CHOIR, CHOIR, THE BLESSINGS OF THE MANGER

The church has returned to Ordinary Time, which is never ordinary in the usual sense of the term. We are engaged in an ordered, or orderly progression of readings and prayers, all of which lead us toward Lent, the next great season of liturgical time.  But ever since the Annunciation, the announcement of an angel to Mary that she would be Theotokos, a God -bearer in her womb, time has become altered daily, forever. God has entered into our lives in an astonishing way that words and music can only gesture towards, but never fully express. Our incarnate Lord is with us.

How do we sing and say our thanks to God for this precious, inexpressibly tender and wondrous gift? The mass of course accomplishes this better than any ad hoc words or music; it is by design and divine intention, from beginning to end a movement of praise and thanksgiving which brings heaven and earth together, culminating in holy communion, wherein we take into ourselves God , and so become God-bearers with Mary, even if less perfectly. Because Mary was full of grace. But still, we, too,  are God-bearers, living in the world, and bearing to and for the world God, who is pure love.

A member of the RCIA classs, I have learned second-hand, asked why we didn't make more use of our organ during the Christmas Eve mass. To be fair, since I have never met this person, I have no way of knowing what his over-all response to that Mass was. Perhaps he was over-whelmed with delight. And perhaps his question about the organ was just a matter of minor curiosity.

For whatever reason, though, his question focussed on the organ. And certainly this is a legitimate question, in its proper sphere. But the question struck me as being sad, in a way. Because the organ, the choir, the hymns and antiphons are only the supporting players in the drama that is the Holy Mass. Long before the organ was invented, church music was sung with no accompaniment at all. Gregorian chant was and  is still meant for the human voice alone, and though today, in deference to our current musical tastes, chant can be accompanied, it is still at its most searingly beautiful when it is sung a capella. 

The organ, the trumpet, which graced our Christmas Eve masses with technical flair, the piano, are there to point away from themselves to what words and music can never contain. Musicians think carefully about which instruments and music to use at mass,  but in the end, music will always be inadequate if that is all anyone hears at mass. Your world will never be pierced with the greatest beauty imaginable to humankind if you don't perceive that it is contained in a small wafer that becomes the body of Christ, and that you, when you recieve this body are being deified, transformed into God-bearer. 

When we understand ourselves as God-bearers, and correspondingly, we realize that eveyone at mass is also God-bearing, our priorities shift, our perceptions about what is happening around us turn toward the smallest actions that carry greater weight than we ever might have imagined. Instead of music, as lovely as that is, we might notice the musicians themselves.

Musicians , at mass are like the shepherds going to the manger, full of wonder, and imperfectly provisioned with gifts to bring in adoration. We do our best, but no one would mistake us for a paid ensemble of the highest caliber.

Instead, we bring our love by showing up to sing, and play,  at Midnight, on Christmas Eve, at 11:00 on Christmas day, and then again at 11:00 the next day because this year that is how the calendar so arranged things. Some of us came despite illness, or age- related creakiness, and we approached the manger with our hearts full. We came to sing regardless of whether we heard the piano, the organ, or a harmonica supporting our efforts. We appreciated, certainly, the special music provided by the young trumpet player, and by the organ prelude music, and by the lovely cantor singing. But we also knew that those gifts were for the manger as well. 

We are God bearers, and God receivers, if you will. We are given gifts that we return to God and that are then in his hands magnified so that they are made wholly acceptable for the Christ child. 

And of course though I speak of musicians, everyone at mass is coming to the manger with gifts. I believe that if we could truly see one another at every mass, see even a tiny bit into one another's hearts, we would see so many gifts that we would cease to focus on the mechanics of worship, and fall to our knees in gratitude for the work God is doing in our midst. 

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!

Eternity shut in a span!

Summer in winter! day in night!

Heaven in earth! and God in man!

Great little one, whose all-embracing birth

Lifts earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to earth!

Richard Crashaw