Author: Deacon Bob

Mom died on June 30th, 2018 at the age of 97 years. She would be 99 years old today. It is a bittersweet anniversary for me. It is remarkable as to how many lives she touched over the years. Gracious, well-mannered (as kids we didn’t have the “Golden Books” for stories that other kids had, we had books on manners and how to eat at the dinner table), intelligent, loving, and a wee bit anal compulsive (she has the cleanest dirt on the block), she was the perfect companion for my dad.

As my hair has been growing longer over these Covid-19 days, I was fondly remembering the time when I was in college, when I started wearing denim shirts, blue jeans, boots, grew a moustache, and grew my hair longer that she accused me of being a hippie. I told her there was a little more to being a hippie than wearing boots, denim shirts, blue jeans, growing a mustache, and growing my hair longer. I, of course, didn’t tell her I was smoking pot every now and again (I am a musician after all, and I had to maintain the tradition of many American musicians including Louie Armstrong, Gene Krupa, and other musicians). She thought I cleaned up considerably after I married Ruthie, and started my career as an educator.

Day after day, I see within myself the great influence that she and Dad had on me in my life (even if I inherited the recessive Swedish genes that have attacked my joints … according to my Irish Aunt Mary). I am forever thankful to this wonderful woman and celebrate this anniversary of her birth with great joy.

Below is one of my first piano compositions that I gave to my mom on her birthday in 1972. Happy birthday, Mom!

When I was a kid, about the same time that the Russians launched the satellite Sputnik, and in response, the U.S. launched the satellite Echo, I was enthralled with the wonder that nations began the process of exploring the heavens and starting our own attempts to travel into space. Equally enthralling was Vatican II, begun by the courage of the man, whose memory I honor today. He took a Church frozen for over 400 years in the Counter-Reformation and updated that Church to the 20th century. He cast out of the Church the oppressive Latin liturgies, the horrific Requiem Masses (that make most horror films seem lame, e.g. read the English translation of the Dies Irae I use to sing at Requiem Masses … thankfully it was in Latin otherwise I would have had unending nightmares). A Church is which every little transgression was a mortal sin condemning the individual to eternal hell fire. John XXIII began the process of opening the doors of the Church to all Christian denominations, to all religions, beginning the process of ecumenism that sought to seek the presence of God in all religions, and ending the centuries of condemnation of all religions outside the Catholic faith. We ceased to be a people of death, and became a people of the Resurrection. To hear our prayers in our own language, and to be able to participate once more fully in the official prayer of our Church was liberating and uplifting to our souls.

This great man, a true servant of THE Servant of God, Jesus Christ, at Vatican II opened the windows of the Roman Catholic Church and threw all that oppressive crap out the window, and let fresh air and light of God permeate the dim, dark recesses of the Church again.

It is no great secret that I do not respect nor have any admiration for John Paul II, whom the hierarchy has lifted to the level of a saint, something I still oppose and a feast day, along with that of Pius X, I refuse to acknowledge. John Paul II did everything in his power to shut the windows that John XXIII opened, and to repress and oppress the Roman Catholic Church. Tragically for the faithful, John Paul II’s followers, those ordained within the past 30 years have done everything in their power to return the Roman Catholic Church to the dark ages. This is something I will oppose to my last breath. I will have nothing to do with these Sons of Trent.

Today, however, is a day to rejoice in the life of John XXIII, and to be thankful that finally one of his successors, Pope Francis I, has taken up the banner of Vatican II, seeking to fulfill the plan that John XXIII put into motion, again.

Initially, I began the composition of this fugue in honor of John XXIII, in 1971. It began as a fragment of a two part fugue. I played around with it for several years, finally completing it in 1975 (during the span of the time between 1971 and 1975, I was completing my Bachelor degree in Music, courting and marrying my beloved, Ruth, and working to pay for my education).

In honor of this great human being, I offer it up as prayer song in his memory.

Back in 2017 following the murder of Philando Castille, I composed a song cycle of prayer songs for our Broken World. Among the nine songs for victims killed by violence, victims of sexual abuse, Immigrants and refugees, victims of big business, victims of hunger, victims of religious prejudice, those denied health care, is a song of victims of racial prejudice.

As our nation, once more, is torn apart by the cruelty of human against human, we must remember that there is only ONE race, the Human Race.

I invite you to listen to this song as a prayer for those who have suffered from racial prejudice, all those who have lost property and livelihood during this heightened time of violence and pray that God may heal our brokenness and raise our awareness that we are all children of God equally loved by the God who created us.

I found it appropriate that I completed composing the last song of my song cycle, “A Paschal Journey” on the eve of Pentecost, the last feast of the Paschal Season.

This new song cycle is scheduled to be available on iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, CD Baby, YouTube and other streaming services around June 13th. Hopefully, I will have CDs of the music by the third or fourth week of June.

There are thirteen songs, six of which I have posted here on my blog, thus far, in this song cycle. All of them songs that can be used for meditation, prayer, or just for listening. The songs are: 1) Prelude- Lord Have Mercy; 2) Create In Me A New Heart; 3) On Knees Washing Feet; 4) Love One Another; 5) At Prayer In The Kidron Valley; 6) In the Crucible; 7) Pieta; 8) Resurrection; 9) Mystagogy – With Magdalene In The Garden; 10) Mystagogy – On The Shore Of Lake Tiberias; 11) Mystagogy – Standing On Mount Oliviet; 12) Come Holy Spirit; and, 13) Jesus Through Me.

As we prepare to enter into the crucible awaiting us, our disposition is one of great prayer to God to sustain us during the suffering we will have to endure. The suffering ahead for us and what lies beyond the suffering is unknown, and it is our fear of the unknown that is most frightening to us.

Within a week after my first hip replacement in June of 2011, I got a MRSA infection. I prayed to God that the strong, unpleasant antibiotic I was taking would kill the infection. After six weeks of unpleasantness, the course of the antibiotic ended. Within a week the MRSA infection came back with a vengeance. I was told by my surgeon that the artificial hip had to be removed. My regular doctor told me I was allergic to the the antibiotic I had been taking to kill the MRSA. Never had I been so on the cusp of despair. As a physical therapist observed to me later, he never saw me so despondent as I was at that time.

Little did I know the suffering that was going to be ahead for me. It was my moment in the Kidron Valley as I faced the great unknown of my future and how it would alter my life forever.

It was only in my reflecting back on this that I discovered that this was my moment when my life intersected with that of Jesus as he faced the torture and the execution of the next day. My life merged with the suffering of Jesus as we both stood before the great unknown and all we could do was pray to a God seemingly silent to our agony.

In our Paschal Journeys, we will all spend our time in the Kidron Valley fully knowing that what we will face will be terrible, and in desperation pray to God to sustain us and support as we enter into that suffering.

As you listen to this prayer song, “At Prayer In The Kidron Valley”, meditate on those moments in your life when you prayed to God for support and comfort, especially as you were confronted with the unknown of suffering that awaited you. In the Passion accounts of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus desperately prays to our Abba God, and God was seemingly deaf to Jesus’ prayer. Only in Luke’s account does God respond to the pleas of Jesus by sending an angel to comfort Jesus. In our moments in the Kidron Valley, was God silent to our pleadings, or did God send an angel in the form of a friend, a family member, or a nurse to comfort us.

This song is dedicated in memory of my brother, Bill, who died on February 1, 2019.

On our Paschal Journey, we come to the fourth step in which we learn the Great Commandment of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus teaches his disciples the Great Commandment of loving God, neighbor, and oneself early on in his ministry. He then explains in depth what those words mean. “Love your enemies.” “Pray for those who persecute you.” Not content to just leave this teaching at speaking mere words, Jesus in the remainder of the Gospels teaches his disciples by putting those words into action in the way he lived his life.

In John’s account, Jesus does not teach this Great Commandment early on in the Gospel. He reserves this teaching to the night prior to his torture and execution at the hands of Jewish religious authorities and Roman authorities.

After he has washed the feet of his disciples, and then shared a meal with them (it should be noted that Judas Iscariot was present for both of these events), knowing that his disciples’ lives and faith would be shaken to the core, he teaches them one last time. Scripture scholars call this the “Last Supper Discourse”. During this teaching, he warns his disciples of the events that are about to take place, and tries to comfort them. He then gives his greatest teaching, that is “to love one another as I have loved you.” The next day, Jesus demonstrates to the disciples and to the world the weight of his words. The great biblical scholar, Fr Jerome Murphy-O’Connor stated in his commentary on Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians that it was God’s love that gave us the Eucharist, and Jesus’ love for us, demonstrated in his passion, death, and resurrection, gave substance to the words of the Eucharist.

Regardless of which Passion account from the four Gospels, it should be observed that even though Jesus was tortured, spat on, kicked, abused and was cruelly nailed to one of the greatest instruments of pain, torture and execution, he did not curse any of those who heaped so much spiritual, emotional, and physical hatred upon him. The Jewish religious leaders deride him, mock him, and curse him as he hangs in intolerable agony, yet, Jesus does not call upon his Abba God to kill them. Jesus does not wishes them any harm whatsoever. Rather, he calls upon his Abba God to forgive them. As he breathes his last breath, Jesus exhales not hatred but love for his enemies. He prays for all those who have plotted, tortured, and executed him.

In this fourth stop on our Paschal Journey, to prepare for the Crucible that looms ahead for us, we are called by Jesus to love as he loves.

This is so utterly simple a commandment, and at the same time, given our human nature, so seemingly an impossible commandment to keep. We have all suffered abuse from others. In our second stop on this journey we have asked God to open our awareness to the stony places that the abuse and mistreatment of others has placed in our hearts. In this fourth step, we are now called by God to forgive those who have caused us so much pain. Why?

Henri Nouwen, in a book he co-authored about Aging, wrote that we have two choices in life as we age. We can either age into grace, or we can age into bitterness. If we do not learn and to put into practice the Great Commandment of Jesus, we are doomed to have bitterness consume our lives. This does not mean that we cannot be critical of the behavior of others. Jesus did not hesitate to point out the falsehoods and the false teachings of his religious authorities. He was quite implicit about speaking against their shortcomings. But, he also demonstrated that he did not hate them, rather, he was raising his concern out of love for them.

When I was dating my beloved Ruth, I remember my mother-in-law, Rose, correcting one of Ruth’s siblings. Rose said, “I love you, but right now I don’t like you very much.” Rose was not going to excuse the bad behavior of her children, but at the same time she expressed and reassured them that she would love them to the end. (It should be noted that I never heard my mother-in-law express this to my beloved bride. Ruth was always a respectful and perfect child.)

So here, in this fourth step of our Paschal Journey, we sit with Jesus and his disciples and listen once more to this great teaching that Jesus imparts to us before he leaves for the Kidron Valley, his subsequent arrest, torture, and execution.

As we listen to this music, let us meditate on whom we are called to love. Who are we called to love more than others, namely, our enemies and those who persecute us? Do we find ourselves plotting revenge against them? The great comedian W.C. Fields expressed this as “thinking thoughts that would make a coroner quail.”? Can we motivate ourselves to pray for them? This is a major part of our Paschal Journey. This very necessary step prepares us for the hardship that awaits us. It is not easy. I am still fighting the inclination to wish harm upon my enemies. In the words of my dear departed mother-in-law, to “Love them even though I don’t like them right now.”

In our Paschal Journey, 1) like Moses, we have encountered a mystery and a power that is far greater than ourselves; and, 2) and have asked that Higher Power to transform our hearts from stone into flesh.

In the Passion account of John, Jesus teaches us the next step of getting down on our knees and washing the feet of others. St Francis of Assisi marveled at this great act of humility modeled by Jesus. Francis observed that the One through whom all life was created (see Prologue of John’s Gospel), gets down on his knees and washes the feet of those he had created.

Joined to the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, our next step is that of humility. We all must either literally or figuratively learn to get down on our knees and wash the feet of those most in need. Jesus teaches us that this is something we all must do. It is in our ministering to others that we discover our common bond as human beings. All the facades we build around ourselves fall down. The false self in which we like to clothe ourselves gets stripped away.

In ministry, I have found, like many others, that in our ministering to those in need, we find the person we have come to help ministering to us instead. I discovered this early on in ministry, but especially so as I ministered to the Latino communities in the parishes to which I was assigned. I was astounded at the great faith, the great generosity, the great kindness of the Latino people, many of whom had very little, many of whom were trying to make their way through the unknowns of the American culture. I admired the way they faced all the challenges of a new land, the long hours that they worked, and how they relied on those in their community to support and sustain them.

In the washing of their feet, I found myself humbled by the way they washed mine. In my washing their feet and in their washing my feet, I discovered my true self.

The music that accompanies this part of our Paschal Journey is meant to be more a musical painting of that celebrated scene in which Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.

As you listen to the music, remember the times your feet have been washed by others. Remember the times you got your knees to wash the feet of others. In our learning humility we must first strip ourselves of our egos and all the false identities in which we have been clothed. What did we strip from ourselves as we placed the cloak of humility around our shoulders?

(Note: I posted the music part of this post in an earlier post. The commentary places the song in context.)

Here is the scripture upon which I meditated as I composed this song.

²⁴ I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. ²⁸ Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:24-28, NRSV)

We all have hearts of stone that need to be enfleshed by God. There are people at whom we would all like to cast stones. And there is, assuredly, those who desire to cast stones at us. Part of our Paschal Journey is confronting the stony heart that dwells in our chest and the stony heart that dwells in the chest of others. 

In her book, “The Healing Light”, Agnes Sanford writes that there will always be those who raise within us ill will, or those who go out of their way to cause us harm. The way Sanford deals with this is to learn to love these people. She speaks of this meditation. Envision finding yourself sitting facing the person you dislike, or has caused you harm. Now as you look at this person, see Jesus standing behind this person and embracing them in love. Remember that as much as you think Jesus loves you, Jesus loves this person as much or more. 

Agnes Sanford gives us a way to open up our hearts so that God can transform them from hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. 

As you listen to this song, think of what part of your heart has been turned to stone by the way others have treated you, or the way you have treated others. Ask God to bless these people. Ask God to bless you. Ask God to turn your heart of stone, into the heart of love, the heart of Jesus.

I am jumping out of sequence for the songs from my new song cycle “A Paschal Journey”, but I submit a song from that cycle for Mother’s Day this year (a day late, but I was busy celebrating Mother’s Day with my bride). The song is inspired from the Passion of John in which Jesus entrusts his mother to the “beloved disciple” (who is never identified in John’s account), and from the many images of what we call the “Pieta”, in which Mary, Mother of Jesus, cradles his lifeless body in her arms. This piano song/prayer begins in the key of e minor, then segues into a simple lullaby in D major, then segues back into the key of e minor and ends.

I tried to simulate in the music the deep sorrow of a mother mourning the death of her child with her mind in a stream of consciousness going to the lullaby she used years before to coax her child back to sleep, to a sudden reawakening to the tragedy of the death of her child.

I know that this is not the normal “happy, roses are red violets are blue” kind of Mother’s Day remembrance of which we are familiar. But I think it speaks to the experiences of many mothers, including my own mother, who mourned the death of my sister back in 1997. For my mom, as she healed from the loss of my sister, her healing had this bittersweet quality about it, for ever thankful for the life of my sister at the same time missing my sister greatly.

Where does this fit in in our own Paschal Journeys? In undergoing a Paschal journey we will mourn losses, perhaps the loss of something we once had done, or who we were once. We cradle these losses in our arms, embracing them, and then, like Mary, must let go of them, letting them slip out of our arms. Then we stand up and move on transformed, hurting, and in need of more healing.

Here is the song upon which to meditate.

I have begun a new set of music entitled, “A Paschal Journey.”

For all human beings, but especially for those of us who have been baptized, our lives are a series of Paschal journeys. We are linked intimately to the paschal journey of Jesus, in which we still celebrate in this Easter season. The life of Jesus teaches us that they are three stages to a Paschal journey: namely, Passion, Death, and Resurrection. What we learn from Jesus’ Paschal journey is that to get to the Resurrection, we have to first pass through and endure a Passion, and a Death. The one thing consistent with a Paschal journey is transformation. Who we once were is altered forever. We can never go back to who we once were. We are changed people.

With the Covid-10 pandemic, all of the world is in the midst of a Paschal journey. Millions of people all undergoing a Paschal journey, but each in our own unique and different ways. We all are experiencing loss. For some, their Paschal journey is about a loss of health, a loss of someone they love from Covid-19. For others, it is a loss of security, a loss of income, a loss of freedom. Our losses, our passions are as numerous as those who are suffering.

This is the germ behind the composing of this new set of music. I am trying to express in music the steps in our individual Paschal journeys. For some structure, I am using the structure of the Passion and Resurrection stories of John. In this 13th Opus of music (Opus is a musical term for a collection of music), I envision 13 songs. Of the 13 songs, I have composed five.

I begin this musical journey with “mystery.” I call the first song, “Prelude – Kyrie.” As you listen to this song (it is a repost from an earlier blog), think of the scene in Exodus when Moses approaches the Burning Bush. He is shepherding the flock of his father-in-law on Mount Horeb when he sees this burning bush. It is all ablaze yet the bush is not consumed by the intense flames. He approaches the bush and hears God speak from the bush, ““Moses, Moses!” And he (Moses) said, “Here I am.” ⁵ Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3:4-6, New Revised Standard Version)

As we enter our Paschal journey, we come to the awareness that we are not the center of the universe. There is something far greater than we. There is something that is beyond our understanding. In the 12 steps, it is calling it our “Higher Power” however we name that Higher Power.

And so, as we begin our Paschal journey we do so in humility, taking off our shoes, and realizing that we are entering something that will cause us discomfort, uncertainty, pain, and the death of who we are right now. Like the burning bush in the story from Exodus, we will be consumed by Divine flame that will strip us of all that is false about us, and will transform us into who we are being called to become.

As you listen to this music, think about the Paschal journey in which you find yourself right now. While you may feel that you are being consumed by the flames of uncertainty, loss, anxiety and fear of the unknown, also know that, like Moses, God will envelop you in a loving embrace that will protect you. You enter not knowing how this journey will end, but knowing that God loves you with an everlasting love.