Author: Deacon Bob

As difficult as February is with the death of three of my diaconal family, March is equally difficult with the death of two of my diaconal family.

This Psalm Offering was composed as an ordination present for Dominic and Helen Ehrmantraut. Dominic and Helen were very good people. Helen’s demeanor or perhaps the way she prayed reminded me of my mother.  Dominic and Helen were totally devoted to one another. They prayed together, and worked hard as they raised a large family. They had all the concerns and troubles that most families had. Dominic has a gentle way about him. While he was not afraid to confront someone, he always did it quietly and in a very respectful way. These two people were very much bone of one bone and flesh of one flesh. Helen died on May 27^th, 2005. It is the only funeral of our classmates that Ruthie and I did not attend for the reason that we didn’t know about Helen’s death until six months following her funeral. Both Ruthie and I were devastated by the news and the fact that we were not there for Dominic. After having lost contact with Dom for a number of years, we found he was in a nursing home. He died on March 9^th, 2017. I will always remember Dominic and Helen as loving and caring people. I recall that Dominic used to make and serve a very potent cherry liqueur.

This Psalm Offering is written in the key of C major. It is in 3 part, ABA form. Of all the melodies in Opus 5, melody A is the one that has many characteristics of an Irish melody. Melody A is stated gently and quietly. It segues to melody B, which is at a quicker tempo, borrowing and building on a motif from melody A. Melody A returns to conclude the music. Though Dominic and Helen were as German as can be, the melody has an Irish Air quality about it, hence the title of the song.

Just a reminder that all my music is downloadable from CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon. It can also be heard on YouTube and Spotify.

I composed this Psalm Offering for Bill and Mary Beckfeld as an ordination present, the summer of 1994. Bill was a tall, large man, outspoken, smart, compassionate, and, at the same time stubborn and bullheaded. Mary is a short, compassionate, smart, and equally outspoken, who knew she had her, at times, stubborn and bullheaded husband wrapped around her little finger.  Bill knew it, too, and often referred to himself as “Mr. Mary Beckfeld.” Both Bill and Mary, like Ruthie and myself, have a strong leaning toward progressive politics and ecclesiology. Bill and Mary had a large family. Their youngest son, who was developmentally disabled, died early in life. Bill had a great love for those who are developmentally disabled and originally thought he might spend his life as a deacon ministering to that community. Bill and Mary also had a son, Joe, who was Gay. As their life became transformed by his coming out, Bill and Mary started to minister more to the LGBTQ community and were advocates for that community. Bill was the first member of my diaconal class to die. He suffered an aneurism while assisting as a deacon at a funeral Mass, and died a couple of days later on February 27^th, 2001. I put together the Vigil prayer for his wake. Bill and I use to joke about which one of us would have our diaconal faculties pulled first by the Archbishop. I miss my diaconal brother, Bill, greatly. From time to time, Ruthie, Mary and I get together.

This Psalm Offering is written in the key of C major. Melody A has a joyful, playfulness to it, the tempo only moderate in speed. Melody B continues the same playfulness but in the relative key of A minor. The music segues back into C major with the A melody being treated at first in a fugal fashion before finally ending in a slower, grander restatement of the melody. Bill asked me to play this Psalm Offering as a post-communion meditation at his Mass of Thanksgiving. I was able to get away from my music duties that Sunday at St. Hubert to fulfill his wish.

Note: You can download all my music from CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon. You can also find it on YouTube and Spotify.

I wrote this Psalm Offering for By and Ellen Rudolphi. By, by profession, was a dentist, and Ellen, a homemaker. These two people complimented each other so very well. Throughout formation, Ellen was struggling with cancer and the gentle and attentive care that By extended to her was remarkable for all of us to see. With the seriousness of Ellen’s health, we often wondered whether she would live through formation. Ellen has a strong will to live and nothing was going to prevent her from seeing her husband ordained. As it turned out, Ellen, though elderly and frail, is still living cared for by two of her sons. By died on February 3^rd, 2013.

About this music, I had accompanied a group of teenagers from St. Hubert’s to a summer retreat. While they were busy involved in a number of activities, I found a room with a piano and began to write this Psalm Offering in a little music notebook I had. This Psalm Offering written in the key of C major begins with melody A stated quietly and gently, supported by chords in the left hand. The music segues into melody B which is louder and faster. Melody A returns at the original tempo loudly and majestically to conclude the music.

All my music is downloadable from CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon. You can also find my music on YouTube.

The month of February is both a joyful month, with 3 of my grandchildren born during the month, and a month filled with sadness, 3 of my diaconal family dying during the month.

I composed this Psalm Offering as an ordination gift to Tom and Marge Semlak. Tom and Marge met at 3M. Tom working as a custodian, as I recall, and Marge an executive secretary. Tom was a strong, Polish Catholic, very orthodox in the way he lived his faith, a strict, by the rules man but at the same time a very loving man. Tom loved his kids and devoted himself to them, but as in most cases, Marge is the heart of the family. Tom has had his share of health difficulties throughout the years stemming largely from diabetes. In recent years, Marge’s health has also suffered. Tom passed away on the feast of the Immaculate Conception 2015. Marge died a little over 2 years later on February 1, 2018.

The finest of all educators, a gifted choral conductor, music historian, actor and performer, mentor, and, most of all, one of my best friends, Dr Maurice A Jones, or Maurie as he like to be called, died on Holy Thursday, March 27, 1986, 33 years ago. His death left a huge scar in my heart. Everyone whose life he touched, loved him. I sang in the Chorale, a mixed choir made of St Thomas and St Kate’s undergrads under his direction.

One of my fondest memories of Maurie was the rehearsal following our Christmas concerts. We would gather in the rehearsal hall. He would have hot chocolate and candy canes for us. He sat on his director’s chair as we sat on the floor around him like little children as he did a dramatic reading of Dicken’s Christmas Carol. We sat enthralled as we ate our lunch and sipped our hot chocolate.

Maurie died of AIDS at about the time the disease reached pandemic numbers. Many church choir directors, some of whom were good friends of mine, also died from the illness. The University of St Catherine covered up the cause of Maurie’s death, attributing it to Legionaire’s Disease, but the entire music community of the Twin Cities were well aware of what killed Maurie. I lost some respect for St Kate’s for that.

Well aware that Maurie was sick, I composed this piano Psalm Offering for him. I recorded it on a cassette tape and sent it to his significant other. I am not sure or not whether Maurie ever had a chance to listen to it. I was told that he did.

There are certain people in my life to whom I hold my self accountable. on the top of the list is my bride, Ruth, my father and my mother, my children, and Dr Maurice A Jones. I hope to enjoy his company again. I would ask him if I reached the potential as a musician and as a choral director that he saw in me as a young musician and choral director. He would probably turn my question around on me and ask me if I think I reached my full potential … just like Maurie. Truthfully, do we ever reach our full potential or is it always just beyond our grasp?

I look forward to that day when we talk again.

This article was written for the Knight of Columbus newsletter, hence, the Catholic influence within it. However, I think it can apply to the faith traditions of many religions.

“Thy will be done” … let’s look at our prayer life. We will all acknowledge that it is important to pray. However, is the intent of our prayer to force, to coerce God to bend to our will, or, is our intent to  open our lives up to God’s will? The pagan way of praying was to offer sacrifice to make the gods do the will of the one making the sacrifice. We can look at what the pagans did and criticize them, however, are we not guilty of the same? When we are very sick or undergoing some great trauma in our lives, do we not bargain with God to fulfill a favorable outcome in our lives by promising to pray or change our lives in some way? For example, it is a good thing to pray a novena. However, in praying a novena are we trying to bend God’s will to our own? The devotion to the Sacred Heart requires us to pray the rosary everyday and to receive communion on the first Friday of each month. If we do this, according to the St Margaret Mary Alocque, we will be assured of going to heaven at our death. Logically, if we are praying the rosary every day and receiving holy communion on the first Friday of every month, the likelihood of us murdering someone, robbing a bank, or committing some other mortal sin that might rob of us eternal life in heaven is very slim.

This is why the Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers. For what are we praying? It’s very simple, that God’s will be paramount in our lives, period! We see this modeled for us by Jesus in his agony in the garden when he prays to the Father to relieve him of the passion and execution that awaits him the next day. However, Jesus concludes the prayer by saying, “not my will but Your will be done.” As we pray, it is fine to ask God for that which we need, but let us always conclude our prayer with that of Jesus, “not my will but Your will be done.”

We begin the 3^rd week of our Lenten journey. The 1^st week emphasized the need to set aside time each day to listen to God in silence. The 2^nd week called us to examine how we live. Does the way we daily live reflect the values and the way of Jesus, or the values and way of our world? This week we are asked to look at the intent behind the pietistic things we do in our lives?

It was a common belief at the time of Jesus, that if a bad thing happened to someone resulting in death, God was punishing them because of some sin they committed. One of the examples given is the tragedy of a building, the tower of Siloam, collapsing and killing many people.  Similarly, it was a common belief that people born with a disability, such as blindness or deafness, were being punished by God for some sin committed by an ancestor. The resulting behavior of self-righteous toward those afflicted was to look at the afflicted with contempt, and to inflate their own sense of self-righteousness. In the Gospel, Jesus turns and tells the self-righteous that they are hypocrites, for they are no more or less sinful than those who are afflicted by tragedy.

For us today, we need to examine the intent behind the pietistic things we do. For example (especially for those of us who are Roman Catholic) is it better or more “holy” to receive Holy Communion on the tongue as opposed to receiving Holy Communion in the hand? No! It matters not to Jesus or the Church how we receive Holy Communion. What is important is that we receive Holy Communion. If our intent of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue is to show others that we are more pious than those who receive in the hand, then our intent in receiving Holy Communion is flawed. For it is focused more on inflating our own self-piety, than on receiving the Lord of Life. In other words, we are placing ourselves first and God second.

This week, a good scripture passage upon which to examine the intent behind why we do the religious things we do is Luke 18:9-14, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Publican). In our prayer and in our religious practices, who do we emulate? The Pharisee or the Tax Collector?

With a name like Wagner, one would wonder why I would have any preoccupation at all about St Patrick’s Day. Wagner sounds anything but Irish. However, on my mother’s side, she was part Swedish (Jernstrom) and part Irish (Marron). I may have inherited the “Swedish arthritic joints” (so says the Irish side of the family), but I was heavily influenced by the Irish side. I have a great interest and love Irish Traditional music and have followed a number of Irish traditional bands so much so, that when Irish Americans try to claim the Greatest hits of Bing Crosby as authentic Irish music, I turn up a snobbish nose.

These two piano song/prayers were composed for two people I loved and admired. The first one is for Bob Murphy, the husband of my cousin Greta. He was a good man, a loving man who placed his relationships with his family and friends above everything else in his life. Bob, sadly, passed away around this time of year, several years ago.

As you listen to the music, note that Irish influence in the jig at the beginning and the end of the song. The middle part is pure Viennese, Beethoven.

This second song was composed for my mother-in-law, Rosemary Ahmann. Rosemary, like my mother, was half Swedish (Burg) and half Irish (McNeeley … my maternal grandmother, and Rosemary’s mother must have been rebellious, incorrigible Irish girls, marrying these Swedish men at the turn around 1900).

As with all unions between the Irish and some other culture, the Irish side always trumps the other culture. So it was with Rosemary. She was more Irish than the Emerald Isle itself.

I loved her dearly. Sadly, she died suddenly on January 4, 2018. In her honor and as a prayer for her, I composed this song. Like the one I composed for Bob Murphy, it had as Irish jig as it opening and ending melody, with a Viennese influenced melody sandwiched in between (a wee bit like sticking sausage and sauerkraut between 2 pieces of Irish Soda bread … only more palatable).

Two piano song/prayers for the 50 Muslim immigrants slaughtered as they prayed in their Mosques in Christchurch New Zealand, by a Christian, White Supremacist

In 2017, I composed a set of piano songs/prayers in a collection of music entitled, Psalm Offering Opus 7, Music for a Broken World. Each song was a prayer offered up for a specific cause or group of people.

The 8th Psalm offering in this collection was offered up for those suffering religious persecution. This is what I wrote as the commentary for this song.

Your prophets provided you visions of whitewashed illusion; They did not lay bare your guilt, in order to restore your fortunes; They saw for you only oracles of empty deceit. (Lamentations 2:14)

Back in 1965, Tom Lehrer wrote the song “National Brotherhood Week.” One stanza of the song was, “Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Hindus hate the Muslims, and everybody hates the Jews.” © 1965, by Tom Lehrer. This simple lyric of Tom Lehrer’s sums up the persecution that world religions have inflicted upon one another in the name of God. It matters not which religion is persecuting another religion, we slaughter one another in the name of God. We all like to think that God is on our side in our religious vendettas against one another. As President Abraham Lincoln pointed out, it’s not a question of whether God is on our side. The real question is whether we are on God’s side. Religious persecution is an abomination to God.

This music is composed in the key of B Locrian mode. It is written in Sonata Allegro form. The meter of the A melody is in ¾ time. The Locrian mode is perhaps the oddest sounding mode of all the Greek modes. It is almost a diminished scale.

This second song, A Threnody for the Victims of Gun Violence, Psalm Offering 3 Opus 9, I began to compose on February 14, 2018 when reports started coming in about the slaughter of high school students at Parkland High School in Florida.

Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. (1 John 3: 14b-16)

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction;  but they are at peace. For though in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them. In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever. Those who trust in him will understand truth and the faithful will abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones, and he watches over his elect. But the ungodly will be punished as their reasoning deserves, those who disregarded the righteous and rebelled against the Lord; for those who despise wisdom and instruction are miserable. Their hope is vain, their labors are unprofitable, and their works are useless. (Wisdom 3:1-9)

A threnody is a song of lament. I began composing this music on February 15, 2018, the day after the horrific slaughter of students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It is meant to be a prayer of lamentation for the many men, women, and children who have been massacred by assault weapons in the United States. The little to no response from the manufacturers of those weapons or the NRA other than to arm more people with the same weapons make these groups complicit in the murders of these innocent people.

Three images were prominent in my mind as I composed this music. The first image is that of the many feet walking in cemeteries, over these many years of gun violence, to bring their dead loved ones to be buried. The countless children from the wee ones to college students, girlfriends and boyfriends, fiancés, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers indiscriminately slaughtered at school, universities, movie theaters, shopping malls, places of businesses, even Fort Hood.

The second image is that of the relentless chaos of the shooting. People scattering everywhere to escape the hail of bullets, bodies slaughtered left and right by the gunfire. The look of disbelief and horror on the faces of the dead, the dying, and the wounded as they lie where they have been slaughtered.

The third image is that of the victims’ loved ones visiting the graves of those they lost. The utter senselessness of their deaths. The cutting off of their lives before they could even begin to live.

The fourth image is that of the heavenly peace of the victims, held in the loving arms of the God who created them.

These images created the form of this music, namely: ABAC.

Often in sacred art we see halos surround the head or body of a person deemed sacred. A halo is often seen as a crown of light rays, or a disc of light. The halo can be found in the sacred art of many world religions. In Christian art, halos are seen principally around the figure of Jesus, Mary, Mother of God, and many of the saints.

On the second Sunday of Lent, we hear the Gospel account of the Transfiguration. Jesus, Peter, James and John go up the mountain to pray. While Jesus was praying his face and body is transformed. His whole body is glowing in a dazzling white light. Two important figures of the Hebrew Testament, the prophets, Moses and Elijah, also glowing dazzling white, appear alongside Jesus. They speak to him of the torture and death that awaits him in Jerusalem.  Peter, James and John, are gobsmacked and frightened by what they see. A cloud envelops them and they hear the voice within the cloud say, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” Suddenly, the vision stops and everything is normal again. Shaken and quiet they descend the mountain with Jesus.

The central image the Transfiguration gives to us is this intense, white, dazzling light that surrounds the bodies of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. In religious icons, especially that of the Orthodox Churches, the light represents the grace of God shining through the icon. It draws those who view the icon to the deeper reality of God that is beyond the painting. In their earthly ministry, Moses, Elijah and Jesus were living icons who drew people beyond the surface of their daily living to the reality of God that encompasses all of life. However, in doing their earthly ministry they also experienced personal suffering.

Moses was a hunted man much of his life. Pharoah wanted him dead. Even when the Israelites escaped the cruel enslavement of the Egyptians, the suffering didn’t end. They wandered 40 years in the desert. Moses would die looking at the Promised Land from a mountain top, never having stepped into the Promised Land. Elijah, too, was also a hunted man. He spent a great deal of his life escaping death at the hands of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. We all know how Jesus was betrayed, viciously tortured and executed.

That which we need to take away today is that our bodies will be also be glorified one day. Our bodies will also glow with dazzling light. In the second reading today, St Paul tells the Philippian community, “Jesus will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” This same teaching is repeated in the first letter of John. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This is really good news! However, there is a sobering part to this news. In order to have a glorified body like Jesus’, there is always some kind of human suffering involved. To experience our own Transfiguration, like Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, we must first pick up our own cross. As disciples of Jesus we must enter into the Paschal Mystery, the suffering, the dying, and the rising of Jesus.

We each have a cross that is unique to us. We each have our own Paschal Mystery. For some of us it may be a lifetime recovering from an addiction of one sort or another. For some of us it may be the loss of significant relationships by separation and divorce, or by death. For some, our Paschal Mystery may be the result of a chronic illness or injury. For some of us, it may the cross of unemployment or poverty.  Though we carry within ourselves the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, we can find comfort in these words of St Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians. “Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”

One day, we will all have a halo around us. Jesus, Moses, and Elijah have shown us the way to our own Transfiguration. For today, the question we must ask ourselves is this, “In the way we live our lives, are people drawn into a deeper relationship with God?” Are our halos dull and grey, or do they reflect the dazzling light of God who surrounds and fills us?