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In common usage, having an “epiphany” is one of those “a-HA!” moments when a person has a sudden insight or revelation. On this Solemnity of the Epiphany we celebrate the insight of the wise men who bestow the presence of the Christ, the anointed One of God, in a most unlikely place, a barn, and in the form of a baby boy. The shepherds had a similar experience when they went to the same barn the night of Jesus’ birth. How as the recurring story of these epiphanies of the shepherds and Magi reveal the epiphanies in our lives? Epiphanies, like those of the shepherds and the Magi, often come as a surprise to us. They are suddenly there. We recognize them for what they are. And, just as we begin to wrap our minds around what has happened to us, they quickly leave us pondering about what they mean, just like Mary.

Who has led us to these epiphanies? The angels led the shepherds to the Christ. The Star led the Magi. Who has led us? In my life, it has been my children. I have encountered the presence, the mystery, and the wonder of God in the birth of my children. I have encountered the same at the deathbed of my sister, Mary, and the deathbeds of those to whom I have ministered over 41 years. I have heard the epiphany in a single chord in an orchestral piece, and recently in a piano piece I composed in memory of my unborn grandchild who died as a result of a miscarriage.

How have we in what we have said, or done, or lived our lives led others to a real encounter with the mystery of God? On this feat of the Epiphany, these are good questions for us to ponder, just like Mary did 2000 years ago.

Christmas, for those experiencing loss(es) in their lives, can be a very difficult time to endure. I see this in the lives of those going through separation and divorce and those grieving the death of a loved one. The loneliness can feel oppressive. For others, the busyness and demands of the season can also be burdensome. In these instances, there is a temptation to mouth the words Scrooge mutters in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. Scrooge says that the next person greeting him with Merry Christmas should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. This sentiment of Scrooge may ring familiar to those undergoing stress this Christmastide.

However, I would suggest that instead of harboring the “humbug” of Scrooge, witty in its own cynical way, we, instead, put into practice the words we hear from the prophet Isaiah in the first reading on Christmas Day. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation, and saying to Zion, “Your God is King!”

It is easy to overlook the darkness in the lives of the Jewish people at the first Christmas. They were an oppressed people whose country was occupied by a foreign power. Mary and Joseph were coerced to make the arduous journey to Bethlehem at the whim of the Roman Emperor who ordered a census of his territories. The Jewish people were in need of hearing “good news.” The angels fulfilled this need with the Good News of Jesus’ birth. When Jesus matured, he shared the Good News of God’s love and compassion to the castoffs and desperate of Judea. Upon Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, the Apostles and  their successors continued to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to all the world.

For those of us who find ourselves in darkness, may we put away the boiling pudding and stakes of holly, and open our hearts to the peace and joy of the Angels’ Christmas message. For those of us who are God’s messengers this Christmas, may we gently share by our presence the Good News of God’s love and compassion to those overburdened by loss. How beautiful, indeed, are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of God’s love to all.

In the “Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis 1 wrote this:

“Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” (Pope Francis. The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium): Apostolic Exhortation (p. 15). USCCB.)

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own.” (Pope Francis. The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium): Apostolic Exhortation (p. 15). USCCB.)

“The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32: 1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.” (Pope Francis. The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium): Apostolic Exhortation (p. 15). USCCB.)

It was these words from Pope Francis 1 that was the inspiration behind my composing this year Psalm Offering 4 Opus 7, “for the victims of corporate greed.”

(c) 2017 by Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.

REPENT! THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS NOW!
We encounter John the Baptist and his message of repentance on this second Sunday of Advent. It is human nature to procrastinate and delay repenting because the second coming of Christ seems to be a far-off event. St. Augustine, the penultimate procrastinator in regard to repentance, is quoted  praying to God, “”Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” John the Baptist is saying, “Don’t procrastinate. The time for repentance is now!” Why?

In the hymn, “Gather Us In”, the fourth verse begins, “Not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven light years away, but here in this space new light is shining; now is the Kingdom, now is the day!” We often think of the Kingdom of God as some place in a galaxy far, far away. Quite to the contrary, in the Gospels, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is all around us. Though our physical eyesight cannot perceive it, by faith, we know that the Kingdom of God is over, around and through us, NOW! We are just unaware of it or choose to prevent ourselves from seeing it. St. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, writes that as our health declines and we get closer to death “we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor 4:18). The Kingdom of God is here, right now! This is why in last week’s Gospel, Jesus us tells us, “Be watchful! Be alert!”

The fact that the Kingdom of God is present in the here and now is a hard truth to grasp. As people subject to living in chronological time, our minds find it difficult to think of future events already happening in the present. As St. Peter writes in his second letter, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.” The “time” of God’s Kingdom is not subject to the rule of years, days, minutes, and seconds in which we live. John the Baptist calls us to repent because the future is happening now. May our Advent be one in which we sharpen our awareness, repent of that which encumbers us, and live fully in the presence of God’s Kingdom.

In looking at the posts on my Facebook this morning, I found a post expressing great outrage about greeting people with “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”. Really??!!! On Labor Day of all days??!! The Winter Solstice is still four months away. Why speak about that bitterly cold, miserable time of the year at the end of summer? Here is my response to that post.

I read a post this morning by “Bikers for Whatever (their nom de plume largely forgettable)”. It was post basically stating that anyone who refuses to say “Merry Christmas” and instead insist on saying Happy Holiday sometime around the Winter Solstice is a jerk and they should be deported from the United States. One might be surprised that I truly do not care whether someone greets me with Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday at that time of the year. I suppose one might assume that I being an ordained Roman Catholic Deacon might take great umbrage (anger mixed with insult for the vocabulary deprived) at being greeted with a “Happy Holidays!” It matters not one iota to me.

First, you have to understand that Christmas is a manufactured feast day. Theologians, astronomers, and biblical scholars have stated that scientifically, Jesus was NOT born on December 25th. Our current calendar was not adopted till the time of Pope Gregory centuries long after the birth of Jesus. He was probably born 4 years prior to the year we give him. (Note: that in historical research the BC/AD (Before Christ/After the birth of Christ) no longer are used in historical study because of its historical inaccuracy. The BCE/ACE, Before the Common Era and After the Common Era are now used for more historical accuracy). He was also born at approximately the birthing of the lambs, sometime in March/April. So clearly, in terms of science and historical research, December 25th was not the day in which Jesus was born.

Why was December 25th chosen? Ancient societies chose to have great celebrations at the Winter Solstice. In Roman society there were huge drunken/sex orgies (bacchanalias)  celebrating the shortest day of the year. Many early Christians loved pagan drunken, sex orgies (they would have a certain allure), so in order to control the more primal urges of the faithful, the Church “Christianized” the pagan festival, in a sense, rebooting the festival from unwholesome debauchery into something a wee bit more wholesome e.g. without the rampant sex and drunkenness. In truth, the Church did not celebrate the birth of Jesus for over 3 centuries. The first of Christian feasts is Easter, followed by Pentecost. It was not until about 3 ACE that Christmas began to be celebrated as a feast day. This is not the first of major Church feast days treated this way. All Saints Day was a “Christianizing” of the pagan holiday we know as Halloween. (As I recall, the Baptist Church does not celebrate Christmas because of its connotation with the pagan Winter Solstice holiday)

The other reason that December 25th was chosen was primarily theological. The Church chose to place the celebration of Jesus’ birth at a time of the year for symbolic purposes. Because the Winter Solstice is the darkest time of the year, it symbolized the darkness into which humanity had descended. The days begin to get longer immediately after the Winter Solstice, so by placing the celebration of Jesus’ birth immediately following the darkest day of the year, it symbolized that into the darkness of humanity, God introduced into the world the Divine light that will save humanity from its own darkness.

Flip all this forward to our present time. December and early January are filled with a number of different holidays religious and cultural. As Christians we seem to want to impose our religious holidays on all people whether they are Christian or not. We forget that the Christian religion is only one of many world religions. The Hindus, the Buddhists, the Muslims, and many other religions do not impose their religious holidays upon Christians. They quietly celebrate them as should we, if we are truly to remain faithful to the intent of the Holy Day.
Also note, that the Christmas holidays that the United States celebrate are anything but Christian. Christmas in the United States has very little to do with the birth of Jesus. It is all about cutthroat consumerism in which retailers hope to make up the losses they suffered during the rest of the fiscal year. Greed, licentiousness, drunkenness etc are just as rampant in the United States (note the Christmas parties that are celebrated in corporate America and within family units) as they may have been in ancient Rome. Perhaps the leg lamp displayed in the picture window of Ralphie’s home, “electric sex” as it is referred to in the movie “The Christmas Story”, is an apt description of what Christmas has become in the United States.

So instead of looking askance when someone greets you with a “Happy Holiday” during the Christmas season and telling them to get the hell out of the United States for failing to recognize whatever Christmas you think it to be, greet them instead with a return, “Happy Holiday.” If they greet you with Happy Hannukah, return the salutation and so forth. It is time for Christians and so-called Christians (note: Fox Cable News, religious neo-cons, and trump) to quit being horses rosettes about this whole subject. Instead of flipping people off when they greet you with Happy Holiday, instead spread the good will and peace of Jesus, which we Christians purport to say we believe, and greet them in kind with joy.

(Please reflect on the scripture passages and read the commentary before listening to the music.)

Psalm Offering 4, Opus 7
A prayer for the victims of corporate Greed.

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)

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)

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)
“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)

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)

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.

This pattern of the rich growing richer and the poor growing poorer remains true to the 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).

ABOUT THE MUSIC
The overall form of the music is in three part ABA form. The A melody begins with a loud fanfare of open chords and glissandos, followed by ascending and descending triplets in both hands. The A melody is in the key area of E based on the Greek mixolydian mode. The B melody continues in the E Greek mixolydian mode at a much slower tempo, modulates briefly to a D dorian mode, then back to the E mixolydian mode. 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.

(c) 2017 by BRUTH Music Publishing Company

Scriptural Text by Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A.. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. © 2010 by Oxford University Press Inc. All rights reserved.

 

PSALM
OFFERINGS
OPUS 7

“The Lamentations Psalm Offerings”

By Deacon Bob Wagner OFS

 

Music composed by Deacon Bob Wagner, OFS. © 2017 BRUTH Music Publishing Company, New Prague, Minnesota. All rights reserved.

 Text by Deacon Bob Wagner, OFS. © 2017, BRUTH Music Publishing Company, New Prague, Minnesota. All rights Reserved.

 Scriptural Text by Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A.. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. © 2010 by Oxford University Press Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction

 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’  Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’  Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’  Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25: 31-46, NRSV)

The composing of these Psalm Offerings commenced with the police shooting of Philando Castille in early July of 2016. I began to reflect on this scriptural passage from Matthew’s Gospel and how miserably humanity, especially those who identify themselves as Christian, have failed to love God by ignoring the presence of God in the most vulnerable of our society. The tremendous misery perpetrated upon innocent human beings by other human beings is overwhelming. Statistics cannot begin to adequately express the ongoing tragedy of these crimes against humanity. I went to the beautiful poem entitled “On A Theme From Julian’s Chapter XX” in which the poet, Denise Levertov meditates on the death of Jesus on the cross.

“One only is ‘King of Grief’.
The onening, she saw, the onening
with the Godhead opened Him utterly
to the pain of all minds, all bodies
–       sands of the sea, of the desert –
from first beginning
to last day. The great wonder is
that the human cells of His flesh and bone
didn’t explode
when utmost Imagination rose
in that flood of knowledge. Unique
in agony, infinite strength, Incarnate,
empowered Him to endure
inside of history,
through those hours when He took Himself
the sum total of anguish and drank
even the lees of that cup:”

(BREATHING THE WATER, by Denise Levertov, A New Directions Book, © 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987 by Denise Levertov)

I began to envision the compositions in this Opus as a contemporary musical expression of Lamentation. One might say these musical compositions are my therapy, my way of coping with the increasing disregard for the plight of vulnerable people that seemingly has escalated since the elections of November, 2016.  Each Psalm Offering a dedicated prayer to the victims of modern day sin.

Lest one say that this is too political, quite simply the Gospel of Jesus Christ is very political. The Gospel is not political in the sense of supporting one ideology over another, or one political party over another. However, all ideologies and all political parties must always be evaluated in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To fail to address the failings or the sins of an ideology or a political party is to render the Gospel mute. The failure of the Christian Church to challenge Hitler and the Nazi Party is a black mark against the Church. Only a few chose to stand up to Hitler and the Nazis, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe OFM and Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer the most notable of these chosen few, and they suffered martyrdom for the Gospel as a result. In the recent past, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, Caesar Chavev, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr have also challenged politically unjust systems and have suffered imprisonment, and in the case of Romero and King, martyrdom.

ABOUT THE SCRIPTURE:

The Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Testament is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. In this setting of five poems, the author laments the utter destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, reducing the Jewish people to destitution and sending the remainder off into slavery to Babylon. The author recognizes that it is God who destroyed unfaithful Judah, the Babylonians being the means by which God wreaked destruction upon Judah. One might draw a parallel between the fate of Judah in Lamentations and the spiral downward path that the United States is now taking.

Admittedly, I have used the Lamentation passages that introduce the musical Lamentation out of its scriptural context. However, the raw emotion of the passage describes in a visceral way the plight of the victims for whom this collection of Psalm Offerings is offered as a musical prayer.

ABOUT THE MUSIC:

The majority of the music to which we listen is composed in either a major or a minor scale. These two primary scales that form the melodies of our music have a system of whole steps and half steps that determine whether the melody is major (think happy) or minor (sad).

I have chosen to write the majority of the melodies for these musical compositions not in these primary scales of music, but in the more obscure scales of the Greeks, in which the whole steps and half steps are out of their normal sequence. These scales are called “modes.” In some of the music, particularly Psalm Offering 1, there is atonality, that is a melody or harmony without any reference to a scale. The dissonance of its atonality is brutally harsh, reflective of the violence perpetuated on humanity by weapons of any sort. In Psalm Offering 7, I make primary use of a whole tone scale for the melody in which there are no half steps.

The use of the Greek modes lends an esoteric quality to the melodies that seem to our modern ear “out of place.” It is this quality I wished the music to express as a lament for the victims to whom the Psalm Offering is offered as prayer.

The music is similar to the composition of the music in Opus 3. Unlike the harmonies and melodies of the other Opuses, the music of this Opus has a sharper edge to it. There is an ambiguity of harmony,  and melodies not as clearly defined as in other music, reflective of the malaise that has descended upon our humanity. I mourn this time of human violence, greed, and malicious intent against the vulnerable of our world,  the music is a call for lamentation and a prayer for conversion.