We Long to See Your Face, O Lord

The Second Sunday of Lent the Church climbs the mountain with Peter and James and John. And there, at the mountain top, in the glory of the transfigured Christ, we burst into song, or as the Latin Introit says:  

My heart sings to you: “Your face have I sought; I shall ever seek your face, O Lord.” [Ps 26]

The most clarifying writing I know about this extraordinary event, writing illuminating the already luminous Transfiguration, is by Seattleite, Gregory Wolfe  the Publisher and Editor of  IMAGE—a Journal of the Arts & Religion.  With the permission of IMAGE I will borrow Gregory’s radiant words for this week’s ChoirNotes. [IMAGE no. 27, Summer 2000, pp 3-4].   Gregory Wolfe wrote:

Of all the passages in the Bible that relate to beauty as a window onto the divine, the most neglected, and most important, is[this week’s Gospel], the story known as the Transfiguration.    On the surface, nothing about this episode speaks directly about art, beauty, or the imagination. . . .Hans Urs von Balthasar, arguably the greatest Catholic theologian of the 20^thcentury, . . .  believed that the word “glory” in the Bible is synonymous with the beauty of God.   Of the three transcendental attributes of God—truth, goodness, and beauty—von Balthasar held that beauty . . .provides us with the clearest path to [a glimpse of the Divine.] . . .

[We will hear in this Sunday’s Gospel that] Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to the mountain to pray.   There his countenance is altered and his garments shine with a blinding light.  At his side appear Moses and Elijah. . . 

Glory is experienced as a transformation that does not consume or destroy what is being transformed.   The ordinary becomes extraordinary without becoming something wholly other.. . .

It’s when we turn to the disciples and their reactions that the story beings to take on elements of both comedy and pathos.  Heavy with sleep, their senses dulled, the disciples are not prepared for this sudden blast of cosmic radiation. . . .

Some of the early Church fathers held that in the Transfiguration it was the disciples who changed. Not Christ.  Because their perception grew sharper, they were able to behold Christ as he truly is. . . . 

At its best, [our singing at Mass] transfigures the world around us for a brief time, strives to let the radiance of truth, goodness and beauty flash out for an instant.   [Our singing together] wakes us up, trains our perceptions. . . .The purpose of [sacred music] is not to strand us in an alternate world, but to return us to the realm of the ordinary, only with new eyes[and new ears!].” 

Thank you Gregory.  

Sunday as the Choir of Hope sings, may we together transfigure “the world around us for a brief time” as we strive “to let the radiance of beauty flash out for an instant.”

Excellent work  last evening dear Choir of Hope--worthy of our upcoming celebration of the Beauty of God.   Together, unified, watching both of the conductor's for each detail--One Body.

Best of all was the warmth of your welcome to our newest singers:   Aaron, Brandon and Khristy.

thank you 

JBS