I am a composer, performer, poet, educator, spiritual director, and permanent deacon of the Catholic Church. I just recently retired after 42 years of full-time ministry in the Catholic Church. I continue to serve in the Church part-time. I have been blessed to be united in marriage to my bride, Ruth, since 1974. I am father to four wonderful adult children, and grandfather to five equally wonderful grandchildren. In my lifetime, I have received a B.A. in Music (UST), M.A. in Pastoral Studies (St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, UST), Certified Spiritual Director. Ordained to the Permanent Diaconate for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, in 1991. Composer, musician, author, poet, educator. The Gospels drive my political choices, hence, leading me toward a more liberal, other-centered politics rather than conservative politics. The great commandment of Jesus to love one another as he has loved us, as well as the criteria he gives in Matthew 25 by which we are to be judged at the end of time directs my actions and thoughts.
Speaking for myself, the year of 2018 has been very difficult with the number of significant deaths that have occurred within my own faith community and within my own immediate family (just heard that one of my healthier ordination classmates was diagnosed with liver cancer on Thursday. My other remaining classmate is very ill, too.). It has been a weekend for grieving losses, and perhaps this is why the death of Marilyn on Sunday has had such an impact on me.
My heart sunk when I heard of her death yesterday, Monday, August 20th. Equally, my heart is very heavy for her children who lost not only their dad to death so very suddenly, but now their mother. I began composing the piano composition above on Sunday night. I finished it at 10 am this morning.
Tom was a longtime educator in the New Prague School system. He was my son, Luke’s, advocate when Luke was in high school. I told Tom on many occasions of how thankful I was to have him watch Luke’s back during Luke’s high school days. Tom died suddenly in January of this year from a coronary. He was 70 years old.
When I was assigned to St. Wenceslaus I really got to know Marilyn through the BeFriender program. A woman of great compassion and insight, Marilyn was the quintessential BeFriender. She is a good friend. Tom’s sudden death shook their entire family. As good families do, they have supported each other as they grieved the death of Tom.
Marilyn was diagnosed with cancer in the Spring. Surgery and chemotherapy could not suppress the spread of the illness. She entered into hospice several weeks ago and died this past Sunday surrounded by her children. She is an incredible woman of faith and there is no doubt in my mind that she and Tom are dancing in heaven, hence, the waltz I composed for the both of them.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.
Psalm Offering 6 Opus 10: For Tom and Marilyn Hudspeth. (c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
In the Gospel, we hear Peter say to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” We live in a world that is very broken. Equally, we live in a Church that is broken. It always has been this way. This struck home hard all the more with the exposure of the massive abuse of children by priests, and the bishops complicit in covering up these crimes in the State of Pennsylvania. This report reopened, for me, the wounds caused by the history of sexual abuse of children by priests and its cover-up by bishops in our own Archdiocese.
In the introduction to the Sacrament of Penance it is written that the Church, as a human institution, is always in need of conversion. It matters not whether we are laity, professed religious, deacons, priests, bishops, cardinals, or even the Pope, we are all sinners and in need of conversion. One only has to study the history of the Church to see that it has never been the perfect society. From the time of the apostles to our present age, there has been conflict within the Church.
If the Church is so in need of conversion, where do we go to find “the words of eternal life?” People quit going to Church for many reasons, bad experiences with clergy, bishops, the closing of church sites, to name just a few. What do we mean by the word “Church”? The Church, from its very inception, has always been the community of faith, the sensus fidelium. Not one Pope, bishop, priest, deacon, professed religious, or physical church site has ever encompassed “the Church”. We ALL are the Church. As the physical, breathing Body of Christ on this Earth, we, collectively, must go to Jesus, the Head of the Church, to hear his words of eternal life. Jesus’ words of eternal life emerge from within our faith community in our prayer, song, and our reception of the sacraments at Mass. To cut ourselves off from the community of faith creates a state of deafness to God’s word in our lives.
The institutional Church will always be in need of conversion. Like the apostles, we have a choice to make. Do we walk away from the Church? Or do we do we say with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life?”
Blessed Sacrament stain glass window. St John the Evangelist Church, Union Hill, MN. Photograph by Olivia Wagner.
Back on July 29th, we began John’s account of the feeding of the 5000. Scripture scholars tell us that unlike the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, in which Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, in the Gospel of John, Jesus institutes the Eucharist at the feeding of the 5000. Jesus takes the barley loaves, gives thanks to God, breaks them, then multiplies the loaves and the fish and has the apostles distribute the food to the 5000 people who were there. What has followed these past weekends in the Gospel is Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist.
If we have listened carefully over the past 4 weeks, the consistent theme Jesus preaches to the crowd is that if they want everlasting life, they must eat his Body and drink his Blood. The crowd is struggling with what Jesus is saying. “How can this be?” they ask. “We know his mom and dad. (factiously) He played shortstop on our baseball team. Now he is telling us that if we want everlasting life we must eat his Body and drink his Blood? How can this be?” We can observe this scene from the year 2018 and criticize the crowd for their disbelief in Jesus. However, if we are to be honest with ourselves, sometime in our life, we, too, have questioned the real presence of Jesus in the holy communion we receive at Mass.
I remember the time I asked the question, “How can this be?” I was 12 years old and at the weekly school Mass at St Peter and St Paul school, when I questioned the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Like all entering adolescence, I began questioning a lot of what had been taught me. I was not just boing to believe because someone told me to believe. I had to own the belief. The question I asked myself that day at Mass was, “Is the Body and Blood of Jesus really in the host, or have I been told a fairy tale all these years?” I was just like the crowd that said to Jesus two weeks ago in the Gospel, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?” Or, like the apostle Thomas, who doubted the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I, too, would have insisted upon putting my finger into the nail holes of his hands and feet, and my fist in the wound in his side. I adopted what could be best described as a “let’s wait and see if this is all true” way of evaluating what was true and what was not. While I did not fully understand what I received when I went to Holy Communion, I, instinctively knew it was important for me, so I kept going to Mass on Sunday. Secondarily, I also knew that my mom and dad would kill me if I didn’t go to Mass on Sunday.
In the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, the Church teaches that the Eucharist is the font from which all grace pours forth into the world. When we celebrate Mass the grace pours from this Mass into our lives, and we take that grace out into the world. The Church teaches that in our celebration of the Mass and in our receiving Holy Communion, the brokenness of our lives is healed, our sins are forgiven, and we are empowered to go forth and be the Body of Christ in our world. Though I was not aware of it at the time, as I look back on my questioning youth, I can see the power of the Eucharist working in my life. How my faithful attendance at Mass and receiving Holy Communion helped to shape my life into becoming a better person, and, assisted me in making the good choices I might not have made on my own.
We hear Jesus telling us in the Gospel today, “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” We hear in the Book of Wisdom, “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” The Eucharist is our spiritual food. The grace we receive at Mass assists us in navigating the complexities and the difficulties of our life. Why would we ever choose to starve ourselves spiritually? Why would we choose to be spiritually anorexic?
There is no more powerful sign of the life that Jesus gives us in holy communion than that of giving Holy Communion to those who are sick and to those who are dying. I see a hunger for the Eucharist when I go and visit those who are homebound. As they receive Holy Communion, a peaceful calm comes over them as they are joined in communion with the God who created them. Even though those who suffer from dementia, know at that moment when they receive Holy Communion, it is Jesus they receive. For that instant, the presence of their Savior clears away, momentarily, the confusion in their minds. It was not by accident that over 60 years ago, the Church restored Viaticum as the Last Rites of the dying. Viaticum means “food for the journey.” Those who are dying do not need the anointing of the sick because they are dying. What they need is the food sent down from heaven, the Body and Blood of Jesus, as they transition from this life into the fullness of life.
This great teaching on the Eucharist in the Gospel of John concludes next weekend. We will find people making a choice. Many of those who followed Jesus, who ate the loaves and the fish, will walk away from him unable or unwilling to wrestle with this teaching of Jesus. Jesus will then turn to his apostles and ask them what they choose to do.
I encourage you, throughout this week, to reflect on when you owned the belief of Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist and what compels you to come every Sunday to Mass and be fed at the table of the Lord.
The glass wind chime Ruthie bought me on my 59th birthday.
I spent the majority of my 66th birthday this past Sunday working at the parish festival. I joked with one of the parishioners that if you added another 6 behind my age, I would become the fabled “beast” of Revelations. Following the festival, all of the family and I gathered at a local restaurant and celebrated my birthday. Then, we went back to the house, had some cake, and then with Ruth, Meg, and my granddaughters, Alyssa and Sydney, watch the movie “Forrest Gump”.
What I did at the parish festival was set up a table in the merchant’s area to sell CDs and digital download cards of the music I have composed since 1970. All the money made would go to St Wenceslaus Church (I did make $120). At 66 years, following 4 major joint replacements, getting around and setting things up is a lot more difficult than it was 20 years ago. Finding myself grumbling and moaning about my present physical state, I suddenly remembered where I was on my 59th birthday in 2011.
On August 4th of 2011, I had been told following the 3rd surgery on my left hip that the MRSA infection had come back and I had to have the artificial hip I received on June 17th removed. I was to have had the artificial hip removed on August 10th, but the infectious disease physician at the hospital, not believing that I was allergic to vankamycin (the primary antibiotic for MRSA), gave me 600 miligrams which sent my blood pressure plummeting and put me into renal failure. I spent the rest of the 10th of August and all of the 11th of August in ICU. They were able to get my kidneys working again and my blood pressure returned to normal. Very early in the morning on my 59th birthday I had my left artificial hip removed. Not quite the birthday celebration or present I had anticipated earlier in the summer when I had gotten that hip replaced. I would not get another hip until January 18th, 2012.
The next 6 months I was without a hip. I spent the majority of the day, hopping from bed to the bathroom, hopping from the bathroom to my chair, and hopping from my chair back to either the bathroom, or at night to bed. I had to learn how to get my left leg into bed without a hip. My days revolved around the taking of antibiotics that the doctors hope would kill the MRSA without killing me. It was all guess work. October 16th had me back in the hospital for surgery when the MRSA infection came back a 3rd time. It seemed that just as the long incision from the back of my hip down to my knee would begin to heal, the infection would come back, and they would have to open up that long incision again to drain out the infection.
I remembered the many nights when I would dream about walking about New Prague. I would walk down to Patty’s Place, our local coffee shop, for a skim milk chocolate latte (no whip cream) and a low fat oatmeal raisin cookie (to offset the chocolate in the latte). I would walk to the library and to the city park. I would walk over to St Wenceslaus Church. In my dream, I still did not have a hip, yet, I was capable of not only walking, but running, and jumping. During the day I was restricted to hopping the few steps to chair, bathroom, and bed. However, at night, I was free to roam wherever I wanted to go all over the town.
I recall that I was thinking about this on Sunday, had you told the 59 year old me in 2011 that I would once more be able to walk, move tables, lift wares, and set up like I was doing on this 66th birthday, I would have been skeptical, cynical, and envious. This was a very low time in my life in which I had very little hope of ever walking again. However, it would have given me hope during a time in which I had very little hope.
So what is the moral in this little tale of mine? As dark as these times may be for us, the lives of so many people in crises and chaos; greed, corruption, incompetence and lies permeating our government, the white house, our nation, and the world in general, it will not be dark ages for ever.
Another part of the moral is that it is vitally important for us to live in the present. It is important for us to be aware of what we can do in the present. And, most importantly, we need to be thankful to God for that which we can do.
Stain glass window of the symbol of the anchor. The anchor has always been a symbol of God’s protection in times of peril. St John the Evangelist Church, Union Hill, Minnesota. Photograph by Olivia Wagner.
Psalm Offering 2, Opus 7 A prayer for the victims of sexual violence.
Psalm Offering 2 Opus 7. A prayer for the victims of sexual violence. (c) 2017, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved. (Downloadable for purchase at Amazon and iTunes.)
All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans, and turns her face away. “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me. For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my courage; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed. Behold my suffering; my young women and young men have gone into captivity. My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women in my city. Women are raped in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah.” (Lamentations 1: 8b,c, 12a,b, 16, 18b; 3:51; 5:11, NRSV)
Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and said, “O eternal God, you know what is secret and are aware of all things before they come to be; you know that these men have given false evidence against me. And now I am to die, though I have done none of the wicked things that they have charged against me!” The Lord heard her cry. He (Daniel) said to him, “You off spring of Canaan and not of Judah, beauty has beguiled you and lust has perverted your heart. This is how you have been treating the daughters of Israel, and they were intimate with you through fear; but a daughter of Judah would not tolerate your wickedness. This lie has cost you also your head, for the angel of God is waiting with his sword to split you in two, so as to destroy you both.” (Daniel 13: 42-44, 56b-57. 59, NRSV)
REFLECTION: Sexual violence has always been a part of human history. We hear about the sexual trafficking of vulnerable men, women, and children. We see violence enacted against men and women in the LGBTQ community. Just this year the #MeToo movement has swept our nation, exposing celebrities, politicians, and other people in power who have sexually abused others over which they had power. The sexual exploitation of people inundates the internet and our media. Men, women, and children are sexually abused and brutally raped. Over the last 3 years, I have been involved in picking up the pieces of over a half century of sexual abuse perpetrated upon innocent children by Catholic priests and covered up by the bishops of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER: In what way have I been guilty of sexually exploiting people? Have I contributed to the sexual exploitation of others? In what ways am I able to give aid to those sexually exploited by others? Am I able to open my mind and my heart to hear the stories of those who have been harmed sexually by others? Am I able to hear the stories of those whose sexual orientation is different from mine? How do I reconcile the sexual violence within me?
THE MUSIC: This music is composed in the form of a Prelude and Fugue. It is written in the key of E minor (the Aeolian mode). The prelude is in the form of a through composed melody often used in church hymnody. The subject, or melody of the fugue is borrowed from the opening measures of the hymn and then is developed in both the higher and lower registers. Sometimes the subject is expressed in retrograde (melody being played backward) or inverted (an upside down melody). The music concludes with a recapitulation of the hymn.
Stain glass window of the Crown of Thorns. St John the Evangelist Church, Union Hill, Minnesota. Photograph by Olivia Wagner.
Psalm Offering 4, Opus 7 A prayer for the victims of corporate Greed.
Psalm Offering 4 Opus 7: A prayer for the victims of corporate Greed. (c) 2017, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows. We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought. With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven; we are weary, we are given no rest. Young men are compelled to grind, and boys stagger under loads of wood. The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music. The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning. (Lamentations 5: 3-5, 13-15, NRSV)
In you, they take bribes to shed blood; you take both advance interest and accrued interest, and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; and you have forgotten me, says the Lord God. (Ezechial 22:12, NRSV)
Do not be afraid when some become rich, when the wealth of their houses increases. For when they die they will carry nothing away; their wealth will not go down after them. Though in their lifetime they count themselves happy —for you are praised when you do well for yourself— they will go to the company of their ancestors, who will never again see the light. (Psalm 49: 16-19, NRSV)
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6: 24, NRSV)
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you. (James 5: 1-6, NRSV)
REFLECTION: In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 16, Jesus tells the story of the Rich Man and the poor beggar, Lazarus. The Rich Man, who has grown wealthy on the backs of the poor, lives life lavishly, feasting on the delights of wealth while Lazarus lives in destitution outside the Rich Man’s door. Jesus tells us that the Rich Man dies and goes to eternal damnation, while Lazarus ascends into everlasting happiness and life. St Francis of Assisi declared that it was not Pride that was the deadliest of the 7 deadly sins. Rather, Greed was the most deadly of sins. This pattern of the rich growing richer and the poor growing poorer remains true to our present day. The wealthy continue to prey on the vulnerable taking whatever they can to increase their wealth. Our forests are denuded, our water and food poisoned, our air unbreathable, and our land despoiled all to increase the wealth of the very few. Even basic healthcare is taken away from the poor who are in need of it the most so that the rich will not have to pay higher taxes. Jesus issues a stern warning to those who rely on their wealth for happiness (see Matthew 6:24 above).
QUESTIONS TO PONDER: In what way does Greed dominate my life? Am I willing to destroy others, to exploit others for my own personal gain? Am I willing to sacrifice my integrity, my family, my very soul for wealth? Do the things I have control me and own me? Do I identify with the rich and seek to emulate them? Jesus did not identify himself with the rich and the powerful of his time. He chose to live in solidarity with the poor and the despised of his society. How comfortable am I to be in solidarity with the poor and to identify myself with the poor?
ABOUT THE MUSIC
The overall form of the music is in three part ABA form. The A melody is in the key area of E based on the Greek mixolydian mode. The A melody begins with a loud fanfare of powerful, open chords and glissandos, followed by ascending and descending triplets in both hands. The melody has a frenetic quality to it. It is symbolic of the restless pursuit of wealth and power by people and corporations. The B melody continues in the E mixolydian mode at a much slower tempo, modulates briefly to a D dorian mode, then back to the E mixolydian mode. The B melody reflects the plight of those exploited and destroyed by the rich and powerful. The A melody is recapitulated only to be in the key area of B Greek locrian mode, returning at the Coda to E mixolydian mode. The false doctrine of greed as a virtuous path to happiness gets crushed as the music ends with powerful, open chords.
Stain glass window of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, St John the Evangelist Church, Union Hill, Minnesota. Photograph by Olivia Wagner.
PSALM OFFERING 7 OPUS 7 A prayer for all those denied health care.
Psalm Offering 7 Opus 7: A prayer for those denied healthcare. (c) 2017, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved. (music downloadable for purchase from Amazon and iTunes)
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago. my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.” The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. (Lamentations 3: 4-6, 17-20)
And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. (Numbers 28: 8-9)
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. (Luke 10: 30-34)
They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” And the man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8: 22-25)
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2: 14-17)
REFLECTION: In Matthew 25, Jesus commands us to take care of the sick. Pope Francis has declared healthcare a basic human right. In many European nations, there is socialized medicine so that all people have healthcare. However, elsewhere throughout the world, including the United States up to the time of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare was a right bestowed only upon the rich. In underdeveloped nations without healthcare you died. In the United States if you were chronically ill, or had a disease such as cancer, you were denied healthcare or cut from healthcare by the HMO’s and you died. I witnessed my own sister, who bore for 25 years a chronic illness that eventually killed her, having to fight with her health insurance provider for the medical care she desperately needed. As imperfect as the Affordable Care Act is, we now find legislators passing legislation that will tear healthcare away from 24 million United States citizens. They are literally legislating death for the poor and many who are chronically ill, and returning healthcare as a right bestowed to only the very rich.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER: What do we think about the elimination of healthcare for the poor and the chronically ill and the deep cuts to Medicaid and Medicare? If we are for these draconian cuts to healthcare in our nation, how do we reconcile this to Jesus’ command that we take care of the sick? Am I willing to stand passively by as healthcare is taken from those most in need? Am I ready to advocate for those who are denied healthcare and work to change a healthcare system based on “for profit” to become a healthcare system “for everyone? How in my life do I care for those I know who are sick and chronically ill? Do I willingly spend time with those who are elderly and those who suffer from dementia? Am I willing to embrace and take care of a leper, a person with HIV, or people with communicable diseases? Do I show compassion and love to those suffering from cancer, heart disease, and stroke?
ABOUT THE MUSIC: This Psalm Offering is composed in 7/4 time. This music uses some of the characteristics of music from the Impressionistic period. Parallel V7 chords and a whole tone scale gives this music a certain uneasy ambiguity. Unlike melodies in duple or triple meter, 7/4 time lends a sense of unease to the music. The use of parallel V7 chords and the A melody based on those V7 chords tends to obscure a “home” or primary key area to the listener’s ear. It is almost like there is no place in the music where one can find rest, much like those afflicted with chronic illness. The B melody, totally based on the whole tone scale gives a “dreamlike” quality to the music. It reflects the medical limbo in which many of those who are ill find themselves. The A melody returns and moves to the Coda, ending the music without a tonal center. Perhaps, the unsettledness and lack of a tonal center best musically describes the plight of the medically uninsured.
A stain glass image of the sacred heart of Jesus, found at St John the Evangelist Church in Union Hill, Minnesota. Photograph by Olivia Wagner.
Psalm Offering 8 Opus 7 – For victims of religious persecution.
This psalm offering is a prayer offered up for victims of religious persecution. I suggest that you listen to the music first. Read the scripture passage from the Book of Lamentation. Reflect on the scripture passages and questions and then listen to the music once more.
Psalm Offering 8 Opus 7: For victims of religious persecution. (c) 2017, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
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, NRSV)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? (Matthew 28: 27-33, NRSV)
“If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. (John 15: 18-21; 16: 1-4, NRSV)
QUESTIONS TO PONDER: How tolerant am I of those who are formed and worship/pray in a religion different from mine? How tolerant am I with those of my own religion who pray, think or worship differently than I? Am I able to bow to and respect the presence of God in a person whose religion differs from mine? Do I respect the religious practices and rituals of other world religions? Am I capable of seeing the commonality and shared values of my religion and that of other world religions? Am I willing to accept that the God I worship is the same God that people of other religions worship?
ABOUT THE MUSIC: This 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 agitation and violence of religious persecution is reflected in the very agitated rhythmic ostinato pattern of two 8th note triplets and 1 beat of 8th notes of melody A. The Locrian mode is perhaps the oddest sounding mode of all the Greek modes. It is almost a diminished scale. The melody of the A section sounds forbidding and barren. When the melody is repeated in chordal form, the chords are mostly minor, minor sevenths, and diminished chords. The B section introduces a change into 4/4 meter, and like the primary melody of the prelude in the 2nd Psalm Offering, is rendered in a 4 part choral arrangement. There is a plaintive sound to the B melody, almost that resembling a painfilled sigh. The agitation of the A melody returns again in ¾ meter and a long development of the melody occurs, the rhythmic ostinato pattern reemphasized all the more until it returns in full form. There follows a recapitulation of the B melody leading to an extended Coda. The music ends similarly to that of the First Psalm Offering, in which the A melody returns in a ghostly manner.
A stain glass image of the most ancient symbol of the Eucharist. Jesus is portrayed as a mother pelican feeding her chicks with her own blood. The stain glass window is at St John the Evangelist church in Union Hill, Minnesota. Photograph by Olivia Wagner. Used with permission.
Psalm Offering 9 Opus 7 – A prayer for the conversion of human hearts and society to God’s justice.
I composed the entirety of Opus 7 in the year 2017 following the elections of 2016. There was a rise of attacks against immigrants, the sick, the poor, people of color and people of different religions in out nation. The story behind the Book of Lamentations came to mind, how Israel turning its back on God is destroyed by a foreign power, its downfall and suffering largely of its own making. The author of Lamentations not only focuses on the suffering of a conquered nation, but why it happened.
The music I composed was a product of my meditation on this rather short book in the Bible. It ended up evolving into a musical religious retreat, where the music is part of an overall reflection of each passage from Lamentations.
The format I suggest is to hear the music. Then read the passage or passages, reflect on the questions, then listen to the music again. Since the music is composed in scales other than the normal major/minor scales to which we are normally accustomed, the music has a more esoteric quality about it, a little other worldly.
What I present to you in this blog is the music, then the scripture passages and questions upon which to reflect. I suggest then to listen once more to the music.
Psalm Offering 9 Opus 7: (c) 2017, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
A prayer for the conversion of human hearts and society to God’s justice.
But you, O Lord, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. Why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many days? Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old. (Lamentations: 5: 19-21, NRSV)
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. 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. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. (Ezechial 36: 25-27, NRSV)
“Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise. (Ephesians 5: 14b-15, NRSV)
And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. (1 John 3: 23-24, NRSV)
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15: 12, NRSV)
REFLECTION: Conversion is central to human life, human hearts and human society if we are to reshape ourselves to live the justice of God. The duality of light and darkness in John’s Gospel is revealed all around us. So many people dwell and operate out of the darkness of our world, in which the highest principle is best summed in the question, “What’s in it for me?” We see it in our government, in our political parties, in business, and in all strata of human life. One could be overwhelmed by the hopelessness of such a suppression of light. Yet, like fireflies on a darkened night, there are many whose light illuminates the deep darkness of the world. Their light is fueled by the Great Commandment of Jesus to love as he loved. The light of God shines in these people, and as we encounter them in their daily lives, the light of God becomes contagious as all begin to desire the peace, the serenity, and joy that fills the lives of these people. And, so this musical prayer is exuberant, joy-filled, and filled with light. May we all join in on this dance of life, this dance of light, this dance of God’s justice!
QUESTIONS TO PONDER: Do others see me as a child of God’s light, compassion and love, or a child of darkness and hate? Am I willing to sacrifice myself for the common good of all, or do I think only of myself and no one else? Am I a sower of discord and disharmony, or do I seek to sow unity and harmony? Am I willing to make the Great Commandment of Jesus, to love God and neighbor primary in my life?
ABOUT THE MUSIC: This is in the form of a Grand Waltz. As primarily a musician, I have played dances, but never have been much of a dancer. In my mind’s eye, I see the Reign of God as one in which all of humanity joins in a great, joyful, resplendent waltz with God. The primary melody of the waltz is in the key of F Lydian mode. The form of the song is Rondo form in which the A melody is heard time and time again amidst a number of other and more secondary melodies, some of these melodies being long and some of them lasting only a few measure. The form of this song is AABAACADAAEA Coda.
I am releasing these very rudimentary recordings I made in the year of 2012 through CD Baby. I made these recordings following 11 months of recovery from two hip replacements and a MRSA infection. Having tangoed (an interesting image considering I didn’t have a left hip for almost 6 months) with death from the MRSA infection, I began to look at the legacy of music I had composed over the years as a director of music and liturgy in the parish churches I had served. All of this music started out as settings for SATB choir and piano/organ and composed for the various feasts of the liturgical year.
No longer directing parish music and having the musicians at hand, with arthritis developing in my hands, compounded by an injury that took 40% of usage from my right hand, I wondered how I could document the vocal music I had composed.
My intent behind composing music for liturgy has always been twofold: 1) to give glory and praise to the God who created me; and, 2) the love of composing music. While the intent behind this music was not solely to make money, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make a few cents off of them.
With my guitar in hand, and a microphone hooked up to my laptop computer, I ended up making the music heard on this CD. As stated above, the recordings are very rudimentary. I suppose in the terms of the music industry, they would be “demos”, rough recordings that a real recording studio could fashion into something much finer. I took music from the two CDs I made in 2012, reducing the total number of songs to the 8 best recorded songs and had the musical engineers at CD Baby master the recordings. All in all, it turned out pretty good (think the sound quality of early folk song albums from the 60’s).
This should be available on Amazon and iTunes fairly soon. I will then make a number of CDs to sell, too.
