Of all the images used for the Holy Spirit, the most profound image for me is that of the “breath of God.” Ruah is the Hebraic word for the breath of God. In the very beginning, God breathed upon the waters of the abyss, and life came forth. In Ezekial 37, the prophet sees a valley filled with the dead bones of an army. God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. As the prophet does so, the bones reconnect and sinew, muscle, and flesh form on the bones. Then God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, as the prophet does so, the breath of God present in the four winds descends upon the valley and reanimates the dead bodies of the army. God’s breath flows through all of creation animating the life in all living creatures, plants, in our soil, our water, our air, and has left its imprint on the mighty geography of our planet.
We like to compartmentalize our lives into “church/religion” on Sunday, and then the rest of our time outside of church away from God. When we reimage the Holy Spirit as God’s breath we cannot separate ourselves from God, for God is present in the very air around us which we breathe into our lungs. There is no away time from God for God is everywhere. We exist because God wills it, and our very existence is within in God. To try to exist outside of God would bring about instantaneous physical and spiritual death. Present-day humanity that prides itself on being self-reliant, self-made and beholding to nobody but itself does not want to hear this truth. Without God’s breath, our bodies are nothing but a heap of dead, dry bones. We are totally and completely reliant on God.
On Pentecost, the mighty wind of God’s breath blew through the city of Jerusalem into the people of that Upper Room. They went forth from that room and with the power of that Divine Breath, utterly changed humanity. All of humanity’s wisdom and knowledge, scientific breakthroughs, art, music, poetry, literature, all things good come to us in the Holy Spirit, the Divine Breath of God. On this Solemnity of the Pentecost, may the Holy Spirit, the Divine Breath of God, stir within our bodies, minds, and souls an equal zeal to go forth and change the world.
On February 15th of this year (2018), I began composing the latest Opus (fancy word for collection) of Psalm Offerings. The overall theological concept behind these compositions was the Paschal Mystery, hence, the subtitle, “The Paschal Mystery Psalm Offerings”. I completed the last of the compositions two weeks ago (see the blogpost for Psalm Offering 9 Opus 9). All of the music has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. On Friday, I took a step to get the music into wider distribution through cdbaby.com. You can find it at this address, http://store.cdbaby.com/cd/deaconbobwagnerofs .
I wrote a commentary, complete with scriptural references, that has also been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. The rationale for these Psalm Offerings is explained in this Introduction.
“At some moment in our lives, we will encounter God in what is best described as a “mystical experience.” I have had these moments, some of the most vivid during the birth of my children, in which I could sense the presence of God so distinctly I felt that if I would hold up my hand I would have been able to touch the face of God.
The most powerful mystical experience I have had in my life occurred during the summer of 1981. At the time, I was the music educator for St Wenceslaus Catholic School in New Prague. At the same time, I was the director of liturgical music. This required me to work 7 day weeks. By the time the school year ended in early June, I was experiencing extreme ministerial burnout. The problem was I didn’t know I was severely burnt out. All I knew was that I was incapable of feeling any kind of emotion, except perhaps, fear, because I did not know what was going on with me emotionally. I went to the public library and after some research discovered exactly what I had.
Just as the school year ended, I was immersed in graduate study. A couple of years earlier, I figured that if I was going to be a liturgical musician, I had better know something about what I was doing. I entered the Master of Arts Pastoral Study program at the College of St. Thomas. Because this was offered during the summer months, a whole semester of graduate study was compressed into six weeks with the first term paper (with annotated footnotes) due by the end of the first week. I found it very intense, challenging, gratifying, and wonderful. Classes would begin around 8:30 am/9 am and end sometime around 4 pm. I would get up early and travel the 45-50 minutes up to St. Paul and return home around 5 pm. In the summer of 1981, I was beginning my third summer in the program as I was suffering from this severe burnout.
The route I took from my home to New Prague to the college campus in St. Paul could best be described as many winding roads. The highway and county roads from my home matched the topographic detail of the land, rolling hills and lakes defining the path of the road, with mostly farmsteads, barns, acres of corn, soybeans, alfalfa, and pastures on either side of the road. The intersections with stop signs were far from ordinary, often requiring a right turn and then a left turn to continue the journey east to the freeway.
I remember one summer morning driving up to the campus. It was a bright, sunny day with brilliant blue skies. Overwhelmed and barely functioning because of the burnout, I was praying to God to take the burnout from me.
As I prayed, I suddenly found myself in a very dark and windy void. My body was being blown about in the wind and the only thing that kept me from being blown away into the darkness was a piece of white cloth that my right hand was clutching.
I looked to see what it was I was grasping and found that it was the hem of a white garment. As my eyes followed the path from my hand upward, I found myself staring into the face of the Resurrected Jesus who was dressed in a pure, white alb. Unlike the many crucifixes with a dead Jesus, hands and feet nailed to the wood of the cross, this was the glorified Jesus, alive with his arms and hands stretched out into this dark void. I looked into his eyes and softly said, “Help me!” He smiled at me and silently bent over, his right arm reaching down toward mine. His right hand grasped my right hand at the wrist and he began to pull me up toward him. Unlike the motion when one picks up a child, he didn’t pull me up onto himself, rather, he pulled me up inside of himself. I suddenly looked at my right hand and it was his hand. I realized that my eyes were looking at the world through his eyes. I looked down at his/my feet and I saw all these people hanging onto the hem of our alb, begging for help as they were blown about in this very, dark, windy space. His/my/our hand reached down and began to pull them up into ourself.
The vision suddenly ended and I found myself traveling north on the freeway, close to the city of Lakeville. I had traveled 17 miles on these winding roads, without destroying rows of corn and soybeans. no cows, sheep, or chickens maimed or killed, my car not submerged into the depths of one of the many lakes, and no colliding of my car with other vehicles. How I safely traveled this distance remains a complete mystery to me. All I knew was that when I emerged from this mystical state, I was completely healed from my burnout. I also knew what I would be doing for the rest of my life. It was after this I began to research what it meant to be a permanent deacon.
I have written about how the Paschal Mystery of Jesus is constantly present in the lives of his disciples. Every Easter Vigil, in his letter to the Romans, we hear St. Paul write to us that when we were baptized we were baptized into Christ Jesus’ passion and death. He then goes on to tell us that we are also baptized into his Resurrection. The path to the Resurrections in our lives is always through our passions and deaths. The very events that cause us suffering are also the source of our salvation and new life. My burnout, ironically, was the pathway to greater healing, greater self-knowledge, and greater purpose in my life. My burnout led me to an encounter with Jesus so powerful that it continues to alter, direct and influence my life to this very day.
This being said, suffering is not a virtue after which we should seek. Most of us try to avoid suffering for there is no joy in suffering. However, our human condition being what it is, suffering naturally finds us. The question that must ask in the midst of suffering is “What am I to learn from this?” Or, as a former pastor once asked me, “Where is the grace in all of this?” Asking these questions is far better than shaking our fist toward the heavens, cursing God and shouting, “Why me?” When we reflect on the suffering we are or have experienced, and search for the grace or learning we have gained from it, we will find that that suffering has been a catalyst from which we have grown closer to God.
The music in this collection is dedicated to people who have known suffering. However, through their suffering they have also experienced Resurrection. My mother in law, Rosemary, who struggled the last years of her life; my sister Mary Ruth, who endured 25 years of chronic illness; the many children, women and men gunned down viciously in our schools, shopping malls, theaters, and concerts. Then there are the people who I have known who continue to work and struggle through adversity and experience enough Resurrection, even though it may be a wee bit, to continue to persevere. Their names are all attached to these piano prayer songs.
As I composed the music, I reflected upon the scripture that was its inspiration. May this music be a doorway into a deeper reflection of your own Paschal Mystery.”
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.
The A melody is comprised of an ostinato (a repeated harmonic or rhythmic pattern) made up of minor and diminished chords. The pattern is introduced as a melody in the higher range of the piano and continues in the lower range underneath variations of that initial melody. It is meant to sound like a funeral dirge, the steady beat the tromp of feet on the grassy surface of a cemetery. The tempo marking Lento con piangente translated means “slowly with falling tears.
The B melody is comprised of an extremely fast melodic and rhythmic pattern, strongly punctuated by accents and staccato. It is as relentless as the chaos experienced by those killed by the spray of bullets from assault weapons. There are only a few moments in the piece, where the ostinato pattern eases up only to return with great fury. As this section of the music comes to a close the funeral dirge in strong chords is reintroduced over the ostinato pattern gradually lessening in intensity and volume. The tempo of the B melody is Agitato, literally, “agitated”.
The A ostinatto pattern then is recapitulated at a faster tempo, as the family members return to the gravesite of their slaughtered loved ones to mourn.
This seques into the final part of the piece, the C melody. The expressive marking at this point being Con Grande Riverenza, “With Great Reverence”. The diminished and minor chords disappear, replaced with a hymn-like melody in the key of F major. The hymn tune begins simply as single notes, then in two part harmony, repeated in a Chorale arrangement of the hymn tune, followed by the melody in the lower range, supported by broken chords in the upper range, the melody returning in full chords in the upper range while arpeggiated chords are played in the lower range, climaxing with the melody in block chords in both hands, to end quietly as the piece began, only this time in peace.
I suggest you read this commentary prior to your first listening. It will help you to understand the music better. This music is rather long at 10 minutes in length.
Bob Wagner OFS
Psalm Offering 3, Opus 9 (c) 2018, Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
(c) 2016 by Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
this Psalm Offering 1 Opus 7, composed as a prayer for the Philando Castille, murdered in August 2016 and for the mass shootings of Dallas police two days later, is offered for the dead, wounded, and emotionally and spiritually wounded victims of the gun massacre at Parkland High School, Florida yesterday.
In the first reading, we hear Job refer to human life as a drudgery. He then expounds on how miserable his life has become and ends his soliloquy with the words, “Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.” Job is not alone. The prophet Jeremiah, overwhelmed by depression, complains that God has duped him, and, what is worse, is he allowed himself to be duped. Jeremiah, lists how hard his life as a prophet has been concluding that he wishes he had never been born. Many of us may have felt or said something very similar at one time or another in our lives. It is a comfort knowing that while misery loves company, we are, at the very least, in the good company of Job and Jeremiah.
It is important for us to not leave Job and Jeremiah in the throes of their disillusionment. As much as they may have felt left abandoned by God, God did not abandon them. God remained true to them and was present to them. The Psalmist of Psalm 23 writes that even though he walks through the valley of death, God continues to walk by his side. It is important for us to note that the Psalmist does not say that by being faithful servants of God we will not experience desolation or hardship. What the Psalmist states is that when we do experience dark times in our lives, God will not abandon us. God will remain present to us, just as God has done for Job and Jeremiah.
If we need more proof of this we must look to the life of Jesus, who, in the Passion accounts of Mark and Matthew, also expressed, “My God, my God! Why have you abandoned me?” It is true that Jesus dies feeling alone and abandoned in those two accounts of his Passion. It is also true that God the Father did not abandon him, but remained present to him, raising Jesus victoriously from the dead on the third day. When times of disillusionment and desperation fall upon us, let us recall that we are never left alone by God. God is very present to us, just as God was present to Job, Jeremiah, and especially Jesus.
Astonishment! Amazement! Those are feelings many felt when the Vikings beat the Saints in the last 10 seconds of that first playoff game. Having had my heart broken by the Vikings these many years, I was astonished they didn’t choke and lose the game. Astonishment and amazement are feelings that we reserve for only the most extraordinary moments we have in life. We generally use the word “surprise” to describe the ordinary moments in life, e.g. “Joe was surprised he aced the test.”
The words astonishment and amazement aptly expresses our encounters with God. These encounters occur not only at Mass. We encounter the same astonishment when we walk out the door and see a beautiful sunrise greeting us at the beginning of the day, or in the amazement we feel as we lose ourselves in the heavens gazing upon the stars. We encounter the astonishment of God when we look into the eyes of a newborn baby, or gaze into the eyes of the one we love. As we walk into this new week, let us open ourselves to encounters with our God. They will come when we least expect them and we will be astonished and amazed.
There is a saying, “keep it simple, stupid.” This saying is directed to those who like to throw around all sorts of information, so much so that it muddies the point they are trying to make. The mark of a really intelligent person is the ability to take a very complicated and complex issue and reduce it to its simplest form, making it understandable to others.
I have been recently having Facebook conversations, if one can actually call them conversations, with the ultra neo-orthodox Catholic right. It is quite evident that the base of most of their information is mostly hearsay. To attempt to prove they are right, they tend to throw around sanctimonious platitudes and biblical pericopes like simplistic bumper sticker soundbytes, generally out of context. Any of the biblical disciplines used in proper biblical exegesis by any true scholar or student of scripture are totally absent. They have no apparent desire to explore the complexities or the depths of the subject about which they feel so self-righteous. Their ability to think critically about very complex questions in human life is not apparent. When their arguments or sentiments are questioned or countered, they are unable to respond, some resorting to sputtering out insults, name calling, and aghast accusations of excommunication. I have been called a “demon”, a fat piece of sh*t”, told to get “f*cked”, and so on. It is akin to attempting to reason with a young child who covers his/her ears and shouts repeatedly, “I know you are, but what am I.”
I suppose one could simply ignore them and let them drown in their own self-righteousness, their ignorance like a millstone around their neck dragging them down into the depths. As frustrating and as irritable as it is in trying to expand their minds to consider the wider complexities of life, the educator in me prods me to not leave them in their small, dank, miserable world of fear.
Fear is the dominant characteristic of many of the religious right, regardless of the Christian denomination, or for that matter, any world religion. They live in a world of fear, and the only thing that can protect them from the scariness around them is the perceived palisade of half-truths they build up around themselves. Not thoroughly understanding the fullness of the truth their religion provides, they tend to crouch in darkness behind this palisade clutching their perceived truth of their religion like knife, blindly and erractically swinging the blade around them. They hope their blade will cut the Evil they think is attacking them, but in the end the only thing the blade cuts is emptiness. The irony is that the Evil they are trying to fend off is not outside the palisade. That Evil has already breached the palisade and is sitting comfortably and safely next to them.
When I was in graduate school in the seminary, Fr Mike Joncas briefly interrupted one of his lectures to pose this question to my class. “What is the purpose of graduate school?” The summation of our response to him boiled down to “coming to know the answers.” Mike looked at us and said, “No. The purpose of graduate school is not to know the answers. The purpose is to know the correct question to ask.”
God gave humanity a brain so that we might be able to ask the key questions that are necessary in order to become fully human. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, didn’t so much give answers, but instead posed questions for his disciples. Many of his parables were not simplistic stories, but challenged the listener to really think and explore what the parable meant. In Mark’s Gospel, the apostles are particularly portrayed as rather dense, and seemed always puzzled as to what a parable meant, often to Jesus’ own consternation. A true follower of Jesus does not live in comfortable complacency seeking simplistic answers to the complexities of human life. A true follower of Jesus, rather, lives in the crucible, always trying to discover where God is within the complexities of human life.
For the true disciple of Jesus, it is not having the answers that is important. Rather, it is the journey to the fullness of the Reign of God that is ultimately most important. Consider for a moment, Mary and Joseph’s journey as parents of Jesus. Scripture repeatedly tells us that they did not have a full understanding of what the mission of their special child was all about. All they were capable of doing was pondering and reflecting upon the events of life as they unfolded. They had no answers. Mary continued questioning and pondering her way as a faithful disciple of her son all the way to Calvary, never fully understanding the will of God but trying to understand it as it unfolded in her life.
In the end, it is not answers that we seek. We seek to ask the correct question, which is always, “Where is God in all of this?” That question will ultimately lead us to that which we seek, God.
Ruthie’s family: (kneeling) Teresa, (left to right standing) Gary, Ruth, Rosemary, Al, Jeannie, Mary Ann, Paul
A week ago, my brothers and sisters, and my father-in-law, entrusted to me the responsibility of writing and delivering the Words of Remembrance (commonly known as a eulogy) at the funeral of my mother-in-law, Rosemary Ahmann. The words posted below, are that which I said yesterday, at her funeral Mass. I hope I lived up to and honored the expectations of my other family.
ROSEMARY AHMANN
I came to know Rosemary through her daughter, Ruth. The funny thing was that I didn’t even know that Ruth had parents for over 9 months. I was a junior in high school and had transferred to St Bernard’s from another Benedictine run high school in Chicago, when my father’s company relocated him to St. Paul. Ruth was the first one from St. Bernard’s who welcomed me and talked to me. Dark-haired, beautiful with a radiant smile, I fell for Ruth the moment she greeted me. It took me quite a while to have the courage to ask her out on a date. After all, I was a junior and she was a senior. Ruthie told me that she and her sister, Annie, lived with her Aunt Evie and Uncle Harold on Marion St in St. Paul. I assumed they were orphans. It wasn’t until Ruth graduated from high school and I received an invitation to her graduation open house that I knew that Ruth had parents who were living. I always thought Ruth to be a street-smart, urban girl who lived in the rough and tumble world of Rice Street, St. Paul. And suddenly I discover that she is really a farmer’s daughter. It was at her open house that I first met her mom and dad, Paul, Gary, Jeannie, and Teresa, and, Babe the horse who greeted me by stepping on my right foot.
Over the months of that summer, I regularly made the drive up to the farm under the pretense of catching fish on Bone Lake which was just across the road from Ruth’s farm. Rose, who did grow up in the rough and tumble world of Rice Street, St. Paul, quickly saw through my fishing charade and knew that it was not fish in which I was interested, but, rather, it was her daughter, Ruth, I was hoping to catch. Over the next five years, as Ruthie and I continued to date, and then became engaged, my status changed gradually from outlaw to eventually in-law. Rose accepted me and loved me as one of her own, which meant I couldn’t pull the wool over her eyes any more than could Paul, Gary, Jeannie, Annie and Teresa. I don’t count Ruth among our motley crew, for she is and remains, after all, the perfect child.
All the anecdotes about Rose’s remarkable ability to use a wooden spoon to stir spaghetti sauce and simultaneously swat the buttocks of a misbehaving child, her annual week vacation with her best friends forever playing penny poker, and drinking frozen daiquiris whilst floating on inner tubes, welcoming and feeding the numerous people who stopped out at the farm, including many friends, nieces, nephews, neighbors, the friends of her children, and her grandchildren, and the cloud of methane that would linger over the farm from the consumption of enormous quantities of corn beef and cabbage at her famed St Patrick Day celebrations, I will leave to those better qualified than I to tell.
We read in the very beginning of the Book of Genesis, that God is in relationship with all that God created. Martin Buber, rabbi, poet, philosopher and theologian, restates the first line of Genesis in this way, “In the beginning, was in relation.” God has been in a special love relationship with all of humanity, with you and with me, and, the mission of our life is to not only welcome and embrace our relationship with God, but to model the same kind of love relationship with all those around us, family, friends, neighbors and strangers. Rosemary was exemplary in not only embracing her relationship with God but in sharing that love relationship with all she knew.
It is said that the hearth is the heart of the home. I think it safe to say that Rosemary is the heart of the Ahmann home. All of us gathered here have been recipients of Rose’s love, and know the depths of her love for us. Her relationship with us was primary over and above all things.
As we are doing today at this funeral Mass, we commune with our God at the celebration of the Eucharist. This is the place in which we meet God face to face over a meal of great Thanksgiving. Al and Rose have been faithful in making this community meal with God primary in their lives. And, Rose, having been fed at this Divine meal, made it a point to go home and recreate within her own household a similar eucharist, a similar meal of Great Thanksgiving, albeit her eucharist begins with a small “e”. Whether that meal consists of just coffee with neighbors, a shared apricot brandy or Irish Mist; whether that meal consists of hot dagos, German potato salad, that wonderful cold tuna fish salad, or hot buttered popcorn, those of us who have shared a meal with her know that that meal was a sacred one in which the God she loved so much was so very much present.
Less one think that I am painting a picture of Rose as another Mother Theresa of Calcutta, well, we all know better. She grew up on Rice Street, with her brothers, Austin, Bud, and Bill, whom my kids knew as Uncle Honeydumper, and her sister, Ev. This was a household that was not isolated from the world of Rice Street two blocks away, but was filled with the stories, and laughter, mischief, a few bawdy songs, and the raucous goings on of that famed street in St Paul. As Evie would frequently point out, her brothers, Austin, Bud and Bill did lose their marbles on Rice Street. Though a complete lady, Rose had an earthy sense of humor and the gritty side of her life growing up on Rice Street would show itself from time to time. No, Rosemary is not Mother Therese of Calcutta, I rather think of her as St Rosemary of Scandia.
It is common to think that when someone dies, the person dies with their body. Nothing could be further from the truth. Last Thursday, Rose’s body, sick and worn out, died, but Rose did not die. Rose is very much alive and probably feeling better than she has in years. The love she has for us has not died. Rather, her love for us is all the more present to us now that she is not confined by a body to being in one place at one time. I remember as my sister was dying in the hospice wing of St Joseph’s Hospital, my sister greeting all the dead relatives in the room and turning to my mother and I, saying, “They are playing my song, but I am not ready to hear it yet.” She died two days later. Rosemary has not died, rather she remains every much present to us now as she had when her body was alive. And when the time comes for us to pass from this life to the fullness of God’s life, we will find her there welcoming us home.
I would like to end these words with an Irish song that I first heard on an old Clancy Brother and Tommy Makem album, many years ago. I understand it is usually sung at closing times in many a pub in Ireland. It is called The “Parting Glas”s.
Oh, all the money that e’er I spent,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm that e’er I’ve done
Alas, it was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall.
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all.
Oh all the comrades that e’er I’ve had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e’er I’ve had
Would wish me one more day to stay.
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all.
Olivia and Oliver
(from left to right): Owen, Alyssa, Aidan, and Sydney after the wedding rehearsal for their cousin, Joan Wagner.
Psalm Offering 3: This is where the Psalm Offerings begin to be more challenging to play. The first challenge is the changing meter from 6/8 meter to 3/4 meter, back to 6/8 meter. The second challenge is the subdivision of beats in the 6/8 meter. The song begins in a fast 6/8 time with measures alternating between a measure of 6/8 with the 1st and 4th beats accented, followed by a measure with the 1st, 3rd, and 5th beats accented, e.g. 123456/123456 This segues into a middle section of slower 3/4 time. Melody 1 returns in the faster 6/8 time.
(c) 2017, Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
Psalm Offering 2: This song is a little more complicated, but still fairly simple. The “Alberti Bass”, a left hand accompaniment pattern used frequently by the Classical period composers, e.g. Mozart and Haydn, is very repetitive and played with ease. The song is written in Rondo form: melody 1, melody 2, melody 1, melody 3, melody 1.
(c) 2017, Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
