January 2nd was the feast day of my diaconal brother and friend, Tom Coleman. Tom died on January 2nd in 2011. He and Lucy, his wife, were inseparable all their married life, so much so, that Lucy died 17 days following Tom’s death, on January 29th.
Tom and Lucy can be best described as hardworking people, deeply committed to their faith. They were very down to earth folks. Lucy, especially, had a wonderful earthiness to herself and to her humor.
The music presented here is the music I composed for them at the time of our ordination on September 24, 1994.
Psalm Offering 3, Opus 5 (The Ordination Psalm Offerings). (c) 1994, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
I just received word that my friend, Barb Ciresi, died on New Year’s Eve. Barb is 75 years old. Barb is married to my ordination classmate, Deacon Jerry Ciresi. Barb has been suffering from advanced dementia for the last several years. Sharp, with wonderful insight, a great sense of humor tinged with a wee bit of cynicism (the product of working with doctors, the medical system, and being married to a deacon and indirectly the Church) Barb could be counted on to cut to the chase and give a well thought out, measured critique on many topics, including faith. Her wake will be on Sunday, and her funeral at Assumption, downtown St Paul, at 10 am on Monday. Below is my message to my good friend and Church comrade in arms, Jerry Ciresi.
Jerry and family,
Ruth and I cannot begin to express the great sorrow we are
feeling at the news of Barb’s death. As one married to a wonderful woman (who
like Barb is also a nurse), I know that my life revolves around my wife who is
the sun of my galaxy. I joke about living in a benevolent matriarchy, however,
truth be told, I see myself as a student learning lessons of how to love from
Ruth. While you have not expressed your relationship to Barb in those words,
Jerry, I know that she is the one person upon which you have centered your
life, and there are no words that can begin to express the emptiness you are
feeling right now. This is a time in which an honest conversation with God
begins with the question, “Just what the hell are you doing to me?”
Pious platitudes and religious sentimentality come up so empty, so meaningless.
“God has a plan” some might say. Raw emotional grief will echo back
that we know where God can stick that plan. I am sure that there were times
when Jesus muttered, “Now what!?” to God the Father. As a person of
faith, I walk with you my friend, dumbstruck, grief stricken, and pondering
another encounter with the eternal Mystery, trusting, hoping that I might be
given a brief glimmer of understanding. Ruth and I regret not being at Barb’s
wake on Sunday because our daughter, Beth, is getting married at approximately
the same time. However, I will be at Assumption to celebrate Barb’s life with
us and Barb’s life with God on Monday morning.
The feasts of the Holy Family and the Solemnity of Mary are times in which we are called to rehumanize Joseph, Mary, and, to some extent, Jesus. It is very tempting to deify Mary and Joseph, or at least, raise them to the stature of super heroes. There have been attempts throughout the past 2000 years, as recently as the 1980’s, by devotees of Mary to call on the Church to name Mary the co-mediatrix (co-redeemer). St John Paul II, one of Mary’s greatest advocates, decisively squashed those attempts. He reminded the Church that there is only one Redeemer, and that is Jesus.
These feasts serve to remind us of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus’ vulnerability as human beings. Mary’s Immaculate Conception (a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church) did not give her the ability to peer into future or give her any special powers in which to raise her son. Mary and Joseph, like all parents had to figure out how to parent their kid, day to day, moment to moment. We find in Luke’s story of the “Finding in the Temple, that Jesus, like most 12 year old adolescents, is trying to figure out who he is. He knows that there is something special about him and he seeks out the place where he thinks he can find some answers, the Temple. When Jesus comes up missing, Joseph and Mary panic, like all of us do when one of our kids is missing. Upon finding Jesus, Mary scolds Jesus for being inconsiderate and causing them great worry. When Jesus answers her cryptically, Mary does not understand his answer (welcome to parent’s world of raising an adolescent). Luke describes Mary has having to ponder in her heart what Jesus meant. Sound familiar?
On these two feasts, the Holy Family is revealed to be just like all our families with one exception, their child was both very human and very divine. Their love for their child is just as strong as the love we have for our children, even when our kids prompt us to tear out our hair and momentarily ponder about selling them to the gypsies. When we examine the commonalities between the Holy Family and our familes, we will find, perhaps to our surprise, how “holy” our own families are.
I am delighted to finally have this music available on Amazon, iTunes, and other digital services (Spotify etc)
This music is dedicated to refugee families from all over the world, especially those fleeing the violence and the poverty of their nations of origin. Like Joseph, Mary, and Jesus who were refugees to Egypt over 2000 years ago, they seek to find a safe, secure, peaceful place in which to raise their families.
With the exception of Psalm Offering 8, “In the beginning was the Word”, much of this music was composed when I was the music/liturgy director of St Hubert Catholic Community in Chanhassen, Minnesota over 40 years ago. At that time, the majority of this music was composed for four-part choir. During the summer months, I would look over the readings for the upcoming season of Advent and Christmas and plan the music for my choirs and cantors to sing. I composed a number of Advent and Christmas hymns and motets, largely based on those liturgical readings of the Advent and Christmas seasons. Some of the hymns are based on psalms, some on the prophetic texts of Isaiah, and others based on the Gospels of Christmas.
In this Opus I have taken the choral
arrangements of these Advent/Christmas Psalm settings and motets and reimagined
them exclusively for piano. In the past, some of these choral motets and psalms
were offered up as a prayer for specific people or peoples. As stated in the opening
paragraph, I have chosen to rededicate these reimagined songs to all migrant
families fleeing the poverty and dangers of their native countries.
While the prayer intent of these songs is somber and serious, the music of this opus reflects the wonder and the joy of the liturgical seasons of Advent/Christmas. The light of Christ pierced the darkness of Judea at the time of his birth. May Christ’s light pierce the darkness of our present age and lead us to the light and peace that His birth promised over 2000 years ago.
Here are 2 songs from the album.
Lord, Let Us See Your Kindness (c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
How Beautiful The Mountains (c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
For the past several years, I have gone from writing a Christmas letter to writing a Christmas poem. Here is this year’s Christmas poem.
JOSEPH’S PLAINT AT CHRISTMAS
I was awakened abruply, the words of the Angel, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt”, rang in my ear. Alarm suddenly breaks through my grogginess as I awaken Mary and the donkey to flee for our lives into darkness that lay outside the stable.
Astride a donkey, Mary, makes a cradle in her arms, safely sheltering our Child as she rides. Leaving behind our homeland, now corrupted and shredded by the violence of power, greed, and deceit, I lead my family carefully, stealthily through dark dangers to the safety of a foreign nation, to make a home amongst those who once enslaved and killed my people.
As strangers in a strange land, we are welcomed as freed people allowed to live and grow in safety and security. Awakened once more the angel’s voice calls to me in the deepness of sleep. We arise to return to the land that bore us, to fulfill our mission and, most importantly the mission of my Child.
How can my Child sleep in heavenly peace when his children, refugees like us, are ripped from the arms of their mothers and fathers, caged like animals, by those whose minds are as dark and dank as the worst of dungeons?
God’s angel weeps at the violence of a cruel humanity toward those beloved by God, the angel’s voice silenced by the fear, prejudice and greed in their hearts.
The children’s anguished cries rend the heavens, and reach my Child’s ear, in them, my Child suffers. Their fear become his fear, their hunger, his hunger, their thirst, his thirst, their imprisonment, his imprisonment, their suffering, his suffering, their poverty, his poverty, their deaths, his death.
Who will welcome my Child this Christmas? Who will protect my Child from the the dangers of the journey? Who will cradle my frightened Child in their arms? Who will dry the tears of my Child languishing in a government cage? who will welcome, feed, clothe, and shelter my Child this Christmas?
Who? Will you?
(c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
It is easy to be dazzled by the lights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the Season so much so that Christmas is reduced to mere commercial and religious sentimentality. The Prologue of John’s Gospel reminds us that all of Creation was birthed through Jesus, the Logos of God. This profound insight was grasped in the spirituality of the early Church, Sts. Francis and Clare of Assisi, and Juliann of Norwich, who spoke of Jesus as both Incarnate brother and Mother of all Creation.
To truly “keep” Christmas, we must recognize our Incarnate Lord, who is both Brother and Mother to all refugees languishing in refugee camps and U.S. prisons. In Matthew 25:31-46 we hear Jesus say, “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” As we enjoy our Christmas celebration with our families, let us pray for the families of all refugees and for the reunification of refugee families in the United States this Christmas.
Poetry, more so than prose, has the uncanny ability to
engage our lives. Poetry will challenge us and force us to reflect on the
assumptions upon which we have built our world. This is especially true about
religious poetry. Two of the most significant, modern religious poets are
Denise Levertov and Mary Oliver. On this fourth Sunday of Advent, I give you
two poems that Mary Oliver wrote about the Annunciation.
ANNUNCIATION
To the impossible: Yes!
Enter and penetrate
O Spirit. Come and bless
This hour: the star is late.
Only the absurdity of love
Can break the bonds of hate.
AFTER ANNUCIATION
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.
As Christmas draws near, may the Spirit enter and
penetrate our lives with the absurdity of love that destroys all hate and
death. May we be filled with the same irrational impulse to welcome, as Mary
did, the Child of God into our lives.
My grandson, Owen, and our Great Pyrennes puppy, Henri, both not quite 1 years of age.
On this Rejoice Sunday, the word that jumps out in the scriptures is the word “kindness.” Paul writes the Philippians, “Your kindness should be known to all.” The kindness of God to Israel is expressed in the reading from the prophet Zephaniah, “The LORD has removed the judgment against you he has turned away your enemies; the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst, you have no further misfortune to fear.” John the Baptist is exhorting his followers to act kindly toward one another, “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.” The readings exude the generosity and kindness of God to not just the Jewish people, or the Christian community, but to all the world.
The common responsorial psalm for Advent (a common responsorial psalm is one that can be used for all Sundays of a liturgical season), is Psalm 85. The response to that psalm is “Lord, let us see your kindness.” The psalm text speaks of God’s everlasting love. God’s peace and salvation is offered to all people. In God,love and faithfulness meet, justice and peace shall kiss. In spite of Israel’s many sins and betrayals of God, God’s love for Israel remains steadfast andf aithful. Kindness is the quality which flows from the faithful love of God.
Tragically, kindness that has been sorely lacking in humanity from the moment of creation.We have specialized in cruelty and harm toward others. Violence and hatred are qualities in which humanity excels, not kindness and love. Yet, if we are to achieve the fullness of our humanity, to be human as God intended humanity to be at Creation, it is God’s kindness and love in which we must wrap ourselves.If we act in kindness toward one another, there will be no conflict, no hunger,no violence, no war. All people would be cared for and loved.
This Rejoice Sunday spreads before us the abundant hope that humanity will be healed of its brokenness and sin, and be restored to full human nature. May our lives be an expression of the outpouring of God’s love, kindness and peace in our world, in which love and faithfulness will meet, and justice and peace will kiss.
As my sister, Mary Ruth, lay dying at the age of 42 years,she asked me, “Will I be remembered?” Her question is an important one. We all wonder whether the world will ever remember that we once lived. There is a haunting song entitled, “Once There Was”, composed and recorded by Tim Buckley, in which a young man asks the girl who has left him whether she will ever remember him. In the HBO Vietnam War documentary,“Letters From Home”, this song was played following the reading of a letter from a young soldier to his girlfriend. It is revealed that the young soldier was killed in the Tet Offensive.
There was an elderly nun who hearing that she had Alzheimer’s was distraught because she would not be able to remember who Jesus is. The nun’s spiritual director listened, then gently responded, “Even though you may forget who Jesus is, Jesus will never forget you.” The first reading from the prophet Baruch tells a downtrodden Jerusalem, that God has not forgotten them. Rather,God will fill Jerusalem with splendor, and all of God’s Chosen People from the East and the West will rejoice for they are remembered by God.
In the summer of 1992, I composed a hymn for the choirs at St Hubert, based on this reading from Baruch. In the text of the song, I paraphrased what we hear today. “Let us prepare a way for the Lord, let us put on the splendor of God forever. Let us gather with all people and rejoice for we are remembered by God. Upon the heights let us stand and look East and look West, and see all of God’s children, whom God brings into our midst with mercy and justice. May we be clothed with God’s robe of salvation. Wrap around us God’s mantle of justice. And go forth led in joy by God’s light that grows within us.”
During this time of increasing darkness and cold,it is easy to feel despondent and isolated. We can find ourselves in a crowd of people and still feel all alone. The scriptures for today reminds us that we are never alone. God calls us to take off our robe of mourning and misery and put on the splendor of glory from God forever. Why? God will never forget us. God will always remembers us.
Advent is a time of anticipation and a time of remembering. The scriptural readings for the first two Sundays in Advent point to the second coming of Jesus. The final two Sundays in Advent, recall the long wait of Israel for the promised Messiah. During Advent, we, as Christians, ironically find ourselves in the posture of Israel, awaiting the first coming of the Messiah. This is implied in much of the liturgical music for Advent. As we sing, “O come, O come Emanuel”, or, “O Come Divine Messiah”, or, “People Look East”, it is not the first coming of Jesus about which we sing. What we express in our Advent chants and hymns is our longing for Jesus to come to us again, just as Jesus came to the people of Israel over 2000 years ago.
The key word is the word “longing”. Do we really long for Jesus to come again? How is our longing expressed in what we say, and what we do in our preparation for Christmas? Longing for Jesus is more than just dazzling light displays set up around our homes, the smell of Christmas cookies and other treats baking in the oven, and an LED lit tree set up somewhere in our home. Longing for Jesus is more than just Christmas parties at work and within families. Looking around our Christmas decorated homes, what is in the greatest place of prominence? Is the Christmas Creche in that place of prominence or is it hidden under the boughs of the Christmas tree?
“The Word become flesh and dwelt among us” is the best definition of the word, Incarnation. Jesus, the one through whom all was created, took on our mortal form and became one with us. May we, in turn, incarnate the presence of Christ in what we say, in our relationships with others, and in those moments of silent prayer when we speak and listen to Jesus dwelling within us.
We are in our final week of this liturgical year. As Advent nears, how do we respond to the title of this feast, Jesus Christ, King and Lord of the Universe? As we celebrate this last week of Ordinary Time, how does Jesus fit in with what it means to be a King and a hero in light of human history and a media filled with images and stories of “super heroes”? The following is my bulletin reflection on this important feast.
When my kids were young, they would come home from school and turn on the television to watch the cartoon show, He-Man. He-Man, a creation of Mattel, the toy manufacturer, was depicted as a tall, blonde, behemoth on a massive amount of steroids, who fought to keep Eternia from the clutches of the evil Skeletor. Throughout human history we have elevated similar figures to herodom, some real and some fictional, in our folklore, in poetry and literature, and in our entertainment. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, King Richard the Lionhearted, William Wallace (Braveheart), George Washington, Davy Crockett, Lawrence of Arabia, Rambo, to name just a few, capture the human imagination with their exploits, some based on truth, and much, on very elaborated fiction.
On this Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, one would think that with our human fixation on “heroes” such as those listed, we might see Jesus as some Marvel hero, dressed in a spandex super hero suit, packing six-pack abs, rippling muscles, square jaw, and a big JC emblazoned on his chest. However, Jesus was the complete antithesis of what human imagination depicts as a King and hero. With the exception of his own blood, Jesus ushered into our world a bloodless revolution that utterly changed our world. He was not a commander of vast armies. His name had none of the appellations we like to attach to the names of our heroes, like Lionhearted, the Great, or, the Terrible. Rather, the only appellation we attach to Jesus’ name is, “the Christ.”
If we want an image of a true hero, I encourage us to meditate upon the image of Jesus on the cross of San Damiano. We see the crucified Jesus, not dead, but alive. The witnesses of his crucifixion to the right and left of the cross. The angels on the crossbeam marveling in awe at the crucified Lord. At the top of the cross is the victorious Jesus rising from the dead in the company of ten angels. Jesus was born so that he would destroy our death by his own death, and with his resurrection from the dead raise us to eternal life. He used no guns, no swords, nor explosives. His only weapon was love, namely his love for God, his Father, and his love for us. Now that is a true hero!
