A radiant Sign of Hope

The Twelve Days have been a hard slog so far. The weather has been snowy and cold, and everything that involves being outside (such as going to work) takes longer. I am always worn out by the afternoon of Christmas Day, and this year I was coming down with a cold. My wife was also worn out by a back injury in November and the insanity of big-chain-store retail in December. By the time I got home that afternoon, the two of us stared bleakly at each other for a while, ate a light supper, and went to bed. Neither of us had bothered to have a gift for the other; she received no gifts at all other than some cash from her parents.

It has been little better since then; I have worked my normal schedule, fighting a mild fever and hacking cough in the rush to prepare for Sunday – having Christmas on Wednesday made it like two very short weeks with two Sundays to cover, two sets of bulletins to produce. Twice as much work, no extra time to do it.

Seeing that the refrigerator was starting to be a little barren – the weather had been too frightful, and I too tired, for my normal grocering the previous Monday, and promised to be even worse this Monday (yesterday, Dec. 30) – I swung by the all-night supermarket on Sunday when I was done at church, dully making my way through the store for milk, yoghurt, beer – all of these for my wife, nothing for me. I had lost my appetite with the fever and was barely eating. Halfway through, I had to stop and go to the store's filthy restroom with a bout of diarrhea. I somehow managed to get home and lug the groceries and twelve-pack of Grain Belt to the door, the wind chill some thirty below by now. I got everything inside, put away, and fell into the bed, still in most of my clothes.

The next morning: not a word of thanks. “I am almost out of oatmeal. And you didn't bother to even look.”

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming
as seers of old have sung.
It came a blossom bright,
amid the cold of winter,
when half-spent was the night.

The week has been instructive. In my weakness, I clung to the Daily Office, and for the three Major Feasts, the Ante-Communion service with the Eucharistic lessons (for this is how I celebrate them, not being a priest). For Stephen's Day, which was a day off and the worst of my sickness, that was all I could manage – Matins, Ante-Communion, Evensong, sleep.

And a slim little book: the Infancy Narratives volume of Benedict XVI's “Jesus of Nazareth.” Having read the other two volumes, I was slightly disappointed when I purchased and read it early in 2013; it is 132 pages and hardly more than a two-hour read, where the other volumes had been substantial. And it cost the same: $20.00. Worse, the ending seemed like Benedict simply ran out of steam and quit. To some extent, that might have been true, for his powers were failing when he wrote this and it is a miracle that we have it at all.

But now – here I was in the Twelve Days, in most desperate need. It was medicine for the soul. Even the ending now makes sense; Benedict saw rightly that this book must lead directly into the one he wrote first, which takes up the story of Jesus of Nazareth at his Baptism. I can see that if one were to read the books in order (that is, the Infancy narrative first), the end of this book would flow almost seamlessly into the beginning of the next, and the very fine ending of "volume three" (the second to be written, covering the events from Palm Sunday through the Ascension) would be a fitting conclusion.

I do not have the time or energy for extensive quotes; I will simply recommend the book to anyone who wants a companion through the infancy narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke.

And one quote:

Is what we profess in the Creed true, then?--'I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God … [who] by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary?' The answer is an unequivocal yes.... These two moments [the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection] are a scandal to the modern spirit. God is 'allowed' to act in ideas and thoughts, in the spiritual domain—but not in the material. That is shocking. He does not belong there. But that is precisely the point: God is God and he does not operate merely on the level of ideas....

Hence the conception and birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary is a fundamental element of our faith and a radiant sign of hope. (p. 56-57)

Today, I am better. It was still a struggle to get to the church in the snow and I was ten minutes late in starting Matins, out in the church in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and the final public liturgy of the year. But I was able to sing the Psalms and Canticles without coughing for the first time since Christmas Eve. And I was able to put in a solid day of work, much of it on a First Workout of “Les Mages” from the Messiaen Nativity suite. It will be the prelude for Sunday.

My wife and I both have this Thursday as a day off. Perhaps we can mend some bridges then. It will help that I swung by the store for some oatmeal on the way home today.

O Star of Hope, O Mother of God,
pray for us sinners.
May we treasure His words in our hearts,
as you have ever done.
May they bear fruit in our lives
for the Kingdom which began
with your obedience.
May we love the poor among us
and be their servants.
May we, with you, behold his face
forever, world without end.

Beethoven and God

From Romain Rolland: “Portrait of Beethoven in his Thirtieth Year”

When we speak of Beethoven we have to speak of God: God to him is the first reality, the most real of realities.... [Beethoven] can regard him as a companion to be treated roughly, as a tyrant to be cursed, as a fragment of his own ego, or as a rough friend, a severe father qui bene castigat. (The son of Johann van Beethoven had learned as a child the value of this treatment.) But whatever this Being may be that is at issue with Beethoven, he is at issue with him at every hour of the day; he is of his household and dwells with him; never does he leave him. Other friends come and go: he alone is always there. And Beethoven importunes him with his complaints, his reproaches, his questions. The inward monologue is always à deux. In all Beethoven's work, from the very earliest, we find these dialogues of the soul, of the two souls in one, wedded and opposed, discussing, warring, body locked with body, whether for war or in an embrace who can say?

for Beethoven's Birthday

December 17, 1770 – March 26, 1827

I am an organist, and no longer a Real Pianist, not the kind who plays Beethoven. But there was a time...

Like most piano students, my first encounter with him was the fine little composition Für Elise. And like most young pianists, I played it over and over. I would not be surprised if I played it a thousand times. It was a gateway into another realm of being.

That led, in due time, to the Sonatas. I no longer have the yellow paperback two-volume set of the Thirty-Two Sonatas, edited by the great nineteenth century conductor Hans von Bülow and published by G. Schirmer, numbers one and two in their series “Library of Musical Classics.”

Sadly, I was influenced by Purists as an undergraduate in the 1970's, when the Romantic sensibilities of von Bülow were unfashionable, and I discarded the set. I wish that I still had them, for I now recognize that von Bülow's copious footnotes and editorial suggestions, extending even to rewriting some of the notation, retain value. Those Thirty-Two Sonatas helped me survive to adulthood, and von Bülow's comments helped this romantic-minded teenager find a way into the spiritual meaning of these works.

In those days, every evening, when I had finished my regular practicing, I would stumble through a sonata movement, pounding it out on our little spinet piano in the living room. Nearly all of them were far over my head; it was the equivalent of a child in Sunday School class reading Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. But they all were icons, windows into a world of freedom and purity. It was like looking up at the stars, and seeing by their unchanging grace that my petty concerns were not so important as they seemed.

Some of the late sonatas and quartets, which are the ones I love the best, are still over my head; Beethoven's path led far beyond mortal realms. But I played the Moonlight Sonata and the Appassionata Sonata in high school recitals, and (much) later played the Opus 110, one of the most sublime of the late sonatas. I would love to do more, and contemplated a few years ago learning the Diabelli Variations. I soon realized that I am not up to that task, and probably no longer up to playing any Beethoven in public.

In graduate school, I had the opportunity to sing the Ninth Symphony under two different directors, one of whom I hated, and one (Rafael Kubelik) whom I loved. I will be forever grateful for this opportunity. It was not until adulthood – well after graduate school – that I finally encountered the Missa Solemnis.

It is fair to say that Beethoven was not a pious person in the conventional sense. But one author, it may be Romain Rolland, observed that for Beethoven, God was always part of the conversation, and this is true. The best one can tell through the music, Beethoven's relationship with God was much like that of the Psalmist – often stormy, sometimes (as in the Missa) ecstatic [there is hardly anything more amazing in all of music than the opening bars of the Gloria in excelsis], always unflinchingly honest.

Here is the Ninth Symphony, as conducted by Kubelik in 1959.

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muss er wohnen.

Sacramentum caritatis

Pope Francis' recent Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium caused me to wonder whether his predecessor had issued similar documents. I was familiar with the three Encyclical Letters written by Pope Benedict, and through most of his papacy I read with pleasure and spiritual profit his weekly Angelus messages, plus most of his homilies.

But I missed his four Apostolic Exhortations.

So far, I have had time only to dip my toes into the first of them, Sacramentum Caritatis (2007). It is a meditation on the Holy Eucharist: its theology, practical applications for its celebration in the church, and its ramifications for life in the world. In many respects, it appears to build on the excellent book he wrote as Cardinal Ratzinger: The Spirit of the Liturgy.

There is one paragraph in the section on practical applications that is explicitly about church music, and I wish to quote it in full:

Liturgical song
42. In the ars celebrandi, liturgical song has a pre-eminent place. Saint Augustine rightly says in a famous sermon that "the new man sings a new song. Singing is an expression of joy and, if we consider the matter, an expression of love". The People of God assembled for the liturgy sings the praises of God. In the course of her two-thousand-year history, the Church has created, and still creates, music and songs which represent a rich patrimony of faith and love. This heritage must not be lost. Certainly as far as the liturgy is concerned, we cannot say that one song is as good as another. Generic improvisation or the introduction of musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided. As an element of the liturgy, song should be well integrated into the overall celebration. Consequently everything – texts, music, execution – ought to correspond to the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite and the liturgical seasons. Finally, while respecting various styles and different and highly praiseworthy traditions, I desire, in accordance with the request advanced by the Synod Fathers, that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy.

This is all very sensible, and I have sought to exercise my ministry in these ways, especially in regard to the correspondence of text and music with “the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite and the liturgical seasons.” It has often been a struggle, when working with others who see no need for such correspondence and place higher value on the music being "uplifting" or "easy to sing" or "familiar." These three characteristics are indeed important, but they are secondary to music's role in the proclamation of the Gospel, the whole Story, over the course of the three-year lectionary cycle. Over time, the congregation comes to understand what is happening, and comes to expect that the music work in harmony with the Scriptural texts and the liturgical seasons.

The comment on “generic improvisation” is food for thought. I have occasionally played free improvisations in the liturgy, especially as evensong preludes. I have never felt comfortable about it, and I suspect that Benedict is right; liturgical improvisation should be based on the musical materials elsewhere in the service: hymn tunes, chants, chorales.


Benedict's second Exhortation, Verbum Domini (2010) also looks very interesting.