I ran across this video a few days ago, when I was looking for something else. I love it. And now that we're finding ourselves in the thick of autumn, with the leaves around here turning their last, glorious color before they float to the ground (and some already having floated), I am feeling the onset of the end of our liturgical year as well, when our attention turns to end times - the human race's and our own individual destiny.
The video doesn't conform perfectly to my idea of heaven (everyone is virtual, which seems distinctly unheavenly), but there is a lot in it that resonates with me. First of all, because everyone is making music. I take the notion of heavenly choirs literally. Second, because of the wild plenitude of talents and gifts. There are singers, pianists, at least one organist, harpists, string players, various wind instruments, quite a few types of percussion going on and, as it progresses along, dancers. A marvelous profusion of musical crafts. Not to mention the technical expertise that it must have taken to mix, edit, cut, clean up and so on - I assume there is another army behind the scenes, doing the diaconal work. Third, because of the diversity. So many people, so many walks of life, so many backgrounds, so many ages, so many stories and histories. Fourth, because it isn't just diversity: it is unity in diversity. All these diverse peoples, coming together as best they can in a common artistic endeavor. Fifth, because everyone is taking such evident joy in it. Sixth, because it is all for the glory of God. Somehow, people are able to set aside their daily work, play, stresses, joys and suffering and offer up their best for God.
Click here to view it and listen to it.
What is your idea of what heaven will be like?
Deacon Jim, Yes, of course there will be music in heaven. As today's psalm (98) says: "Sing praise to the Lord with the harp/ with the harp and melodious song/ With trumpets and he sound of the horn/ sing joyfully before the King, the Lord."
ReplyDeleteThe Sanctus at Mass, a mash-up of Isaiah, Revelation and Matthew, seems to be what woke up Scott Hahn to the realization he was attending the Supper of the Lamb (at the Church of the Gesu on the Marquette University campus, btw), introduced by "we acclaim." I can't understand why people snore it in a blah style. The Orthodox shout it out.
I said once I thought heaven would be so obvious that we'd slap ourselves on the head wondering why we hadn't expected it. Deacon Pete shot back that that would explain the marks on the foreheads.
I stumbled on your Irish heaven on the day it came out and sent the link to an Irish priest I dearly love saying, "You may have seen this already, but..." He replied that he had seen it already but it was always worth seeing. There are similar productions by a glorious company of Catholic musicians doing "Be Not Afraid," and a New York choral society doing "How Can I Keep from Singing."
But appropriate today (and technically spectacular) would be from the Carmelites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycy0a5eHgVs
Jim, thanks, I had not seen this video before. I loved it. I have always believed there will be music in heaven.
ReplyDeleteIt makes Tom think of the Sanctus. Makes me think of the Gloria.
In heaven there will be no politics. I can't wait. Also relationships will be healed, and we'll see others as God sees them.
Aren't we kind of expected to heal those relationships here? Isn't that the price of admission for Up There?
DeleteWe're supposed to try to heal them here. But I don't think it's always possible. I'm not speaking from personal experience because I have been lucky in my relationships. But people have said that even though they have forgiven someone who hurt them, it was impossible for them to trust again. I don't think God asks us to do the impossible.
DeleteIf there were Catholics and Protestants singing together, then it was truly a heavenly moment. I heard northern accents in there at the end. But all the clerical collars I saw were Roman.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Christ, I hope there will not be Riverdance in heaven.
Beyond that, I don't fantasize much about places I will likely never visit.
I hope I give enough thanks for the created beauties here. This is still my favorite hymn. Unitarians and Episcopalians sang it. Even though it is based on St. Francis's canticle, I have never heard it in a Catholic church. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nAXv8mGM4cQ
I like George Eliot's poem using a choral metaphor about heavenly things. It's about as close to what I believe about this stuff as anything: https://poets.org/poem/choir-invisible
There are Protestants in that mix. There are probably a few Scots and Brits, too, if you ask me.
DeleteHow could you tell?
Delete"How could you tell?"
DeleteThe sheer competence of the organist? Just kidding, Catholic organist friends. Sort of ...
Maybe that's what will happen in heaven: all our wrong notes and clunkers will be wiped away.
Far out. Maybe I will be able to sing "Cryin'" with Roy Orbison again without my voice cracking on the final note.
DeleteJean, at about the :54 second mark, there are a couple of seconds of a woman in clerical collar playing the harp. So there's one. At about the 2:00 mark, there is another guy in a collar whom I'm guessing isn't Catholic, because his clerical suit isn't black, it's a pastel green check shirt. As for the laypersons, who knows?
DeleteAlright, I have to stop watching the video. Gotta work.
Actually, the information under the video's lower left corner specifies "Christians" from all the Irish counties.
DeleteWhile I was away, my wife called me to hear Cory Booker's Come to Jesus speech. Turrrr-ific. I still don't know why he didn't get any traction.
DeleteI will look up Booker's speech.
DeleteYesterday in terms few minutes I heard, he tried in vain to get Barrett to show any spark of humanity by asking if she could understand what it's like for people inadequately insured.
I don't sense from her answers that she feels the need to do more than brush Democratic questions away with a "no comment," though she offered that one of her kids had to take antibiotics once.
She's quite a cipher. She reads coddled and arrogant to me, but the fact that she is Trump's appointee and the center of a super-spreader event colors my views.
I'll take your word for the lady minister playing re harp. Heaven will be what God wants it to be, and the people who go there will live forever and be happy there. What's the point of saying anything else?
DeleteSome Catholic parishes do sing "All Creatures of our God and King". It's one of my favorites, too. I've played the accompaniment many times.
DeleteJean - yes "All Creatures of Our God and King" is in Catholic hymnals which print traditional hymns (as opposed to purely "contemporary"-style compositions). We've sung it a bit over the years but not for a while.
DeleteBut it is a Catholic hymn, at least insofar as the lyrics are based on a poem by St. Francis of Assisi - in fact, the same poem which gave Pope Francis the words "Laudato si", the title of his encyclical on care for creation and the environment.
That said: it's usually sung to the tune OLD HUNDREDTH, which is pretty thoroughly Protestant. So it's a marriage of Catholic words to Protestant tune. Just the kind of unity we're looking for in heaven!
We sang it frequently at our episcopal parish. One of my favorites.
DeleteAre we looking for unity? Or are we looking for exclusivity? Are you really willing to spend eternity singing "Do Lord" and "I Saw the Light"? Or do we hope that the Baptists will turn Catholic and learn Gregorian chant?
DeleteI honestly don't know what "thoroughly Protestant" is or how you can tell. It's a pretty song with nice words. It urges us to be grateful for and enjoy the created world that we live in and to praise God.
Is that Protestant or Catholic? Uniquely Christian?
Sorry, I'm just playing with your head, Jim. Like I says, I don't see the point in talking about Heaven or what all goes on there.
DeleteDiane Keaton (actress) did a film called "Heaven" in 1987 in which she interviewed people about what they thought Heaven was like. It was kind of silly, really, but my takeaway at the time was that the Great Human Tragedy is its ability to imagine a perfect world but being too damn mean to ever achieve it.
Jean, I don’t see any point in talking about heaven either. We humans haven’t a clue as to whether or not there is any kind of “life” after death. I just hope that I can do a few kind or helpful things before I die. As you say, everyone is focused on God providing a perfect something after death, instead of focusing on creating it ourselves. We humans are so limited in our understanding - we do our best to understand the creator of the universe, but, as limited mortals, we don’t Even begin to really understand the divine infinite.
DeleteWithin Christianity I find it absurd to discuss whether or not a hymn is too protestant or if it’s too Catholic. The discussions of biblical translations or prayers seem too often about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Does anyone Really think God is as little and petty as we humans?
I have a book, written by a Jesuit, called “How big is your God.” From a reviewer
This book is supposed to help you grow in your relationship with God. It tells you bluntly that you are not supposed to know God; You are supposed to experience the Divine. And thus grow in relationship.
To do that the significant requirement is the awareness that one is made in the very image of God. One needs to be aware that God's breath is in oneself. God blew his spirit into each man and woman. So, you are the breath of God. ...
What is the part of the religion in all this? It is a help on the way to help you experience God. Sadly, Coutinho laments that religion has replaced God-experience. Religious practice has become the end in itself. People think they are spiritually happy by following the rubrics of the religion and keeping to the rituals. Religion is the well of living water. The living water is actually is supplied by the flowing river. The well is supposed to lead a person to the river of living water (God experience).
Humans try to fit God into a box. Fortunately for us, God is much bigger than that. So in heaven we might even hear angelic Asian music, The music of indigenous peoples, African drums and a whole lot of music that has nothing to do with European Christianity.
The hymn tune we use for All Creatures of our God and King is Lasst Uns Erfreuen. With plenty of alleluias. The music edition says it is from Auserlesene Catholische Geistliche Kirchengesange, Cologne, 1623. Pay me no mind. I just like music trivia.
DeleteAnne, sadly, I am a very prosaic and somewhat shallow person. I understand very little about theology, spirituality, experiencing the divine, or any of that. I get bored stiff reading about it. In my mid-20s, when I was fed up with the Unitarians, I made a study of all the people I knew who seemed to be a) happy, b) harmless, c) kind, and d) tolerant. Most of them were Catholics.
DeleteAfter a talk with my boyfriend's priest, we came to the conclusion that the Episcopalians might take me. Which they did, and that was good because most of my favorite saints are in the Anglican Calendar.
I was happy there for 20 years. I am still happy there because they still give me communion and tell me to do my best. I keep going to Mass because the Church tells me to do better.
Also, I heard a voice once. What it said was, "I am here, and I grieve with you." I was not drugged up, drunk, half asleep, or anything but wide-awake and in a calm, if sad, state. I never heard it again, but it came at the right time, and I have never stopped giving thanks for it.
If there is a Heaven, maybe I will know whose voice it was.
"I honestly don't know what "thoroughly Protestant" is or how you can tell. "
DeleteI happen to know because I am one of those irritating persons who possess a few dull and obscure facts and know where to find even more, a few of which I shall now bore everyone by sharing:
That tune "OLD HUNDREDTH" is from a 16th century collection of hymn tunes called the Genevan Psalter. Those tunes accompanied vernacular translations of Psalms, and were composed to allow Calvinists in Geneva to sing liturgical music in their secular language. Both of those elements (laypeople singing, and singing in the vernacular) were verboten by the Catholic Church. This was during the period when Calvin himself was in Geneva, so the tune was hammered out in the forge of white-hot Reformation zeal. That was what I meant by "thoroughly Protestant".
Here is a charming vignette from the life of the composer, Louis Bourgeois, courtesy of Wikipedia:
"Unfortunately, [Bourgeois] fell foul of local musical authorities and was sent to prison on 3 December 1551 for changing the tunes for some well-known psalms "without a license." He was released on the personal intervention of John Calvin, but the controversy continued: those who had already learned the tunes had no desire to learn new versions, and the town council ordered the burning of Bourgeois's instructions to the singers, claiming they were confusing. Shortly after this incident, Bourgeois left Geneva never to return ..." I am not making any snide remarks about freeing it was for Reformation Europeans to be freed from Roman shackles because it is not polite, and I doubt the Catholic Church was much better-behaved during this period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bourgeois_(composer)
Katherine - Oh yeah, I think you're right, that is the tune the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was singing. The words do fit OLD HUNDREDTH, sans the Alleluias.
DeleteAnd that is one of the great accomplishments of Vatican II, ecumenism, so that now Protestants and Catholics can swap hymns to their hearts' content. Though one time I did get a seriously fishy stare from a priest for playing Luther's "A Mighty Fortress". Even though it was in our music edition.
DeleteWe had RCC supply priest who became enraged by Amazing Grace. I was lectoring that Saturday, so was in the vestry when he went ape about how we are God's children, not wretches. He terrified the Church Ladies, who went into a spasm and had to change it at the last minute with the music director. Then the priest went off on it in his homily along with hand-holding at the Our Father, which he was against. I hate hand-holding, too, but totally beside the point. That horrid man didn't need to scare my Church Ladies like that.
Delete"A Mighty Fortress" was a great favorite of Bishop Charles Helmsing of KC-St. Joseph back in the '60s. When Vat II said he could, he did. Everywhere he went.
Delete"but the controversy continued: those who had already learned the tunes had no desire to learn new versions, and the town council ordered the burning of Bourgeois's instructions to the singers, claiming they were confusing."
DeleteHow many parishes does that describe?
Jean, sounds like your sub priest was a bit sedevacantist-y. We had one like that briefly when we lived in the Lincoln diocese. He also went off on Amazing Grace (???) I don't think he minded that we were wretches (I think he thought we were), we may have been using the alternate words anyway. Objected to a bunch of other stuff also. He wanted us to clear hymn choices with him for the Masses he celebrated. I asked the pastor if we had to get prior hymn approval. He said, "Nah. If it's in the book, you can use it." The guy was too much even for there, and got dis-incardinated, went back to Arizona or somewhere.
Delete"How many parishes does that describe?"
DeleteTom - I guess, the parishes in Geneva at that time. My guess is, that would have been fewer than those in the Chicago Archdiocese ordered by the cardinal (Cody, I think) to stop singing songs published by FEL because that publisher had the gall to expect the church to conform to copyright requirements.
Our parish has no choir (lack of interest) and the organist moved to Florida, leaving us with a neo-hippie, his gee-tar, and campfire songs as the entire music ministry. The parish sings everything at a dispiriting dirge tempo. It will be interesting to see if, when music returns, people are more enthusiastic about it. My guess is that they will complain about how it lengthens Mass.
DeleteMy best man, back in the era of Ike the Likeable, liked music, but hated the human voice. He would sit quietly tugging his ear and muttering "wah," while listening to trumpet, clarinet, trombone, piano and my Dixieland banjo, but as soon as someone put down his instrument and began "Hello, Central, give me Doctor Jazz," he would head for the exit and be seen no more. Later, when he was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, I obtained the original cast recording of Dreiroschenoper so I could tell him I was listening to the work of Comrade Bertolt -- and he couldn't -- when I wrote to him.
ReplyDeleteThe point is, some people would not enjoy heaven if it meant listening to choirs of angels. And so I have faith that those people won't hear them, just as people who can't imagine being happy without Rex or Fido will find their pet waiting by the Pearly Gates. Whatever you can't stand won't be there; whatever you need will. But I also expect tastes to change.
When I was a young man, I also much preferred instruments to the human voice. My taste has evolved over the years. Now the human voice is at the top of my list. Not that I have any issue with well-played instruments; far from it. But the instrument God gave us - or at least some of us; nobody in heaven or on earth wants to hear me sing - is the best.
DeleteI like to think if I make it to heaven I will be able to play stuff like Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat major. Because there is no way I will ever be able to play it other than very badly here, no matter how much I practice.
DeleteOff topic - Katherine has there been much reported about this in Nebraska.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/16/sad-case-ben-sasse/
Oh yes, definitely been hearing about it here. In fact I'm going to write a post on it. Stay tuned.
Delete