Author: Deacon Bob

I have been so busy composing music over the past 6 months I have neglected posting any reflections on the Sunday readings. I hope to rectify this beginning to day.

In the readings for this weekend, Isaiah 22:19-23, Matthew 16:13-20, and Romans 11:33-36, the subject of just and wise leadership comes in focus. In the Isaiah reading God is telling Shebna, master of the palace, that he will be deposed because of his corruption, and that Eliakim will be raised in his place. In Matthew’s Gospel, after Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus tells Peter that he will be head of the Church. In his letter to the Romans, Paul tells the community how ludicrous it is for humanity to think that humanity, creatures of God, can in any way give counsel to God, who created them.

These readings about leadership are important during this time of such examples of failed leadership, not only politically but also religiously. By in large, our political and religious leadership are failing us. There was a time when the USCCB were a prophetic group of bishops. Their coverup and/or complicity in the criminal sexual abuse of vulnerable children and adults has completely robbed them of any teaching authority, especially in the areas of human sexuality, the majority of the faithful turning to other sources, equally poor in some cases, for counsel in the area of human sexuality.

Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, the trust and the power entrusted to Peter by Jesus, is not easily transferred from one pope to another. The popes have been a collection of very broken men, and in some cases, Julian II and the Borgia popes, very evil men.

What can be said about the American bishops can also be said about most religious leaders today. The leadership of the evangelical Churches easily turn their heads aside about the crimes being committed among their own leadership and the political leadership of our nation. The religious leadership of all the world religions are largely held suspect today, with many people abandoning the religious faith of their parents to seek elsewhere for spiritual life.

Then we get to the political leadership we have before us today. The trust in the leadership in our executive branch of our government, our judicial branch of government and in our legislative branch in our government has been eroded but the out and out lies told everyday by the president, by many of the senators, and many of our representatives. The Attorney General has attacked the truth in the judiciary. Seemingly, the only place we can put our trust in the Federal government these days are in our Federal judges.

Has it always been this way? Well, the answer is yes. The early Church is not without its faults. In Galatians, Paul accuses Peter of being a spineless, blithering idiot, and calls James the anti-Christ. The Council of Jerusalem was an attempt by the early Church leaders to piece together precariously a largely divided Church. It is obvious that the early Church was not quite the panacea we like to sentimentally think. It was as messy and broken as our current Church. The political leadership, though largely an empirical monarchy was as corrupt as many of the governments today.

So the question that faces us today is simply: “Who can we trust?”

This is why Paul’s words to the Roman community are so important for us today.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given the Lord anything
that he may be repaid?
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)

Given the flawed state of religious and political leadership for the Roman community, Paul wisely counsels them to be careful as to whom they entrust authority. Places in society, power, and prestige are weak indicators of wisdom and leadership. These are merely the trappings of leadership but not true leadership. Whether one be a bishop, a priest, or some other cleric, or a president, senator, representative, or some other government position does not mean they are to be entrusted with power.

So, who can we trust? Paul says very simply, God. For from God and through God and for God are all things.

Jesus tells us in the Gospel that the actions and intent of people speak volumes about who they are. Those who are more about serving others as opposed to being self-serving are people to be trusted. Those who are willing to sacrifice themselves out of love for others, are to be trusted. Those who think about the common good of all people are to be trusted. And, of course, the criteria by which to evaluate people and issues given to us by Jesus (Matthew 25:31-46) is most important. Do they: 1) feed the hungry; 2) give drink to the thirsty; 3) welcome the stranger; 4) clothe the naked; 5) care for those who are sick; and, 6) visit the imprisoned? If their life reflect ministering to others in these six areas, then, they are to be trusted because they are ministering to people as Jesus ministered to people. In doing all these actions it is indicative that they are being counseled by God.

Had Dad lived to see this day, he would have been 105 years old. He was a man of great faith, a man of great compassion, and a man of great integrity. The values that guided his life and by which he lived were God, family, and honor. He is the least self-centered of men that I have ever known. During the Depression, his family like many families suffered greatly. My grandmother would walk down the hill at night (Midwesterners think “mountain”) to the town of Turtle Creek, PA to scrub the floors of the taverns in the town. As a kid, Dad would often make that same walk down at night to help her scrub those floors so that she could get home before 2 a.m. His compassion and concern for others was a hallmark of his entire life. Color of skin, religion, language, and social status meant nothing to Dad. He treated all with the same amount of respect and kindness regardless of whether a person was an executive of a company or a homeless man on the corner.

I have two very distinctive memories from my infancy. The first, was coming home from the hospital. My folks lived in an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago. I remember being passed around to our neighbors who lived in the apartment below us. When I was handed to Mr. Burress, who smelled of cigarettes and beer, I was most displeased and created quite a fuss.

The second memory was that of my Dad walking me at night. As we would pace through the apartment, Dad would hum the same little tune over and over, lulling me to sleep. That tune is something I have never forgot. This past June, I took the little tune that Dad hummed and created a song out of it. The first two measures is the little melody Dad would hum. I just expanded it into this song. The song is in the form of a “Galop”. The Galop was a forerunner of the modern day polka. Along with his famous waltzes, Johann Strauss Jr, “The Waltz King”, composed as many Galops.

In honor of my Dad, one whose “sandals I am not worthy to fasten”, I present this little tune as a birthday present.

I rarely dedicate a Psalm Offering (prayer song) to myself. In all of the 130 + piano songs I have composed, I have only dedicated one to myself, and that was back in 1975. I generally dedicate them in memory of someone I have loved and admired, or give them as gifts to those I love, have befriended and admire. However, this song, “The Celestial Fiddler” Psalm Offering 10 Opus 14, I dedicate to myself on the occasion of my 68th birthday.

When I was a wee lad, my Great Aunt Sarah, who was as Irish as Irish can be, told me stories about my Great Grandpap Marron, a noted Irish fiddler, who played many a dance. He was often accompanied by my Great Grandmother who played the tin whistle (also known as a penny whistle). My Great Aunt Sarah thought that the genes of her father was very much present in me. Little did I know at that time in my young life the role that music was going to play in my life, eventually becoming part of my life’s work. I never mastered the violin. When I was taking my instrumental technique classes learning to play a vast variety of brass, reed, string, and percussion instruments, I was told by Sister Katherine Kessler that I just didn’t have the wrists to play violin properly. It was a good thing I majored on piano and minored in voice. Alas, I would never be the fiddler my Great Grandfather was. However, I could compose an Irish air, and Irish jig, and an Irish reel.

So to honor my 68th birthday, I composed this song, “The Celestial Fiddler.” It is representative of an Irish music set, in which Traditional Irish Music Bands play a number of jigs and reels interlaced with one another in a long music set. The music is a combination of three songs: an air, a jig and a reel. All the while I was composing this, I had in the back of my mind one of my favorite poems from William Butler Yeats:

The Fiddler Of Dooney[1]

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney.
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With “Here is the fiddler of Dooney!”
And dance like a wave of the sea.

William Butler Yeats

[1] The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats, © 1983, 1989 by Anne Yeats. Macmillan Publishing Company, 866 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

I have begun composing a new Opus (collection of music) that I am entitling “Songs During the Time of a Pandemic.” This song is based on a poem/reflection I wrote as I saw footage of refrigerator trucks bringing many of the unnamed, unknown victims of this deadly virus to mass graves outside New York City. Here is the poem/reflection:

NEVER FORGOTTEN

The pandemic cuts a long swath
through the human population,
bodies gathered and scattered
through emergency rooms,
intensive care units, and
long lines of refrigerator trucks
patiently waiting its human cargo.
So many dead, many unknown,
seemingly forgotten by family and friends,
their funeral, the quiet ride
to a massive pauper’s grave.
Though forgotten by humanity,
not so by the One who loves
and named them at conception.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

This prayer song is in the musical form “Variations on a Theme”. The brief melody is played at the beginning, with resulting musical variations on that melody. In this prayer song, the original melody, in the key of D minor, is restated in a Baroque polyphonic variation, followed by a lilting dance, followed by jig, followed by a fugue, followed by a waltz, and then three more variations which get darker in sound before ending in the melody in the key of D major.

I chose Variations on a Theme to reflect all the different people who have been silenced by this plague. There is not one segment of our population that has not been touched by the horror of this virus. Wealth, status, culture, country of origin, age are no protection from this plague. It kills the rich as well as the poor. It kills the white population as readily as it kills those people of color. It kills the good and the bad. It kills the smart and the stupid alike. This virus is an equal opportunity killer of human life, and so, whether one’s origins are European, Black American, Latino, Asian, Native American, all cultures and all nationalities are infected.

While this all sounds grim and somber, and the music is primarily in a minor key area, the music is not depressing but alternates between light dance, agitation, sorrow, light heartedness, then progressively darker in tone before ultimately ending in hope.

Over the time of this pandemic, we have heard numerous accounts of a spouse or a son and daughter, peering through a window as a loved one dies from Covid-19. When this plague was raging in the Chicago area, my grand nephew, Steven, was being born in a Chicago hospital at the same time many people on other floors were dying from Covid-19. This juxtaposition of death and birth is being played out in hospitals all over our nation, and all over the world.

After some tinkering with the words, I wrote this observational poem Juxtaposition 1 and last week composed music expressing this juxtaposition of sorrow and joy. I decided to use the old Johann Sebastian Bach form of “Prelude and Fugue”. The Prelude in a minor key, at a slow tempo expressing the grief of people witnessing the death of a loved one. The Fugue in a major key expressing the joy and wonder of people looking upon their newborn infant.

Here is the poem.

JUXTAPOSITION 1

Faces stricken,
painted in grief,
peer through the glass barrier
into the room,
as ventilators are removed
from loved ones, and
last breaths are expelled.

Faces, wonderstruck,
painted with excitement,
peer through the window glass,
into the nursery
as newborn infants are
laid in bassinettes, and,
the first of many breaths begin.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved

Here is the music.

At approximately 2 a.m. on August 10th, 1997, with my Dad, my Mom, my brother, Bill, Ruthie, our daughters Meg, and Beth, and her good friend, Bob Conlin, my sister, Mary Ruth died from Chron’s disease. She had been battling Crohns long before it had a name. As an occupational therapist and having a brilliant mind, Mary knew more about her illness than her internist. Hours earlier, with only me keeping vigil by her side, Mary briefly came out of her coma and requested a sip of 7-Up and some ice chips. She looked at me and said, “You know this really sucks, don’t you?” I replied, “I do, Mary.” Affirmed, she slipped back into a coma she would not come out of again.

We stopped briefly at a Holiday Station in Burnsville on the way home did get some pop to drink the remaining 35 minutes to our house. I think Ruthie and I went to bed around 3:30 am, woke at 9 am and drove back up to Roseville. We stopped off at a Bridgeman’s to have something to eat and met Mom and Dad at the funeral home to make funeral arrangements for Mary. Funeral plans were made with the parish of St Rose of Lima in Roseville. On my birthday, August 12th, I led the vigil prayers at Mary’s wake, and composed the homily for her funeral Mass. On August 13th, we had Mary’s funeral. I assisted the pastor at Mass, preached at her funeral, and then did all the graveside prayers at the cemetery.

About 6 months later, my Mom told me about a very vivid dream she had about Mary. Mom described this dream as being very real. She said that she came to the door of a lovely house, knocked and a beautiful woman with long hair opened the door and invited her in. She was led to a room that had a two way mirror like window, like you might find in a police station. As she peered through the window, she saw my sister, Mary Ruth, on the floor playing with little children. All the ravages of Chrohn’s disease were gone, her face full and lovely, Mary’s body was no longer emaciated from the disease, but looked healthy and well. There was a bearded young man in the room with Mary who looked upon the scene with a gentle, pleasant smile. The beautiful woman led my mother to a waiting room where mom took a seat. The young bearded man led my sister into the waiting room, at which point my sister hugged my mother and said to her, “You no longer have to worry about me, Mom. I am very happy.” My sister kissed my mother on the cheek and left the room, with the young man. Mom said the beautiful woman led her to the door, and Mom left the house. At this point, Mom said to me, “I am so at peace knowing Mary is so very healthy. You know, I think that beautiful woman was the Blessed Mother, and the young bearded man was Jesus.” From that point onward, Mom no longer grieved my sister’s death, confident that the child she loved so much was so infinitely happy and at peace. My dad, who was so very close to my sister through all her health crises never had a similar experience, or, at least he never said anything about having one to me or my mom.

About 20 years later, I took sketches of a song I had dedicated to my sister, and formed them into this musical prayer for my sister, Mary. I have submitted this more than once. On this feast day marking her birth into heaven, I submit it again.

At this time, last year, I was busy composing a number of poems. Having just completed three collections of music, 33 piano songs in the last 3 1/2 months, I have been pondering what to do next.

While thinking of the creativity that past pandemics had created, e.g. The Decameron by Boccacio, written during the time of the Black Death that killed a third of the population of Europe, I thought I would like to create some kind of anthology of music and poetry for the present pandemic.

I am calling this collection “Songs During the Time of a Pandemic.” To start, I began composing four poems, perhaps limiting the poems to no more than ten poems. The music I have not begun to compose.

I have below, the beginning of four poems. They will more than likely be adjusted, reworded, but it’s a beginning before they take their final form. I present them for you to consider.

PARADOX 1

A face painted with grief
Peers into the room
Through the window glass,
As the ventilator is removed
From a loved one, and
A last breath is taken.

A face painted with wonder
And excitement peers
Through the window glass,
As an infant is laid
In an incubator, and
The first of many breaths begins.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

DESERTED PLACES

Long deserted, those secluded spots
where sexuality was explored,
car windows fogged over
by the breath of its occupants,
shaky adolescent hands
fumbling with buttons and catches,
a stroke here, a grope there,
an indignant slap leaving its mark
across the cheek of the offending,
a hickey, like the mark of Cain,
adoring the neck of the willing.

A pandemic plucks the blossoms
Off of young adolescent love.
Social distancing hard to attain
In even the largest vehicles,
Near occasions of sin, both
Minor and major, out of reach.
The facial mask, the chastity
Belt for exploring lips, thwarting
even the most chaste of kisses.
The buildup of hormones threaten
To burst adolescents asunder,
Confessionals as empty as
Hospital maternity wards,
I fear for the propagation
Of the human race.

(c) by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

NOT ALONE AND FORGOTTEN

The pandemic cuts a long swathe
Through the human population,
Bodies gathered and scattered
Through emergency rooms,
Intensive care units, and
Long lines of refrigerator trucks
Patiently waiting for its human cargo.
So many died unknown, seemingly
Forgotten by family and friends,
Their funeral, the quiet ride
To a mass pauper’s grave.
Though forgotten by humanity,
Not so by the One who loved
And named them at conception.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

PARADOX 2

So many walk,
eyes cast downward,
Draped in black,
Bruised and battered
By the sting of death.
Their loved one placed
Among the community
Of the non-living, who
Will now attend
To their future needs.

Across the town,
Faces lift skyward,
Adorned in white,
Young love’s promises
Dreams to be fulfilled,
And new life generated.
They take their place
In the community
Of the living, who
Will now attend
To their future needs.

Love triumphs over death,
Plucking from death its sting.

(c) 2020 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

In this part of our Paschal Journey, we begin to discern what God has planned for us in the future. We reflect on how we have changed and the gifts and the knowledge we must share with others. As you meditate on the music, think about the nudges you have felt from the Holy Spirit in your life? To what has the Holy Spirit called you in your life? To what is the Holy Spirit calling you in the present? One thing will always be true and consistent as we continue to receive the breath and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. We will always be in a state of evolution. Just as we cannot go back to who we were at the onset of our Paschal journey, so we will continue to evolve into what God is calling us to be during our Paschal journey in life.

The music I call “Psalm Offerings” are songs that I have composed as a gift to others or in memory of those I love. I have always thought of these songs as a prayer-song for the person to whom it is dedicated. I have also found these songs to be a prayer of healing.

I would like to use as an example a song I composed in memory of my brother, Bill. Siblings are bonded together by love. As with most siblings, I loved and still love my brother, Bill. However, I disliked some of what he did with his life. Bill was addicted to two substances, alcohol and tobacco. It was his abuse of both of these substances that ended his life at the age of 68 years.

Bill’s abuse of alcohol damaged the relationships he had with others, specifically, his family. It is well known that alcohol has a devastating effect on the brain, and the ability to think clearly. Over a long time, alcohol alters the personality of a person. So it was with my brother, Bill. Alcohol sabotaged his ability to work, his ability to think clearly, and his ability to make good choices. When drinking he was verbally abusive. He was, deep inside, a good person, but alcohol prevented that side of my brother to come to the fore. Alcohol amplified all the worse qualities of my brother and smothered the good qualities.

When I received the news that my brother died, I was not surprised. The effects of tobacco and alcohol over many years of life had destroyed his health long before. I felt two distinct emotions, namely, sadness and anger.

With my dad, mom, and sister, Mary Ruth, dead, Bill was my last surviving family member. I loved my brother and was saddened at his dying. He was now absent from my life. I was angry at my brother because he had so much going for himself. He was bright and ambitious when younger. He had a heart for just causes and worked to better the common good when he was younger, even though, like Cervantes’ hero, Don Quixote, he was a bit quixotic in charging windmills. He had a wonderful wife, three wonderful kids. All of this he abandoned because of alcohol. It was as if his love of alcohol, overruled his love for his family and everything else. I could see it. His family and friends could see it. However, Bill was unable or incapable to see it. I felt anger because Bill had seemingly wasted his life away.

Of course, no one’s life is worthless. Bill had contributed to the world three wonderful human beings, his daughters, Joan and Nora, and his son, Joe. They are truly remarkable people whose lives have made the world so much better. I know he loved him them dearly, and said as much to me. However, from my point of view, his addiction prevented him from expressing that love clearly to them.

It has been a year and three months from the time of his funeral in April 2019. I still felt these two conflicting emotions of sadness and anger toward my brother. I have always remembered my family members by name in praying night prayer. This has not changed now that Bill has died. At the moment of my brother’s death, our loving, merciful and compassionate God healed Bill of all that had broken Bill’s life. I know that Bill is at peace and healed. So, it is not Bill who needs healing. I am the one who is need of healing.

As I was composing the music for A Paschal Journey, I composed a prayer-song for my brother, “At Prayer in the Kidron Valley.” In the composing of this music, the anger I felt toward my brother softened. As my brother is at peace with God, now, so I am at peace with my brother. I still love him and miss him. I regret that his life was ruined and shortened by his addictions. But, I am at peace with him and have moved on.

Here is Bill’s song.

Toward the end of his life, the Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, began to write about the “liturgy of the world.” Simply stated, Rahner was saying that the action of liturgy is not isolated to the four walls of a church building. Rather, all of life is one grand liturgy.

When I was a kid, my dad use to talk about Sunday Catholics. When I asked him what he meant by that, he told me that there were some people who were Catholic only during that hour when they were at worship on Sunday. Outside of that one hour a week, you would never know by the way they acted that they were Christian at all. Dad taught me that what we did on that one hour a week was to shape how we lived all the rest of the hours outside the church during the week. In Dad’s own way, he was saying the same thing that Rahner was saying.

We like to compartmentalize things in our life. For years the Catholic Church was no different. The Church like to separate things including music into compartments of that which was profane and that which was sacred. For instance, all music in duple meter (e.g. 2/4 or 4/4 meter) was considered the “Devil’s Meter”, and all music in triple meter (eg. 3/4 or 6/8 meter) was considered “Sacred Meter”, because three beats in a measure was deemed Trinitarian. Of course, that was all nonsensical.

In its simplest form, and applying this to music, Rahner is saying that the music of our lives is “liturgical”. In other words, a song does not necessarily have the word “God” or “Ave Maria” attached to it to make it liturgical in a broad sense.

For some Christian traditions, dance music and dancing is discouraged, even sinful. Why? It goes back to this unfounded notion that dancing is evil. Dance music is in the realm of the Devil. This is believed, even though, music and dance plays a huge part in the liturgical life of our Jewish brothers and sisters in the Hebrew Testament. As a good practicing Jewish man, Jesus would have danced at weddings and other Jewish liturgical celebrations.

I am calling this new collection of music “The Celestial Dance”. While there are many forms of music in this new collection, it is primarily a collection of dances. Estampie, Sarabande, Jig, Blues, Polonaise, Tango, Tarantella, Galop, Waltz etc.

Below is a Tarantella I composed for this collection. I dedicate this song to my good friend, Joey Nytes.