Month: December 2019

Today’s song is based on this very short passage from Luke’s Gospel.

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. (Luke 2:15-18)

This short, joyful piano song I composed for Dr Bob Conlin. Bob was a dear friend of my sister Mary Ruth. He was very supportive of her during her long illness. After Mary’s many surgeries, he would spell my parent and stay with Mary in her hospital room through the night so that my folks could go home and get some rest. On the night my sister died, he cradled her head in his lap, stroking her hair softly as she died.

The Sunday between Christmas Day and the Feast of Mary, Mother of God (New Years Day) is the Feast of the Holy Family.

When I was a kid, I often heard preached from the pulpit from the priest, who was celibate and had no children, how the families of the parish were to model their family life after that of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. This was hammered home even in Catholic school, where we were directed by the religious sisters to engrave as a header on all our homework papers, J.M.J. (Jesus, Mary, Joseph).

I often thought the “advice” of how to raise children from those who have no children generally had no great worth. It is like the story of a Protestant minister, who young and single, use to preach a sermon entitled, “How to raise your children.” Then he got married, had some children, and changed the title of his sermon to “Advice on how to raise your children.” Then his kids got to be teenagers and he quit preaching on the subject altogether.

Let’s face it, in real life how many human families have pregnancies miraculously conceived without a physical father, in utero or in a petri dish? How many of our children are both human and divine? And, specifically for Catholics, how many of our mothers were born without original sin? The answer is none. Compared to the normal human family, the Holy Family was not traditional and normal, but rather extraordinary.

Yet, in the little that is revealed about the Holy Family in scripture, we find them very much engaged with the world and suffering many of the same things as all “regular, normal” human families. They know all about political oppression and war living in a nation that was occupied by a foreign power. They were political refugees fleeing for their lives. They had to eke out a living like all people. They had to cook, clean, bathe, like all other humans. They got hungry, got tired, and got sick like all other humans. Joseph and Mary fussed over him like all parents.

Aside from his divine nature, Jesus was like all other kids. The human side of him, often neglected in much theology, was just as curious about the world as any kid. He had to go through his own “terrible twos”, learn how to eat, read, and socialize like any kid. His curiosity led him to not always listen to his folks as intently as he should have, so much so, he got separated from them at twelve years of age staying behind at the temple without telling them, causing his parents great distress.

As different as the aspects of the individuals in the Holy Family may be from a normal family, the family life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is very much like that of our families. What can we learn from them?

First, they always placed God first in their lives. They were not strangers at the synagogue in Nazareth. They were well known as members of their synagogue. Jesus did not learn the Torah in utero, he learned the Torah at class, just like any other kid. They observed and celebrated their important religious holidays, Yom Kippur, Passover, Hannakah, etc.

Second, from what we hear Jesus preach in the Gospels, their idea of family was not just confined to their own nuclear family. Jesus preached and lived a very inclusive understanding of family. All who hear and live the Word of God are defined by Jesus as his family (Luke 8:19-21). Jesus loved and accepted as family many who were rejected by his society. He ate and drank with tax collectors and prostitutes, welcoming them to his table. He gave hope and love to all who felt hopeless and believed no one loved them. Most importantly, he taught people that God loved all people as a loving parent, that all people were sons and daughters of God.

What I have found over 42 years of ministry, is that no family can be defined by the word “traditional” as we use the word traditional. All families, like the Holy Family, are extraordinary, whether they consist of a father, mother, and children, a single parent and children, two fathers and children, and two mothers and children. What makes a family extraordinary is that which made the Holy Family extraordinary.

No matter in what kind of family in which we may find ourselves, may we follow their example in placing God first in our lives, and in seeing in all people, sons and daughters of one great family of God, our loving parent; and, in seeing in all people their relationship to Jesus and to us as our brothers and sisters.

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19)

For all who are parents, there are many times in which we, like Mary (and Joseph, for that matter), have to pause and ponder the events in our lives. This is especially so when it comes to raising our children. I think that there is an unfortunate and inaccurate pietistic sentimentality that strips Joseph and, especially Mary, of their humanness. We like to think that as parents, they had all the answers and never made any mistakes in the raising of Jesus. In all of their humanity, they, like all parents, had not one clue as to how to raise their child. None of us have a guide book as to how to raise children. What works for one of our kids, fails with another one of our other kids. As parents, we learn as we go. No where in scripture is this made so crystal clear as in this one verse from the second chapter of Luke’s gospel.

When Mary said, “yes,” to the angel Gabriel, she signed herself up for one heck of ride, not knowing fully what was in store for her when she made that commitment to God. Betrothed to Mary, Joseph didn’t know how his commitment to Mary would affect his life. Is that not true for all of us? I am sure that throughout all of Mary and Joseph’s lives, they paused often to ponder exactly what was going on, and what “they had gotten themselves into” when they said “yes” to God.

The scripture passage upon this little Christmas song is based, is the that one little line from Luke’s gospel above. “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” As our lives continue to unfold, little by little, may we, too, follow the example of Mary and Joseph to pause and to ponder/reflect upon the events that have happened to us and to ask where God is in that event.

I composed this song as a Christmas present for my good friend Elaine Roeser.

The song for this fourth day of the Christmas season, is one of six I composed for my grandchildren as a Christmas present in 2017. It is a Nocturne. A nocturne is a short musical piece, mostly composed for piano, that possesses a dreamy quality suggestive for night.

While there is no specific scripture passage from the Christmas story that best describes this song, from my own experience of my children being born, there is that quiet, peacefulness that follows the birth of a child. The peacefulness that is shown in a mother cradling her new born child. The peacefulness and wonder that accompanies the birth of a child for a father. The peacefulness expressed in Psalm 131.

¹ O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. ² But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. ³ O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore. (Psalm 131, NRSV)

In the Octave of Christmas, there is no real chronology of the story of Jesus’ birth in the Church calendar. It can resemble the story line of a Quentin Tarantino film like Pulp Fiction in which the sequence of the story jumps all over. The stories of Christmas are all there, but the sequence is all mixed up.

Today, we jump from the stories of the Angels announcing the birth of Jesus to a grim, murderous event that occurs after the Epiphany. Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents, in which the Church venerates the memory of those children King Herod slaughtered in his search for the infant Jesus.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we hear the story of the Magi who were following the Star of Bethlehem. When they stopped, in modern parlance, to “get directions”, wisdom, and information from King Herod the Great and his intelligentsia about the birth of the “King of the Jews”, an enraged and fearful Herod ordered the slaughter of all male children in Bethlehem three years of age and younger. Joseph, warned in a dream of Herod’s murderous action, awakens Mary, and with their newborn infant, flee for safety in the middle of the night. Political refugees, they find asylum, ironically in of all places, Egypt, the place in which the Hebrew people had been cruelly enslaved by the ancient Pharaohs.

For this feast I present two piano songs to honor the memory of these innocent children cruelly slaughtered in front of their parents by the soldiers of King Herod the Great. However, I place these songs in the present political plight of migrant children and their parents in our nation and nations throughout the world.

In our present time, we are experiencing a similar event happening in our own nation. Admittedly, it is not as bloody, but it is as grim and as horrible as this massacre. It is the deliberate separation and imprisonment of refugee migrant children from their parents, ordered by our president and those in his administration. While the children may not be cruelly killed in front of their parents, the damage done to these children and their parents psychologically and emotionally is crueler. It is a long, lingering death that will haunt them the rest of their lives.

This abysmal situation has been condemned as an immoral act, tantamount to being a crime against humanity. Of course, this is not just isolated to the United States, but is endemic in many nations of our world. In his Christmas message, Pope Francis urged all nations to treat each and every refugee as if they were Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who fled in terror from the cruelty of Herod the Great.

The first song, “A Migrant Mother’s Lullaby To Her Imprisoned Child”, was composed in the summer of 2018, when the immoral policies of our government were started to be put into action on our southern border. The song is based on this scripture passage from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah.

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. ¹⁶Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work, says the Lord: they shall come back from the land of the enemy; ¹⁷ there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country. (Jeremiah 31:15-17, NRSV)

This song is my prayer for the migrant parents separated from their children. May Jeremiah’s prophecy come true, and these children reunited safely into the arms of their parents.

The second song A Lament For the Migrant Children Imprisoned In The United States, is based on the following scripture passage from the book of Exodus in the Bible.

⁸ Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. ¹³ The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them. ¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” (Exodus 1:8-16, NRSV)

We have seen the children, imprisoned in cages on our border. The conditions are abysmal, medical help often refused them. Their ages range from infants of a few months nursing at the breast of their mothers to those who are 16 years old. Imagine for just a moment the anguish, the terror, and the despair they are experiencing.

In the music there is a repeated melodic figure that is introduced at the beginning and continues throughout the music. Descending pitches, with a half note (2 beats) followed by a quarter note (1 beat) are a melodic representation of tear drops rolling down the cheeks of the children, dropping one tear at a time to the cement floor on which they lay. Think of sobbing, the kind of sobbing that racks the human body, that takes human breath away. Is this to be the legacy of our nation? My heart breaks.

I am proud that the Catholic bishops of our nation have come taken a rare prophetic stance these days and have condemned these policies of our present government. May the religious leaders of all religions follow in their condemnation, so that these families affected so cruelly, may be reunited and find healing, and our government agencies once more regain some honor and dignity.

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! ¹¹ What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. ¹² When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; ¹³ bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. ¹⁴ Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. ¹⁵ When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. ¹⁶ Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, ¹⁷ learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:10-17)

This is a day in which I am having my cake (albeit wedding cake) and eating it, too. Ruthie and I were married on Friday, December 27, 1974, 45 years ago. We chose this day for a couple of reasons. It allowed for about a week between my college graduation and our wedding, and, we would have a church adorned in Christmas decorations. One other factor is that many would be on Christmas vacation which allowed more people to be at our wedding.

Over the years, I have composed 6 musical compositions in honor of Ruthie, five piano compositions and 1 choral composition. One of those songs was composed as a Christmas present for her. I will lead with that song.

The song I composed for Ruthie was a musical portrait of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (also known as Candlemas). Here is the story from Luke’s Gospel.

“When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” … Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.” (Luke 2:22-24, 27-33. NRSV)

As the Lucan account of the story tells us, while there, the family encounters Simeon, who gives praise to God for having lived to see the birth of the Messiah, as he expresses in his great Canticle “Nunc Dimittis”. The Holy Family also encounters the prophetess, Anna.

Melody A, introduces the Holy Family arriving at the Temple. Melody B is Simeon and Anna viewing Jesus and talking with Mary. Melody A returns to conclude the music, as the Holy Family leaves the Temple and ponders what was told to them by Simeon.

This love song to Ruthie was composed in 1990. I tried to place in the song the mysterious qualities she possesses, the beauty of her soul, her physical beauty expressed in these simple notes, melody, and rhythm. There is none that can compare to my Ruth. She embodies for me all that is good and is the living expression of God to me. In other words, what Simeon saw in the infant Jesus, I have seen in my wife, Ruth.

THE REST OF THE SONGS FOR RUTHIE …

This song, the first one dedicated to Ruth, I composed as a piano etude for my college music theory/composition class. An etude is simply a finger exercise piece teaching certain skills for performance, e.g. scales, arpeggios and so on. Some, like the Czerny Etudes are pretty utilitarian, and others, like Chopin’s Etudes are musical compositions in their own right.

This song literally came to me in a dream. I woke up, drew a staff on a blank piece of paper and quickly noted down on the paper what I heard in my dream. Several years later, I added the middle section of the music to the song. I always intended the song for Ruth, and gave it to her in 1974. Fast forward 44 years later, I played it for Ruth. She thought it was a brand new composition. She had forgotten that it was composed for her back in 1974. So for her it was a brand new piece in her honor.

This song was composed for Ruthie on our 10th wedding anniversary. Our daughter, Beth, had been born 11 months earlier on January 11th. I had been binge listening to Aaron Copland compositions, particularly his ballet, Appalachian Spring (a ballet about an Appalachian wedding). I decided to compose a fugue (a la Johann Sebastian Bach) in the manner of Aaron Copland. I used all the compositional techniques in composing a fugue, subject, retrograde, bridges, augmentation, etc in this music. While Ruthie was not necessarily impressed by the compositional finesse placed into the song, she enjoyed it. The music expresses the great joy and celebration I felt in being married to this most remarkable woman.

This song was composed for Ruth in 2016. On my birthday that year, I presented Ruthie, our children Andy, Luke, Meg, Beth, and my daughter-in-law, Olivia, songs I composed for them as a present. They gift me every day with their presence, and I felt compelled to thank them for sharing their lives with me.

I composed a special song for our wedding Mass in 1974, sung at our wedding by a good friend and voice major from the College of St Catherine, Diane Strafelda. The melody was inspired by an aria entitled, “Dido’s Lament”, from the Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas, written by the English composer, Henry Purcell. I was tremendously moved when I heard that aria for the first time. As a young man, deeply in love and filled with grand illusions of our romantic relationship taking on the mythic qualities of that of “Dido and Aeneas” and “Tristan and Isolde”, I sought out to compose a melody as deeply moving as Purcell’s aria. I set the melody to a familiar text from the Book of Ruth in the Bible, “Set me as a seal on your heart” (Ironically, it was spoken by Ruth not to her husband, who had died, but by Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi, who was also a widow).

Over time, the score for my wedding song to Ruthie got lost. However, I did not forget the melody. So in 2016, I set out to recreate from memory, the song I composed so many years before for our wedding. In reimaging the song for piano, I added a middle section. This is what a wrote about the song at that time in 2016.

“Overall, it expresses in music my relationship with Ruth over the past 45 years [note: we started dating in 1969]. The primary melody retains the great passion I feel toward Ruth. It starts simply in the lower register like one lover expressing his love to his intended. It is restated in the higher register, his lover reciprocating his affection than moves to a middle section where the couples love for each grows until the primary melody returns in chordal octaves, a passionate expression of love consummated, then peace as the lovers begin life together.

“The middle section is the dance of the couple as they work, have children, raise their children, and the demands of life attempts to pull them in all directions. However, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of that dance, the love and the passion the couple have for one another does not fade as the primary melody is joined into the dance.

“The song concludes to a simple restatement of the love that began many years before, intact, and filled with nothing but gratitude of a life together.”

The fifth and final song of this post was composed in 2018 for Ruthie. I consider it as one of my finest piano songs.

Ever since the time I first heard the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s jazz hit “Take Five”, I have considered 5/4 meter my favorite meter signature. Now I am sure that everyone has a favorite meter signature. They just don’t know it nor think it important. Most of our songs are composed in 3/4 time (think a waltz), or in 2/4 or 4/4 time (think marches, blues, polkas, most rock songs, love songs etc). We are used to hearing songs that a feeling of 3 beats, 2 beats, or 4 beats to a measure in most of the music we love to hear.

5/4 time is much different. When you have 5 beats to a measure, the accents can fall unpredictably on any of the 5 beats in that measure. I try to tell people that it is like dancing with a third leg. It just feels different, exotic, special. I only compose the most special melodies for special people in 5/4 time.

Now that you are totally bored by this musical dissertation, Here is the song I consider the best of all the music I have composed for Ruthie over our 45 years of marriage together. She is the most special person in my life and she deserved the most special song with the most special meter. When I gave it to her in 2018, she loved it. Will there be any more songs for her? I have plans on setting my favorite psalm (Psalm 84 “how lovely is your dwelling place”) as a 9 or 10 song piano cycle for Ruth this year.

Here is Ruthie’s song, Psalm Offering 9 Opus 9.

If ever you wish to download or stream my music, you can find and hear it on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or purchase it on Amazon, iTunes, and a CD Baby.

Arriving home from Christmas Eve Mass, as Ruth settled her sore and hurting back into the comfort of her chair, I wandered into the darkened dining room of our home. I lit the candle on the dining room table and sat down. I found myself contemplatively drawn into the flame that danced upon the top of the candle. This is a poetic narrative of that deep, silent prayer.

A POEM FOR CHRISTMAS NIGHT

Greeted by the multi-lit display
draped over the hedges
and the railing of our front porch,
the brilliant lit Christmas tree
winks at us, welcoming us home
from the Christmas Eve Mass.

You settle comfortably in your chair
as I walk into the dining room.
Sitting down, I light the lone candle
on the table and contemplate
its flame, dancing and whirling
in the darkened room.

The flame draws me
into its story.
Its bright yellow light
thinly framed in blue,
speaks to me about
many dark places
penetrated by its light:
caverns and street corners,
vast fields and mighty forests,
tall buildings and small homes,
and the darkest place of all
… the human heart.

The flame tells the story
of a long time ago,
of a world enveloped
in the darkest of nights.
Violence and cruelty,
poverty and pestilence
heaped upon a brutalized,
battered and lost humanity.

In a miserable stable,
its walls and floor painted
in manure and straw,
the dark dank smell of
wet hay, and its livestock denizens
filling the air, there lies
in a feed trough a light more brilliant
than the dancing flame.

The flame of that light
dances in the eyes
of his homeless parents,
his mother who birthed him,
and his proud, protective father.
The light is reflected
in the eyes of the animals
shuffling about in their stalls,
and in the eyes of the shepherds
and the travelers from afar.

My gaze, fixed on the flame,
widens as I detect
other shadowy shapes
around the table.

I sit in communion with
my father and my mother,
my sister and my brother,
their lives, like others,
lived in various degrees
of perfection and imperfection,
drawn to this light whilst alive,
and now in the life beyond,
join with me transfixed
by the light of the candle.

I smile to be once again
in their company, and,
with a nod and a parting glance
their shapes slip back
into the shadows of the room.

Once more alone with the light,
an image forms in my mind,
that eternal light birthed
in Bethlehem so long ago,
which danced in the eyes
of Mary and Joseph,
in the eyes and hearts
of many burdened by the weight
of scandal and shame,
poverty and despair,
which the world was unable
to crush and snuff out,
this light will always be there
to guide and to light me
through the dark corners
of my life yet to be,
to the eternal Christmas awaiting me.

(c) 2019 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

All The Ends Of The Earth is based on Psalm 98, and is the responsorial psalm for Christmas during the day, and the common responsorial psalm for the Christmas season.

“O sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things.
His right hand and his holy arm
have gotten him victory.
The Lord has made known his victory;
he has revealed his vindication
in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love
and faithfulness to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth
have seen the victory of our God.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.”
(Psalm 98: 1-6, NRSV)

Psalm 98 seemingly encompasses much of the Christmas message. From the shepherds guarding their flocks in the fields to the Magi following the Star of Bethlehem, all of the ends of the earth, indeed, have seen the power of God in the stable of Bethlehem.

The psalm challenges us to ask the question, “Do I see the power of God Incarnate in the infant Jesus lying in a feed trough of oxen and donkeys?” If we do, the joy reflected in the melody of this song must radiate in our lives, in spite of the hardships and challenges of daily life. While we may feel at times burdened by the stuff of life, the knowledge that God loves us so much Jesus, the Word of God, became one with us, is capable of lifting that burden from our life.

I composed this back in 1986 as a Responsorial Psalm for the choirs at St Hubert Catholic Community. I reimagined this Psalm Setting as a song for piano in 2018. It is the piano setting that is bein presented here.

The Truce of Christmas

Passionate peace is in the sky–
And in the snow in silver sealed
The beasts are perfect in the field,
And men seem men so suddenly–
(But take ten swords and ten times ten
And blow the bugle in praising men;
For we are for all men under the sun,
And they are against us every one;
And misers haggle and madmen clutch,
And there is peril in praising much.
And we have the terrible tongues uncurled
That praise the world to the sons of the world.)

The idle humble hill and wood
Are bowed upon the sacred birth,
And for one little hour the earth
Is lazy with the love of good–
(But ready are you, and ready am I,
If the battle blow and the guns go by;
For we are for all men under the sun,
And they are against us every one;
And the men that hate herd all together,
To pride and gold, and the great white feather
And the thing is graven in star and stone
That the men who love are all alone.)

Hunger is hard and time is tough,
But bless the beggars and kiss the kings,
For hope has broken the heart of things,
And nothing was ever praised enough.
(But bold the shield for a sudden swing
And point the sword when you praise a thing,
For we are for all men under the sun,
And they are against us every one;
And mime and merchant, thane and thrall
Hate us because we love them all;
Only till Christmastide go by
Passionate peace is in the sky.)

GK Chesterton

This piano song is based on Luke 2:8-14

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (NRSV)

REFLECTION: The word that best expresses what the shepherds felt is wonder. Isn’t that what we all want at Christmas. So many people want to recreate the wonder they felt as kids at Christmas. Isn’t that what the movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” all about. The goal was to create the Griswold Family Christmas. The movie teaches us that whenever we attempt to recover or recreate the wonder we experienced as kids in the past, it generally ends in failure. Perhaps, the cause of that failure is that the wonder we experienced as kids was more focused on what was the presents at the foot of the Christmas tree and a belief in a myth about an rotund elf and his reindeers delivering those gifts.

My parents always had as the main focus under the tree, not the presents, but the manger scene. The stable in which Jesus was born, Mary, Joseph, shepherds, sheep, oxen, camels and the Magi dominated the scene under the Christmas tree. We always saw first the Christmas creche, then we saw the presents.

Perhaps the shepherds in the scripture passage demonstrate for us the wonder for which most of us seek at Christmas. In the middle of the night, watching over their flocks, the heavens were filled with angelic glory, and the shepherds were struck with awe and wonder at the message of the angels.

This evening (I am writing this in the wee hours of Christmas morning) after getting home from Mass, I sat at the dining room table, lit a candle and began contemplative prayer. In a room lit only by the light of the Christmas tree behind me, I relaxed in my chair and focused on the light of the candle I lit on the table. Slowly breathing and using the psalm passage, “Be still and know that I am God”, I focused on the light of the lit candle. The flame danced on the wick, and as I continued to focus my gaze on that flame, I widened my gaze through my peripheral vision. Around the table I perceived my deceased family, dad and mom, my sister, Mary Ruth, my brother, Bill, my mother-in-law, Rosemary, my cousin Cheryl and our Great Pyrs, Floyd and Henri, sitting around the table and beholding the wonder and presence of God in the dancing light of the flame. As quickly as it came, my family faded away in the darkened room and I was again alone with the flame of the lit candle. I experienced a feeling of wonder, love and connectedness to my family members on the other side of life.

As you listen to this song, listen for the wonder in the song. There is no outstanding melody in the song. The song was composed through the experience of the shepherds, who found in their mundane experience of watching over their sheep, like they had so many nights before, the wonder and glory of God. You will hear in the music the place in which the shepherds behold and hear the message of the angels. This song was presented as a Christmas gift for Helen Kerber, accompanist and pianist for the Guitar Group at St Hubert Catholic Church in Chanhassen.

Here is the first of Christmas songs I have composed for piano. It was composed back in 1990 and was a Christmas present to my friend, Ken Smith, who, at the time, was the director of religious education at St Hubert Catholic Community in Chanhassen, MN.

It is a song in four parts, with four melodies, reflecting the Christmas story.

1) The first melody focuses on the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she is to be the Mother of the Messiah. 2) The second melody focuses Mary meeting and taking care of her cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with the child who would become John the Baptist. 3) The third melody, softer and much slower than the first two melodies is that of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem to register for the census and trying to find a place to stay. 4) the last melody is comprised of melody 1 and melody 2, representing the birth of the Christ Child in a stable.