Category: Music

An Absent Parent on Advent Sunday

On By dorahakIn Church, Music, Poems12 Comments

She’ll be singing, “Lo,
How a Rose E’er Blooming”
But I won’t hear it
Her voice so dulcet
Her face pink, all aglow.

To God she’ll give the glory
As her heart attuned soaring
Sings out its praise
Sad hearts to raise
To Him our Savior and our joy.

Somehow I’ll know, my spirit sense
The words when she is singing
Rejoicing knowing
In Christ she’s growing
And that makes all the difference.

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith– to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Romans 16:25-27 [NIV]
Galo Ocampo (Filipino, 1913–1985), Nativity, late 1930s.
Oil on canvas. UST Museum, Manila, Philippines.

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
(15th c. German, trans. Theodore Baker)

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming
As men of old have sung.
It came, a flower bright,
Amid the cold of winter
When half-gone was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind:
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright
She bore to men a Savior
When half-gone was the night.

This Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death He saves us
And lightens every load.

Continue reading “An Absent Parent on Advent Sunday” →

An Advent Song (For the First Sunday of Advent)

On By dorahakIn Art, Church, Music, Poems17 Comments
ADVENT STARRY NIGHT 5, Virginia Wieringa, Acrylic 2011

An Advent Song

Clothed in the armor of Your light
We walk by faith throughout the night
As darkness fades, so all earthly fear
With the long-awaited dawn, when You appear.

All the prophets spoke was true
All that they prophesied of You
We knew it then, we know it now
That every knee before You one day will bow.

In the fullness of time You came
As babe in manger, Jesus by name
Now ascended King, when You departed
You left us not alone, but the Holy Spirit imparted.

Yet out of our sight You reign on high
Until that day when You again come nigh
The dawn of that day we will shout and cheer
Not an eye will be dry when You, O Lord, draw near!

Now, Father, keep us faithful and strong
Singing ever onwards the Gospel song
Knowing it is the power of God to save
By believing in His Son whom to us You gave.

Romans 1:16 (NIV) For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

Galatians 4:4-6 (NASB) But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Lyrics: Psalm 121 (sung in Arabic) I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where my help comes from My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; The Lord watches over you— the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going from now until the end of time

St. Francis of Assisi & Johnny Cash: Two Quotes

On By dorahakIn Church, Music, Poetry9 Comments

Saints and sinners anyone? Yet who can claim to be wholly one or the other?

The point of my “Two Quotes” series is to lay before you literary, artistic and/or musical juxtapositions, and let you be the judge of their similarities and their contrasts. Click here for more.

St. Francis, born to Italian nobility in the 13th century, renounced his worldly possessions and took a vow of poverty to serve God as a monk. Eventually he gathered other like-minded aristocratic scions and founded the Franciscan order of friars. He’s well known for being a lover of God’s creation, even going so far as to preach to the birds and the fishes. He wrote “The Canticle of the Creatures” in 1224 while recovering from an illness and it is the earliest piece of literature written in Italian rather than Latin, the language of the church. Dante alludes to it in Canto 11 of Purgatorio.

Many believe this is the most accurate image of St. Francis.
Listen to the Canticle of the Creatures (from Franciscan Seculars)

The Canticle of the Creatures

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honour, and all blessing.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no human is worthy to mention Your name.

Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day and through whom You give us light.

And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour;
and bears a likeness of You, Most High One.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather,
through whom You give sustenance to Your creatures.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night,
and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains and governs us,
and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs.

Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your
love, and bear infirmity and tribulation.

Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, shall they be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no one living can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.

St. Francis of Assisi
Continue reading “St. Francis of Assisi & Johnny Cash: Two Quotes” →

O Spirit of the Living God

On By dorahakIn Church, Music10 Comments

proxy-image

Some of the happiest moments in my life have been spent in church. Some of the dullest too, thanks to a sluggish spiritual frame. But nothing can withstand the sheer love of God shed abroad in our heart by His Spirit.

Those moments are intensely personal and intensely communal: my union with Christ paralleling my union with His church.

How can I explain, but by likening them to the sweet psalmist’s when he exclaimed to the Lord: “you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23: 5-6).

Since March, millions of us around the world have been restricted from going to church because of COVID-19, either because of regional restrictions or because our health and/or our age puts us in a high-risk category.

Continue reading “O Spirit of the Living God” →

Charles Dickens & George Frideric Handel: Two Quotes

On By dorahakIn Music, Novels4 Comments

This is a first in my “Two Quote” series, since it sets side by side not only a written quotation but a musical one.

It’s rare when music is mentioned in literature that I feel inclined to dwell much on it but when the writer is Dickens and the composer is Handel, well, naturally I took the bait. Needless to say, the comic nature of poor Bella’s father’s grimly melodious characterization of his marriage took flight. But then Dickens always did have a way of making you literally laugh through your tears, perhaps even his own as he was at the time estranged from his wife.

Dickens_by_Watkins_1858

Our Mutual Friend was his last completed work and, as if in a farewell gesture, Dickens throws into it the unrestrained comic genius and dramatic flair of his first novel (The Pickwick Papers, 1837) which brought him the acclaim he richly deserved. In the excerpt below, the “Dead March” from Handel’s dramatic oratorio, Saul, is made to dance to the sorrowful notes of Reginald Wilfer’s portrait of married life.

Our_Mutual_Friend02

Mrs. Wilfer, writes Dickens, “is a tall woman, and angular,” necessarily so according to the matrimonial law of contrasts, her husband being “cherubic.” “It is as you think, R. W.; not as I do,” comprised a part of her deceptively submissive repertoire of aphorisms with which she managed him. Only to Bella, his eldest daughter, is Reginald Wilfer able to relax his guard and venture into unfettered conversation.

Continue reading “Charles Dickens & George Frideric Handel: Two Quotes” →

Fauré’s “Sanctus”

On By dorahakIn Church, MusicLeave a comment

“I never had a mother,” Emily Dickinson wrote. “I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” But where mothers fail, God never fails. His is a mother’s touch that is always ready to receive, ready to lift and comfort, ready to provide what is needed. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Is. 49:15).

Continue reading “Fauré’s “Sanctus”” →

Laudate Dominum

On By dorahakIn Church, Music, PsalmsLeave a comment

More than two thousand seven hundred years ago, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, saying, “And I … am about to come and gather the people of all nations and languages, and they will come and see my glory” (66:18). And He did come just as He promised, in the incarnate Savior, Jesus Christ. Now many peoples of all manner and kind, from every nation, gather to proclaim His glory and praise His name.

Continue reading “Laudate Dominum” →

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

On By dorahakIn Church, Music5 Comments

I had never heard this 18th-century Christmas carol until very recently but it has since been playing in my mind, at once familiar & fresh. Penned by Richard Hutchins in 1761, it has inspired music by, among many others, Elizabeth Poston in the last century and another performed by Lee Nelson & the Wartburg Choir in 2013. (I’ve posted both versions below.)

The metaphor of the apple tree appears in the Song of Songs, when the bride says of her Beloved: “As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,/so is my beloved among the young men./With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste” (Song 2:3).

Continue reading “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” →

As The Bridegroom To His Chosen

On By dorahakIn Church, Music3 Comments

On the eve of this Lord’s Day, as I think of those gathering to worship and praise their Maker and their King across the world, I am glad that Scripture is replete with the attempts of the prophets, poets, and apostles to describe the relationship of God to His people. No one metaphor or image is adequate. We need all of them to describe its various dimensions. Moreover, each one expands in scope and vision with each passing day as we walk with Him in the fullness of the knowledge of His love and faithfulness; “for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away…. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13: 9, 12).

Continue reading “As The Bridegroom To His Chosen” →

More than the Bread of Angels

On By dorahakIn Church, MusicLeave a comment

Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance. (Psalm 78:25)

The hymn, Panis Angelicus, written by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, comes close to describing the ineffable mixture of unspeakable joy and perfect peace that we experience in the sacrament of holy communion. Yet when we partake of the body and blood of Jesus Christ by faith, we are feasting on more than the bread of angels, this manna that rained down for forty years upon the Israelites in the wilderness that the psalmist describes. Instead, by faith we receive Christ Himself, the Son of God incarnate, in a gift of atonement and communion that even the angels cannot know but that by grace we possess through the Holy Spirit leading us into fellowship with the Trinitarian God, a fellowship inscribed within the eternal, steadfast love of the Father.

Continue reading “More than the Bread of Angels” →

Porch-sitting on Wishes

On By dorahakIn Music, PoemsLeave a comment

He sat on his front porch, listening:
behind him, the sounds of Corigliano
spun slowly out into the road before him –
Fantasia on an Ostinato – spinning round him
with the centrifugal trauma of gathering desire
inevitably aborted, the weight of a shudder
passing through him like the blunt edge
of a Mamet play: he gripped his arms
to steady himself against the onslaught
of thoughts and impressions, and, yes, wishes
that fled as fast as they appeared, ghostly archipelagos
rolling like gravel out the leaky corners of his eyes.

Corigliano: Fantasia on an Ostinato

The Enchanted Castle

On By dorahakIn Church, Isaiah, MusicLeave a comment
(c) Paintings Collection; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Francis Danby, “The Enchanted Castle” (c. 1841)

When I first saw this painting, I was struck by the intensity of its vision, not simply the artist’s but the lingering figure of the woman by the reflecting pool. She seems oblivious to the slow burn of the golden light beyond the dark overarching trees and the darkened castle. Their shadows have won the day. She looks down, dwelling on her thoughts even as the shadows grow. She seems unaware of the fiery sunset, perhaps unconcerned. Her introspection holds her captive, there by the enchanted castle, be it memories or dreams or affairs of the heart or the world or the steady drone of the day.

Continue reading “The Enchanted Castle” →

Wrestling Jacob

On By dorahakIn Music4 Comments

There’s a story in the book of Genesis of a man named Jacob wrestling with an unknown heavenly traveler.  We are told it’s the middle of the night and that they wrestled “until the breaking of the day” (Gen. 32:24) but as the story opens we are left to imagine why Jacob is so eager for the contest. In the struggle, his “hip is put out of joint” (32:25) and he is lamed but still, despite the overwhelming pain and his opponent’s superior strength, Jacob refuses to let him go – at least until he’s been given the name of this traveler. Jacob had apparently guessed that this man was far more than he appeared to be.

Continue reading “Wrestling Jacob” →

Fauré’s “En Prière” (In Prayer)

On By dorahakIn Church, Music5 Comments

To tell you the truth, it’s the lyrics by Stéphane Bordèse that hit me before the music, which is unusual, at least for me. Not that Gabriel Fauré’s “En Prière” (1890) isn’t a beautifully poetic piece of music. I’ve heard it performed recently with harp and voice but Kathleen Battle’s performance below is just as exquisite with piano.

“En Prière” (In Prayer)

As the voice of a child can reach You,
O my Father,
Hear my prayer, on bended knee before You!
As You have chosen me to teach Your
laws on earth,
I will know how to serve You, noble
King of kings, O Light!
On my lips, Lord, place the salutary
truth,
In order that he who doubts should with
Humility revere You!
Do not abandon me, give me the
necessary gentleness,
To ease suffering, to relieve sorrow,
Misery!
Reveal Yourself to me, my Father, in whom I
trust and hope:
For You I wish to suffer and to die on
The cross, at Calvary!

Continue reading “Fauré’s “En Prière” (In Prayer)” →