We begin the 3rd week of our Lenten journey. The
1st week emphasized the need to set aside time each day to listen to
God in silence. The 2nd 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.
Bob Murphy and my cousin, Greta, on their wedding day.
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.
Psalm Offering 4, Opus 4 “For Bob Murphy” (c) 2016, Robert Charles Wagner. All right reserved.Rosemary Ahmann at one of the Burg family reunions.
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).
Jesus, depicted as a mother pelican feeding her chicks with her own blood (from a stain glass window from St John the Evangelist Catholic Church, Union Hill, MN
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)
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.
Psalm Offering 8, Opus 7 (c) 2017, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
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.
Threnody for the Victims of Gun Violence (c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
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.
Transfiguration of Jesus, 12th century icon
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?
Have you ever been asked the question, “Where are
you from?” The way we express or say words and our mannerisms can often prompt
that question. (For instance, Minnesotans have a unique way of expressing the
positive with a negative. The question, “How are you doing?” is often answered
with the positive/negative, “Not so bad.” Another example is “awful good
coffee”.) In today’s second reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul
writes that the manner by which we act and express ourselves must show that we
are citizens of heaven and not citizens of the world in which we live.
Those of this world, Paul calls “enemies of the cross of
Christ”. The way by which they live and express themselves indicates their
citizenship. Paul describes their way of life in these words, “Their end is
destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their
“shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.” Paul calls
upon the Philippians to model their lives after that of Jesus. In doing so they
will find their bodies, through the power of Jesus, gradually transformed into
Jesus’ own glorified body.
As those who have been baptized into Christ’s death and
resurrection, we, too, have died and risen with Christ. While we may live in
our world, we are no longer OF this world. We have one foot planted firmly in
heaven, while our other foot rests in this world. As we allow our bodies to
gradually be transformed into the glorified body of Jesus, we bring that part
of heaven that is Jesus into the world in which we live, with the hope that
over time, our world will also experience the glorification we are undergoing.
May these 40 days of Lent be transformative for us and for
the world in which we live.
Every now and again, I compose a musical song that seems so beyond that which I feel capable of composing. This is one of those songs.
Over the 50 years we have known each other, I have composed 6 songs for Ruth, beginning as a Freshman in College. This most recent song was composed around this time last year.
Ruthie’s high school graduation picture.
When I sat down to compose this song the only thing I knew was that I wanted it in 5/4 meter. The melody and the harmonies just came into my mind and I translated what I heard in the musical program on my computer. I have composed many songs over 50 years. This is, in my opinion, my finest piano composition.
Psalm Offering 9 Opus 9 (c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
Ruthie in 1973, one year before we married.
Ruthie and our 4th child, Beth, 1984.Ruthie, picture taken in a couple of years ago.
Today, Jesus is led into the silence of the desert that he
might better listen to God the Father.
Our daily lives are filled with distractions. Some of these distractions are
good and some are harmful. Even our prayer can be distracting. We fill our
prayer with so many words that can distract us from reflecting on the words we
are praying. We need to build within our day, desert time. Like Jesus, we need
to escape into silence in order to better listen
to God speaking within us. Quite simply, we need to shut up and just listen.
One of the most ancient forms of Christian prayer is called
“centering prayer.” Centering prayer requires us to sit in silence and listen
to the presence of God within us. Those who daily commit themselves to 10 or 20
minutes of centering prayer find, over time, God revealing God’s love to them,
compelling them to live more fully their vocation as disciples of Jesus.
A very simple way that need not take 10 to 20 minutes, is
the “Examen” prayer developed by St Ignatius Loyola. At the close of our day,
St Ignatius recommends us to follow these 6 simple steps. 1) Become aware of
God’s presence. 2) Review your day with gratitude. Gratitude is the foundation
of our relationship with God. Walk through your day in the presence of God and
note its joys and delights. 3) Pay attention to your emotions. Reflect on the
feelings you experienced during the day. Ask what God is saying through these
feelings. 4) Choose one feature of the day and pray from it. Ask the Holy
Spirit to direct you to something during the day that God thinks is
particularly important. It may be a vivid moment or something that seems
insignificant. 5) Look toward tomorrow. Ask God to give you light for
tomorrow’s challenges. And, 6) End the Daily Examen with a conversation with
Jesus. Ask forgiveness for your sins. Ask for his protection and help. Ask for
his wisdom about the questions you have and the problems you face. Do all this
in the spirit of gratitude.
If we do the Examen daily, we will find ourselves less
distracted and more focused on the presence of God in our lives. Isn’t that
what the Season of Lent is all about?
Our beloved Great Pyrennes, Floydrmoose (Floyd or Moose for short). The picture was taken 5 days before Floyd died.
This day is always a sad one for me. The day prior to the above picture being taken, Floyd was diagnosed with cancer of the bone. A tumor was destroying the bones of his right rear leg. Great Pyrennes, being a large breed, are too massive to try to get around on only 3 legs. Floyd was so large that the neighborhood kids use to argue as to whether he was a polar bear or whether he was a dog. Though weighing in around 170 pounds, he was mostly fur, but actually quite skinny under all that fur. He was our gentle giant and a very loving companion. So, on March 7th, I drove him early in the morning to the local vets. Ruthie met me there and as we held him, the doctor administered the lethal injection. Floyd looked at me one last time with those beautiful brown almond shaped eyes, and then his eyes closed and he died.
When I was recovering from a MRSA infection resulting from a hip replacement in 2011, I began a book of poems dedicated to my wife, Ruth. I call it The Book of Ruth. The poems chronicle our courtship, our early years of marriage and so on all the way to 2011. In it is the poem I wrote about our wonderful dog, Floyd. While the poem is about Floyd, the poem is addressed to Ruth. She, growing up on a farm, had no time for pet animals. So instead of a dog or a cat, the kids had birds, rodents, fish, and a lizard as pets. I think the lizard broke her resolve, and she finally conceded on the kids having a dog. We did our research, presented it to her, and she ignored it all. She picked up the official AKC book of breeds, looked at some pictures, saw a picture of a Great Pyrennes and told us that this was the dog. I remarked that our house and yard were too small for a dog that size. In fact, you can almost saddle a Great Pyrennes and ride it. Ruth was unrelenting. So we got Floyd and he changed our lives for ever.
Here is the poem.
PASSION AND DEATH – FLOYDRMOOSE
Six years earlier, a ball of white fur, a point of a tail dabbed in red. “Red” is what they named him to differentiate him from his siblings, “Green,” “Blue,” “Yellow,” “Purple” and “Orange.”
Farm girl objections and convictions of dogs as outside not inside animals, years preventing, and oddly creating a cavalcade competition of seed spitting birds, rodent masquerades of hamsters and gerbils, and slowly lumbering iguanas as family pets, bringing you to this capitulation, or is it defeat? Man’s best friend wins, fevered searches, thumb-worn resources, American Kennel Club, scoured and searched for the perfect dog.
The equation laid out, tall, big people equal tall big dogs, a direct logical defiance of a poster stamp yard. Befuddlement ended, a magnificent photo of a mountain top dog, a giant white canine, lion’s mane of hair olive-shaped brown eyes as tall as the mountain upon which it stands. “That is the dog!” your word final, the quest begun to end here finding this diminutive ball of white fur with the eagerly wagging red-tipped tail.
Beth’s graduation picture with Floyd.
Variances for fencing sought and got the little creature home, little knowing how hearts would be captured, and who really owned who? You, the alpha dog, the queen of his heart, laying at your feet in expectation, you christened him, a play on “Fliedermaus”, a bat? Hardly, a moose, FloydRMoose he became, a 170 pound behemoth, muzzle resting on the kitchen counter, eyes intently gazing, carefully gauging, meal preparation, for bacon, or cheese, a pound of butter, the NutterButter thief.
Adoration, yes, greeting you, his great head bowed low raising it under your nightgown, his black broad nose, coldly nestling the warm skin of your voluptuous bottom, a “Get your nose out of there!” ringing through the house. Adoration? Infatuation? or merely opportunism? taking my empty spot in the bed, his head on my pillow, spooning you as you lay on your side, you wondering if it were I breathing heavily into your ear.
Neighborhood debates, loudly argued among the younger residents as to him being a Polar Bear or dog. The diminutive postal worker glancing nervously sideways at the huge white creature’s great bark of welcome, frozen in fright as he nosed open the screen door to sniff her, later weeping at his death. Photogenic, his broad open smile dominating every picture, our Beth, dwarfed and forgotten by his side in her graduation pictures. His resounding voice originating from the dew claws on his back feet, catching the attention of the unaware, the long strings of drool from each corner of his ear to ear smile, the shake of the great white head sending the strings in flight across the room to land on people, sofa and chair.
Floyd awaiting to get outside.
Hot summers draped over air-conditioning ducts on the floor, like a pile of snow on a hot July day. In winter laying across the bottom of the outside door catching and trapping the cold, seeping air in his thick white coat.
Water, especially lake water his dreadful foe, memories of near drowning off boat docks and dramatic rescues his paws clutching desperately around the neck of Meg as she pulled him from a watery demise. Bath water an equal foe, much preferring the dirt under the deck or his lips colored pink from the red artificial apple ornaments he mistook for real fruit.
Ear mite infestations, unwelcoming the drop of medication in his ear canals, the heart worm pills disguised in cheese and bacon, the large Dairy Queen vanilla cones, his favorite anytime treat, his blown, white undercoat resting on the deck like a foot of snow in the Spring, prime nesting material, providing a soft layer of spun comfort for the bottoms of mother birds.
Six years later, here we are, the sudden limp, the cancer eating at the bone of his right rear leg, the visit to the doctor, and the grim diagnosis. Too massive to move on just three legs, the stark alternative inevitable. Julius Caesar’s Ides of March not nearly as bitter as this Seventh of March.
Meg, Floyd, and Luke
The painful climb into the back seat, one final ride to the Vet he loved, instincts intact, nose active urine inspections at the entrance, we walk, together, through the door. You pull up to the building, this woeful, awful task to not be mine alone, we lift his beautiful, massive white body onto the table. The shot is administered and he falls gently into eternal slumber, as beautiful in death as he was in life, and heartbroken, we weep.
(front row) Luke, Floyd, and Beth (back row) Ruth and I.
Have you ever heard of a fight breaking out in a line of
people waiting to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Sounds absurd, doesn’t
it? A deacon friend of mine, assigned to
Catholic parish in St Paul, told me that he would be sent out by the priest to
break up fist fights among the elderly parishioners who were in line for confession. There was a
certain protocol established by the parishioners for getting into line, and if
that protocol was violated, violence would erupt among the elderly
participants. Woe to the visitor to the church who didn’t know that he or she
was unknowingly budging in line. It sounds ludicrous that people seeking
reconciliation with God would act contrary to the reconciliation they were
seeking with God.
This story illustrates what Jesus is telling us in the
Gospel today. Continuing on his message of loving our enemies and praying for
those who persecute us, Jesus is urging us the necessity of examining our own
sinful behavior before we start in on the sinfulness of others. This self awareness is wonderfully lived by
Pope Francis. When asked the question, “Who are you?”, Pope Francis always
answers, “I am a sinner.” Jesus
emphasizes that we need to become self aware of our own sinfulness, our own
need for conversion. Not a one of us lives perfectly the Great Commandment of
loving God with all our heart, mind and strength, and loving our neighbors as
ourselves. It is important for us to be self aware of that which gets in our
way of loving God and loving our neighbor, and to commit ourselves to trying
each day to love God and our neighbor better.
If we do not work at this self awareness, then no matter how self righteous we may appear to others, we are no more than the whitened graves (sepulchers) by which Jesus described the Pharisees. We look good on the outside, but are filled with dead bones and rot on the inside. To be blind to our own sinfulness is, in the end, self-betrayal. We only fool ourselves, and our lives end up being as futile as getting in a fist fight with others in line as we wait to go to confession.
We are so quick to condemn, aren’t we? I am as guilty of
this as the next person. It is far easier to curse or bellyache about someone
or something, than it is to find some good in someone or something. Throughout
the Gospels, the message that we hear multiple times from Jesus is that the
mercy that God gives us will equal the mercy we extend to others. “Forgive us
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” we pray to God
every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Do we really want God to forgive us with
the same level of forgiveness we dole out to others? The last line of the
Gospel today Jesus tells us, “For the measure with which you measure will in
return be measured out to you.” That should shake us up quite a bit, especially
if we have been less than merciful to others.
Today, Jesus abolishes the old law of vengeance, “an eye for
an eye, a tooth for a tooth” by instituting a new law for his disciples. “To
you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Jesus shortens
this law up in John’s Gospel to “love one another as I have loved you.” We are
given a command from Jesus to abandon the dirty mantle of revenge and hatred by
which the world lives, and cloak ourselves in the mantle of God’s love and
forgiveness. Which will we choose to wear?
