Appeal to Artists

"I would like to renew a friendly and impassioned appeal to all artists", he said. "Never separate artistic creativity from truth and charity, never seek beauty distant from truth and charity, but with your genius and creative drive always seek courageously after truth and bear witness to charity. Make the truth shine forth in your works, ensuring that their beauty arouses in the eyes and hearts of the people who admire them the desire and the need to make life, each individual life, more beautiful and true, enriching it with that treasure which never runs out, which makes life a masterpiece and each man an extraordinary artist: charity, love. May the Holy Spirit, architect of all that is beautiful in the world, illuminate you and guide you towards the definitive and ultimate Beauty". --Pope Benedict XVI, today

Jacob Wrestles with the Angel

Today in his Wednesday catechesis on prayer, Pope Benedict interpreted the story of Jacob's wrestling with an angel. He said, "The Church’s spiritual tradition has seen in this story a symbol of prayer as a faith-filled struggle which takes place at times in darkness, calls for perseverance, and is crowned by interior renewal and God’s blessing. This struggle demands our unremitting effort, yet ends by surrender to God’s mercy and gift."

I'm reminded of Charles Wesley's verse treatment of this same story, which reads the passage in a similar way. Of special interest are first of all the Christological dimension, and secondly, the recurrences of the word "nature." The wrestling is about the surrender of human nature to the divine nature. In Christian life, this dynamic is very interesting, because the human nature is not undone by its surrender. It is wounded by the encounter, but is not annihilated by it. The fear is that God's overwhelming strength will make an end of human nature, rather than saving it. But God loves what He has made. We see God face to face and live!

COME, O thou Traveller unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with thee;
With thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell thee who I am,
My misery and sin declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name,
Look on thy hands, and read it there;
But who, I ask thee, who art Thou?
Tell me Thy name, and tell me now.

In vain thou strugglest to get free,
I never will unloose my hold!
Art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold;
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
Thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell;
To know it now resolved I am;
Wrestling, I will not let thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

’Tis all in vain to hold thy tongue
Or touch the hollow of my thigh;
Though every sinew be unstrung,
Out of my arms thou shalt not fly;
Wrestling I will not let thee go
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

What though my shrinking flesh complain,
And murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain,
When I am weak, then I am strong
And when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-man prevail.

My strength is gone, my nature dies,
I sink beneath Thy weighty hand,
Faint to revive, and fall to rise;
I fall, and yet by faith I stand;
I stand and will not let Thee go
Till I Thy Name, Thy nature know.

Yield to me now, for I am weak,
But confident in self-despair;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquered by my instant prayer;
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.

‘Tis Love! ’tis Love! thou diedst for me!
I hear thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Pure, universal love thou art;
To me, to all, thy bowels move;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

My prayer hath power with God; the grace
Unspeakable I now receive;
Through faith I see thee face to face,
I see thee face to face, and live!
In vain I have not wept and strove;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

I know thee, Saviour, who thou art.
Jesus, the feeble sinner’s friend;
Nor wilt thou with the night depart.
But stay and love me to the end,
Thy mercies never shall remove;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

The Sun of righteousness on me
Hath rose with healing in his wings,
Withered my nature’s strength; from thee
My soul its life and succour brings;
My help is all laid up above;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

Contented now upon my thigh
I halt, till life’s short journey end;
All helplessness, all weakness, I
On thee alone for strength depend,
Nor have I power from thee to move;
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

Lame as I am, I take the prey,
Hell, earth, and sin, with ease o’ercome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
And as a bounding hart fly home,
Through all eternity to prove
Thy nature and thy name is Love.

Charles Wesley

Bishop Cupich on the New Translation of the Roman Missal

From Sacramentary to Roman Missal, Part 1 from Diocese of St. Petersburg on Vimeo.

From Sacramentary to Roman Missal, Part 2 from Diocese of St. Petersburg on Vimeo.

From Sacramentary to Roman Missal, Part 3 from Diocese of St. Petersburg on Vimeo.

The moving hymn

While singing this hymn of thanksgiving after Communion, many at the Holy Father's Mass this morning at Westminster Cathedral were visibly moved. It was sung to the tune St. Catherine, which we often use for Faith of Our Fathers.

"O Bread of Heaven, beneath this veil
Thou dost my very God conceal:
My Jesus, dearest treasure, hail!
I love Thee and, adoring, kneel;
Each loving soul by Thee is fed
With Thine own Self
in form of Bread.

O food of life, Thou Who dost give
The pledge of immortality;
I live, no ‘tis not I that live;
God gives me life, God lives in me:
He feeds my soul, He guides my ways,
And every grief with joy repays.

O Bond of love that dost unite
The servant to his living Lord ;
Could I dare live and not requite
Such love - then death were meet reward:
I cannot live unless to prove
Some love for such unmeasured love.

My dearest God! Who dost so bind
My heart with countless claims to Thee!
O Sweetest love, my soul shall find
In Thy dear bonds true liberty.
Thyself Thou hast bestowed on me;
Thine, Thine for ever I will be.

O Mighty Fire, Thou that dost burn
To kindle every mind and heart!
For Thee my frozen soul doth yearn;
Come, Lord of love, Thy warmth impart;
If thus to speak too bold appear,‘
Tis love like Thine has banished fear.

O Sweetest dart of love Divine!
If I have sinned, then vengeance take;
Come pierce this guilty heart of mine,
And let it die for His dear sake
Who once expired on Calvary,
His heart pierced through for love of me.

Beloved Lord, in Heaven above
There, Jesus, Thou awaitest me,
To gaze on Thee with endless love;
Yes, thus I hope, thus shall it be:
For how can He deny me Heaven,
Who here on earth Himself hath given?"

Apostolorum passio

In honor of the liturgical leadership of our Holy Father Pope Benedict, here is my translation of this great Ambrosian hymn. Perhaps it could be nicely sung to the tune Deo gratias.

Apostolorum passio

Blest day by suff’ring sanctified:
Christ’s chosen high apostles died.
Today St. Peter wins renown.
Today St. Paul accepts the crown.

Together, equally, they bled:
Together: the victorious dead.
They followed God and sacrificed
And now their faith is crowned by Christ.

St. Peter holds the highest place,
Yet Paul is not the less by grace.
An equal faith was giv’n to Paul:
The chosen vessel of God’s call.

St. Peter, downward crucified—
To honor God in how he died—
Securely tied, he sees unfold
The death his Shepherd once foretold.

On such foundations Rome may claim
The highest service of God’s name.
His noble blood has dignified
The city where this prophet died.

Let all the world, then, run to Rome.
Let families of nations come!
The head of nations teaches there
Beside the nations’ teacher's chair.

O Lord, we ask that we may be
In their exalted company,
And with our princes sing Your praise
Forever, to unending days.

C. 2010 Kathleen Pluth. May be used only with permission.

Ave Maris Stella

Ave, maris stella
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"She must arouse the voice of the cosmos"

A Church which only makes use of “utility” music has fallen for what is, in fact, useless. . . . For her mission is a far higher one. As the Old Testament speaks of the Temple, the Church is to be the place of “glory,” and as such, too, the place where mankind’s cry of distress is brought to the ear of God. The Church must not settle down with what is merely comfortable and serviceable at the parish level, she must arouse the voice of the cosmos and, by glorifying the Creator, elicit the glory of the cosmos itself, making it also glorious, beautiful, habitable, and beloved.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “On the Theological Basis of Church Music,” in The Feast of Faith, pp. 113–126 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), p. 124.

Music Education

"...Music is a "powerful 'gymnasium,' not only on the artistic and professional plane, but in the overall human profile..." Pope Benedict XVI

Sursum Corda: The Youth Classical Schola

Last Saturday before the historic Pontifical Mass at the National Shrine, I had the honor of directing the children's schola which chanted during Bishop Slattery's vesting. The schola combined my own Alexandria, VA, St. Louis Church's Youth Classical Schola and the Chorus from St. Ann's Academy in DC. In the weeks leading up to the Mass, I spent a good deal of time on the road, rehearsing with St. Ann's, to produce a unified sound.

The children sang Veni, Creator Spiritus, Adoro Te devote, and Regina caeli. I think they sang their best--which, many say, is beautifully--and under challenging circumstances.

The event was marked with controversy and strife. The originally planned celebrant did not say the Mass, for reasons that have been widely publicized. From my perspective, the Mass had certain less-than-optimal earmarks of any inaugural event. There were little glitches here and there, and some problems communicating. My guess is the communication issues had most of all to do with everyone's relative uncertainty. It is difficult to do something complex and new, because there is no established routine. Meanwhile, everyone's goodwill and effort was evident, and the pleasure of collaboration can make little glitches seem unimportant. The second time will be much easier, and, God willing, under much less public pressure and scrutiny.

From the time when the discussions of my schola's involvement first began, the organizer who was my principle contact spoke of his strong sense that children's voices would be essential at this Mass. While I agreed, I had no idea at the time that his sense would turn out to be quite so prophetic and urgent. Given the publicity, and given the scale of the atrocity of crimes that have been committed against children, the sweet sound of children's singing, which always lifts my heart, can be a balm for all of us. Their pact with the Church, after all, is unbroken. They are safe, they serve, they learn. Our experience in working together has been not only positive but joyous, a microcosm of the excellent ecclesiology of Catholicism as it is played out in so many ways around the world.

I hope that joy was evident in their sound.

Pontifical Mass April 24th

The Pontifical Solemn Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine

April 24, 2010 at 1PM

Join us as Vatican prelate Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos performs the first traditional mass held at the Basilica in 50 years in celebration of the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict's innauguration.

Spread the Word

Urbi et Orbi

This is a passage from Pope Benedict's Easter Vigil homily. He spoke about two of the symbols of the Vigil, fire and water, and then about a different kind of symbol: song.

The third great symbol of the Easter Vigil is something rather different; it has to do with man himself. It is the singing of the new song – the alleluia. When a person experiences great joy, he cannot keep it to himself. He has to express it, to pass it on. But what happens when a person is touched by the light of the resurrection, and thus comes into contact with Life itself, with Truth and Love? He cannot merely speak about it. Speech is no longer adequate. He has to sing. The first reference to singing in the Bible comes after the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel has risen out of slavery. It has climbed up from the threatening depths of the sea. It is as it were reborn. It lives and it is free. The Bible describes the people’s reaction to this great event of salvation with the verse: "The people … believed in the Lord and in Moses his servant" (Ex 14:31). Then comes the second reaction which, with a kind of inner necessity, follows from the first one: "Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord …" At the Easter Vigil, year after year, we Christians intone this song after the third reading, we sing it as our song, because we too, through God’s power, have been drawn forth from the water and liberated for true life.

There is a surprising parallel to the story of Moses’ song after Israel’s liberation from Egypt upon emerging from the Red Sea, namely in the Book of Revelation of Saint John. Before the beginning of the seven last plagues imposed upon the earth, the seer has a vision of something "like a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb …" (Rev 15:2f.). This image describes the situation of the disciples of Jesus Christ in every age, the situation of the Church in the history of this world.

Humanly speaking, it is self-contradictory. On the one hand, the community is located at the Exodus, in the midst of the Red Sea, in a sea which is paradoxically ice and fire at the same time. And must not the Church, so to speak, always walk on the sea, through the fire and the cold? Humanly speaking, she ought to sink. But while she is still walking in the midst of this Red Sea, she sings – she intones the song of praise of the just: the song of Moses and of the Lamb, in which the Old and New Covenants blend into harmony. While, strictly speaking, she ought to be sinking, the Church sings the song of thanksgiving of the saved. She is standing on history’s waters of death and yet she has already risen. Singing, she grasps at the Lord’s hand, which holds her above the waters. And she knows that she is thereby raised outside the force of gravity of death and evil – a force from which otherwise there would be no way of escape – raised and drawn into the new gravitational force of God, of truth and of love. At present she is still between the two gravitational fields. But once Christ is risen, the gravitational pull of love is stronger than that of hatred; the force of gravity of life is stronger than that of death. Perhaps this is actually the situation of the Church in every age? It always seems as if she ought to be sinking, and yet she is always already saved. Saint Paul illustrated this situation with the words: "We are as dying, and behold we live" (2 Cor 6:9). The Lord’s saving hand holds us up, and thus we can already sing the song of the saved, the new song of the risen ones: alleluia! Amen.

So the Pope gets on a plane...

Whenever you see a picture of Pope Benedict talking to people, he's got this shy smile thing going on. And yet, he's brilliant, and although welcoming of people, he's ruthless about ideas.

Actually, he's theologically much more welcoming than I am. For example, if I'm not mistaken he recently made a positive reference to Rene Girard, my theological arch-nemesis. Perhaps there is some good there that I just fail to see--but I digress. Regarding liturgy he can see nonsense claims coming from miles away--and then he devastates them.

A lot of electronic ink has been spilled over the Pope's recent plane ride TO Africa, mostly because his remarks had something to do with sex. But his remarks on the way back FROM Africa were much more dramatic. As I read them, I thought I heard the echoes of the old Bat Man comics' fight scenes.

Speaking of the Masses he celebrated in Cameroon and Angola, the Pope said,

"[I was] moved by the spirit of meditative absorption *POW!*
in liturgy, the powerful sense of the sacred *BIFF!*;
in the liturgies there was no self-presentation *BANG!*
of groups, no self-animation, *ZAP!*
but the presence of the sacred, of God Himself; even the movements were always movements of respect and awareness of the divine presence. *KAPOW!*

This multi-whammie, smiling pre-emptive measure undermines all future attempts to point to the African liturgies as a positive example of the multi-cultural fad in liturgy. Yet another ephemeral wave in the endless cycles of fads that have mainstreamed since the last Council, multiculturalism (like all the others) effectively downgrades the liturgy from the most intimate possible sharing of heavenly and earthly realities available to us on earth, to an anthropological celebration.

The most astonishingly candid expressions of the superficiality of multiculturalist liturgy are the various Dancing Puppet Liturgies, in which non-human, non-animate artifacts are dressed up to represent various colors and genders--which then "participate" in the liturgy.



I'm sure that we can all see the difference between Africans dancing at Mass vs. midwesterners, and their puppets, dancing at Mass. Yes? But the Pope wisely made a very public and clear distinction.

It's not wrong to express ourselves in the liturgy. But we must express ourselves liturgically, and in Christ. We are at Mass to open ourselves to God and to come into direct, real contact with the Father through Him--never losing the "sense of the sacred" and the "respect and awareness of the divine presence."