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Passing through the beautiful city of Flagstaff, Arizona lately, I happened to attend Mass at a fairly new church dedicated to St. Francis. San Francisco de Asis was decorated in a way that was quite intriguing: with prints made of the frescoes in the upper church of St. Francis in Assisi.

I had very mixed feelings about this use of art in a liturgical space. On the one hand, just as other symbols lose their savor when imitated–sampled music, recorded bells, silk flowers–so too art that is copied is always less than the original. In this case, the setting is one of the things very far removed. Rather than a contiguous and integrated cycle, the large prints are hung on the interior walls of the church much as though it were a museum. That important sense of the authentic was missing.

On the other hand, it is such a sincere relief in the American church to find any thoughtful use of the medium of paint that my first feeling was one of joy. Moreover, the paintings themselves are beautiful, important and certainly worth copying, on an subject deeply relevant to the parish, and perhaps the early work of the important proto-Renaissance painter Giotto (although this is contested). The paintings are decidedly not icons, and while their realism is not yet fully effective, yet one can see the beginnings of geometrical shape and other marks of the humanism that would come to represent the art of Rome in the Renaissance.

In other words, the paintings are of a time and a place that truly represent the saint himself, full of freedom and vision. Although they are historical, like museum pieces, they have that originality and freshness that characterize St. Francis.

American churches are full of blank walls. What are we to do with them, particularly in this age when drawing skills are very often lacking, and a curious trade in religious cartoons is for some reason on the rise? Here is one solution that seems to work to a large degree, and perhaps to a degree impossible without the technology that in our day makes such excellent reproduction possible.

I find the experience of hymn writing to have distinct “moments.” There is the initial moment of inspiration, and jotting that all down on paper, followed by the hard work of making a unified whole, followed by editing, and then an initial evaluation. And now that I’ve been doing this for a decade and a half, it is possible to evaluate at a longer distance.

This is one of the original texts I’m happiest about, although I see its flaws, particularly of rhyme. Perhaps it is too heavy-handed with alliteration. Still, it is compact and clear, and expresses something quite striking about our religion. Our foundational saints Peter and Paul were sinners before they were preachers. That is something to think about in the Year of Mercy. It was never about Peter and Paul with them, but always about Christ and His salvation, for themselves as well as for others. And their conversions were bound up with their martyrdoms (John 21:19, Acts 9:16).

Here it is sung to NEWMAN, usually associated with Praise to the Holiest in the Height, which is certainly an allusion that enriches the whole experience of singing the text. Mark Husey was the organist, at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Columbia, South Carolina.

This evening after Compline a group of the young and not- so- young met together in a corner of the hotel lobby rather spontaneously to sing and say the Rosary.

Just one more blessed moment in the wonderful and ever new movement we call The Church Music Association of America.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently released a Letter on the Charisms in the Church. The charismatic life is both strange and perfectly normal, because of the abiding presence in the Church of the Holy Spirit who “fills the whole world,” according to the introit for Pentecost.

The letter refreshingly does not focus as some would on the opposition between order and charism, but rightly notes that there are hierarchical gifts as well as charismatic gifts, and they are meant to exist in ordered communion for the life of the Church.

One of the helpful paragraphs in the letter, and one that will strike a chord with many musicians, is in the section that explains how charisms are discerned. St. Paul said to test the spirits. What are the tests? According to the CDF, among them is this:

Acceptance of moments of trial in the discernment of charisms. Because a charismatic gift may imply “a certain element of genuine originality and of special initiative for the spiritual life of the Church” and in its surrounding “may appear troublesome”, it follows that one criteria of authenticity manifests itself as “humility in bearing with adversities”, such that: “The true relation between genuine charism, with its perspectives of newness, and interior suffering, carries with it an unvarying history of the connection between charism and cross”. Any tensions that may arise are a call to the practice of greater charity in view of the more profound ecclesial communion and unity that exists

 One sees this kind of suffering most readily in the founders of religious communities, who almost as a matter of course endure all sorts of bewildering disappoints of the kind St. Raymond of Penyafort once mentioned:

The sword falls with double and treble force externally when, without cause being given, there breaks out from within the Church persecution in spiritual matters, where wounds are more serious, especially when inflicted by friends.

The lives of the saints are chock full of these often surprising events and persecutions.

Church musicians of the reform-of-the-reform will readily recognize times when they felt that they or their friends appeared “troublesome” instead of eminently useful for the sake of the sacred liturgy. This is a painful experience for an artist, but one which should be endured faithfully and with humility.

It is a truism in musical theatre, (apart from opera, which is through composed,) when our emotions are too “big” to be spoken, we must sing them.
St Ambrose knew that:

    Moses, when he related the deeds of the patriarchs, did so in a plain and unadorned style. But when he had miraculously led the people of Israel across the Red Sea… he transcended his own skills (just as the miracle had transcended his own powers) and he sang a triumphal song to the Lord. Miriam the prophetess herself took up a timbrel and led the others in the refrain: Sing to the Lord: he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

     History instructs us, the law teaches us, prophecy foretells, correction punishes, morality persuades; but the book of psalms goes further than all these. It is medicine for our spiritual health. Whoever reads it will find in it a medicine to cure the wounds caused by his own particular passions ..

     And as for the power of prophecy – what can I say? Other prophets spoke in riddles. To the psalmist alone, it seems, God promised openly and clearly that the Lord Jesus would be born of his seed: I promise that your own son will succeed you on the throne.

     Thus in the book of psalms Jesus is not only born for us: he also accepts his saving passion, he dies, he rises from the dead, he ascends into heaven, he sits at the Father’s right hand. The Psalmist announced what no other prophet had dared to say, that which was later preached by the Lord himself in the Gospel.

Tomorrow morning the Dominican Province of St. Joseph (Eastern Province) is scheduled to ordain 11 of their brothers priests of Jesus Christ.

The Ordination Mass will be broadcast live, at 9:30 Eastern time, on the Eternal Word Television Network. The venue is the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Our readers may be interested in viewing for any number of reasons liturgical and otherwise, including the consolation of the beautiful witness of so many excellent young men dedicating themselves to priestly service for the salvation of souls.