Psalm Offering 4, Opus 7
Prayer Intention: For the victims of corporate Greed.
“The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. (Lamentations 3:19-22)
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, that one cannot serve God and serve Mammon (the god of wealth). Psalm 49 reminds us that in riches, humanity lacks wisdom and are like beasts that are destroyed.
THE MUSIC
(c) 2017 by Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
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.
There is a heavy, frantic, oppressive, and relentless quality to the A melody. The acquiring of great wealth carries a great price to those who obsessively grasp at it and for those who are destroyed by it. There is a somber, pensive quality to the B melody, the wreckage of human life scattered about following the wake of the grasping rich, only to find the storm of the grasping rich descending upon them once more.
