connected not only with the Blessed Sacrament, or the house that is called by his name, but with the music that we sing in this place, most of all in those moments when through the making of music, we become "as one."


It is with these things in mind that we can hear Solomon's prayer. We can join with him on behalf of those who enter this place to pray, those who tie a ribbon on the tree outside, those who remember this place from afar and wish that they could be here.

... hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee to day: That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place... And hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place: and when thou hearest, forgive. (8:19-20)

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Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. (St. Jude 24-25)

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(slightly expanded from the version that I preached at Evensong: September 1, 2013.)