Johann Christian Bach, Requiem Mass & Weekly Roundup

Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of J.C. Bach

   Johann Christian Bach (J. C. Bach) was the eleventh and youngest son of the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Like his father and most of his siblings, J. C. Bach was endowed by his creator with an impressive musical talent.  His compositional style bore more resemblance to that of his classical late eighteenth century contemporaries Joseph Haydn and Mozart (who was also his friend) than it did to the baroque compositions of his father, who was fifty years old when when Johann Sebastian was born.
     The clip below is from is from J. C. Bach's Requiem Mass, which he composed at the age of 22 when he was a student in Italy (where he also converted to Catholicism).
     

Weekly Roundup of Posts

“St. John Fisher and Religious Freedom” St. John Fisher was the only English bishop to resist King Henry VIII’s plan to turn the Catholic Church in England into a possession of the crown. Not a bad example for us today, as we again are faced with a state intent on swallowing absolutely everything else. [here]

“Forgiveness Reveals The Power Of The Gospel” In the aftermath of the horrific massacre at a historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, we see that Love informed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ overcomes hate. [here]

“In Defense Of Catholic Education” As the world around us becomes ever more insane, the need for education that is truly Catholic is greater than ever. [here]

“We Are Blind To Ourselves” God knows us better, much better, than we know ourselves, and his Church is just what we need. [here]

“‘Real Funny Jokes About Abortion?’ Dispatches From The Culture Of Death Part Two” Come on, laugh! You’re not one of those anti-choice nuts, are you? [here]

Dispatches From The Culture Of Death, Part One

The Culture of Death     

There are those who say that St. John Paul II was exaggerating, or at least being unduly harsh, when he coined the term “Culture of Death” in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae.  If only that were true. The secular world simply insists on offering death as the “compassionate” response to all sorts of things: suffering at the end of life, difficulties at life’s beginning and, increasingly, trouble in between.  Today I’d like to explore one recent example of the Culture of Death at work, and a second next week.

The Architect of Obamacare

     Let us consider  Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother of President Obama’s former Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.  Ezekiel, one of the prime architects of the ironically named Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), published a piece in The Atlantic last fall called “Why I Hope To Die At 75” [here].  The wide-ranging essay explores at great length the disadvantages of old age: reduced productivity, lessened vitality, the host of physical ailments that proliferate as we age, but, interestingly, doesn’t focus on the effect of these things upon the sufferer:

Doubtless, death is a loss . . . But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.[my italics]

It is selfish of us, you see, to force others to experience our decline: the compassionate thing is to quit while we are ahead.  Emmanuel is most emphatic that he is not advocating euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, quite correctly pointing out that “the answer” to the desire to actively bring about one’s own death “is not ending a life but getting help. I have long argued that we should focus on giving all terminally ill people a good, compassionate death—not euthanasia or assisted suicide for a tiny minority.”

Just One Man's Opinion?

     So what is he advocating? He claims that he will refuse any “life-prolonging” treatment of any sort: “I will stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings or interventions.  I will accept only palliative – not curative – treatments if I am suffering pain or other disability.”   After a lengthy recitation of the routine treatment he intends to forgo, Emmanuel says “I will die when whatever comes first takes me.”

     We could just dismiss this as no more than one opinionated man’s personal view, and Emmanuel encourages us to do just that:

I am not saying that those who want to live as long as possible are unethical or wrong. I am certainly not scorning or dismissing people who want to live on despite their physical and mental limitations. I’m not even trying to convince anyone I’m right. . . And I am not advocating 75 as the official statistic of a complete, good life in order to save resources, ration health care, or address public-policy issues arising from the increases in life expectancy.

But he gives the game away when he adds:

What I am trying to do is delineate my views for a good life and make my friends and others think about how they want to live as they grow older. I want them to think of an alternative to succumbing to that slow constriction of activities and aspirations imperceptibly imposed by aging. Are we to embrace the “American immortal” or my “75 and no more” view? [my italics]

There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Opinions

And what is the point of getting others to think of alternative ways to live (and die) if not to persuade them to change their behavior?  In truth, underneath the welter of medical facts and figures and the personal focus, we see two very familiar arguments: the “quality of life” argument (i.e., a “diminished” life isn’t worth living) and the “appeal to compassion” (we should spare our family and society the “burden” - including the financial burden - of our  infirmity).

Ezekiel Emmanuel

     Nonetheless, isn’t that just his opinion?  No, because when a prominent man, one with a “Dr.” in front of his name, expresses his opinion, buttressed with all sorts of impressive medical sounding data, and in very engaging and (truth be told) well-crafted prose, it has an impact.  The more often such opinions come from such sources the less unthinkable such opinions become in the wider world, until they eventually become commonplace.  We have seen this strategy employed to perfection in recent years in the campaign to redefine marriage (more on that next week). 

     There is also the fact that, despite his disclaimers, Ezekiel Emmanuel is still has a great deal of influence on public policy: in addition to his well-known public connection with Obamacare he is the director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the National Institutes for Health.  Add it all together and, as Ben Shapiro points out in a piece on the Breitbart site [here],

                 . . . his opinion carries weight.

Enough weight that the same day Emanuel’s piece published, a 21-member Institute of Medicine panel announced that we need to revamp our end-of-life care. “The current system is geared towards doing more, more, more, and that system by definition is not necessarily consistent with what patients want, and is also more costly,” said David M. Walker, former US comptroller general and chairman of the panel. The panel also encouraged end-of-life conversations with as many elderly folks as possible, and that costs could be slashed by thinking about aging differently.

           

That's a rather curious coincidence, don't you think?  And perhaps its no coincidence, as Shapiro points out, that "Ezekiel Emmanuel was elected in 2004 to the Institute of Medicine". 

     Finally, while Emmanuel explicitly opposes euthanasia and suicide (and I don’t doubt his sincerity), the attitude towards aging that he is validating and encouraging will inevitably make those “options” more and more acceptable; and if the public thinks there’s nothing wrong with it, why shouldn’t the government facilitate it . . . or require it? I am reminded of Blessed Paul VI’s warning about birth control measures (if we change Paul's reference to "married" people to "ordinary" poeple) :

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by [ordinary] people. . . ? (Humanae Vitae, 17)

The slope is getting more slippery all the time.

Next Week: What could be funnier than abortion?

(This Throwback was first published in September, 2014)

Compline: For Tonight and Forever (LOH 8)

(This is the eigth installment of a series of posts on the Liturgy of the Hours for lay people)

      In today's discussion of the Liturgy of the Hours I'll focus on Night Prayer, or Compline.  This office  plays a special role in the overall plan of the Liturgy of the Hours.  It complements the Invitatory Psalm with which we start the daily liturgy (see here). While the Invitatory orients us to God from the first moments of the day, reminding us of his Lordship and the challenges we are likely to face if  we fail to rely on Him, Compline draws our daily activities to a conclusion, and puts us in a proper frame of mind to surrender ourselves to the Lord’s care in sleep.  At the same time as it prepares us for our nightly sleep, however, Night Prayer also prepares us for our eternal rest in the life to come.

Nunc Dimittis: Simeon sees the infant Jesus in the Temple

    Night Prayer is structured much like a shorter version of Lauds or Vespers: there is a Psalmody, a brief scripture reading followed by a responsory, a Gospel Canticle and closing prayer.  But there are also significant differences.  After the usual opening (“Lord, come to my assistance . . .”) we conduct an examination of conscience, followed by the Confiteor, the Kyrie or some other appropriate penitential prayer.  There is only one psalm, or two very short ones, no intercessions, and the closing prayer is followed by a Marian antiphon.  Also, in addition to being shorter, there is much less variety in Night Prayer.  Aside from minor variations for particularly important solemnities and "alleiuas" during the Easter season, the prayers all follow the same cycle every week (as opposed to a four week cycle, and much greater variation for liturgical seasons, in the other hours). 

     Compline is a wonderfully effective transitional prayer.  At the beginning we tie up any loose ends from the day in the examination of conscience and put them behind us in the penitential prayer.  If there is a hymn, it isn’t sung until after those things are done; only then are we ready to entrust ourselves to the mercy of God.  That reliance on God’s Grace is a major element in the Psalmody for Night Prayer. Sunday’s psalm, for instance (Psalm 91) begins:

            He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

            And abides in the shade of the Almighty –

            Says to the Lord: “My refuge,

            My Stronghold, my God in whom I trust!”

           

The themes of night (“Lift your hands to the holy place/and bless the Lord through the night”, Psalm 134, Saturday) and sleep (“I will lie down in peace and sleep comes at once”, Psalm 4, Friday) also play a large role – as does the theme of death (“Will you work your wonders for the dead/Will the shades stand and praise you?”, Psalm 88, Thursday).

     The theme of preparing ourselves for eternal rest becomes even more explicit in the responsory that follows the short scripture verse:

            Into your hands lord, I commend my spirit.

                        - Into your hands lord, I commend my spirit.

            You have redeemed us, Lord God of Truth

                        -I commend my spirit.

            Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

                        - Into your hands lord, I commend my spirit.

This verse is based on Psalm 31, but is perhaps more familiar to us from Luke 23:46, when Jesus recites the first line as he is dying on the cross.  Because of its close association with the crucifixion it is replaced during the Octave of Easter with “This is the day the Lord has made/Let us rejoice and be glad”; other than that, we say this same responsory every night of the year, albeit with “alleluia, alleluia” included during the Easter season outside the Octave.

     After the responsory we find the Gospel Canticle, the Canticle of Simeon (also known as the Nunc Dimittis, from Luke 2:29-32) which begins “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace . . .”   This is the prayer of thanksgiving sung by the old prophet Simeon, to whom it had been revealed “by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26).  This prayer forms a sort of triptych with the Canticles from Lauds and Vespers: in the morning, with the Benedictus, the focus is on John the Baptist, the Forerunner of the Messiah; at Evening Prayer in the Magnificat we see the first meeting (in utero!) of the Forerunner and the Messiah himself; at Compline the Messiah makes his first appearance in the Temple to claim his birthright, and Simeon, the aged representative of the Old Covenant, declares himself satisfied, praises God, and retires to his final repose.

     The closing prayer is appropriate to the hour; Thursday’s office,  for instance, closes with:

            Lord God,

            Send peaceful sleep

            To refresh our tired bodies.

            May your help always renew us

And keep us strong in your service.

The conclusion that follows makes explicit reference to the connection between our nightly rest and the more permanent repose to come:

            May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.

     We close Night Prayer with an antiphon addressed to the Blessed Mother.
     Compline, or Night Prayer, is like the other offices, but also has a special part to play in the daily Office. Even if we are lay people praying the Liturgy of the Hours as a private devotion, it is still a liturgical, which is to say a public, prayer and by its very nature it draws us out of ourselves to unite us with Christ and his Mystical Body, the Church.  Night Prayer does that and more: as we go through the office we put our affairs in order, as it were, in the penitential rite at the beginning; after that in the prayers that follow we turn our attention from the concerns of the day to the preparation of our souls for the night to come; we entrust ourselves to the Lord's Mercy ("Into you hands I commend my spirit") and then, through the words of Simeon and the concluding verse, reach beyond our rest in this world and ask for God's Grace in the world to come.  Our final prayer is to ask for the intercession of the First Disciple, who, we know, is already enjoying the Lord's peace in Heaven, and whom we hope to join there beyond the final setting of the sun on this world.
 
To read the whole series go here.

Opening of Bach's St. Matthew Passion

El Greco's Christ Carrying the Cross

As the Season of Lent nears its end, we start focusing more closely on Jerusalem, and the Passion of Jesus Christ. One of the great artistic reflections on the suffering and death of Our Lord is J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion.  Here is the beginning of Bach's musical meditation on Matthew's Gospel account . . .

Mozart's Requiem: Confutatis and Lacrimosa

Detail from Michelangelo's Last Judgment:
"pie Jesu Domine,dona eis requiem"

     While it's not strictly speaking a Lenten composition, Mozart's Requiem Mass, which he was still completing at the time of his death, lends itself to the penitential nature of the liturgical season.  This excerpt ("Confutatis" and "Lacrimosa"), part of the setting for Thomas of Celano's great hymn "Dies Irae", looks ahead to the Final Judgment.  Here, Mozart's music powerfully complements the words of the hymn: we can almost feel what it's like to be unworthy sinners approaching the Throne of God to throw ourselves upon his Mercy (which, indeed, we are).






Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis,
voca me cum benedictis.
Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis,
gere curam mei finis.

     When the wicked are confounded,
     and consigned to bitter flames,
     call me among the blessed.
     I pray humble and downcast,
     my heart worn down like ash,
     take up the care of my end.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus,
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.

     That day,full of tears,
     when from the ashes shall arise,
     Man, the accused to be judged.
     Have mercy on him, therefore, O God,
     faithful Lord Jesus,
     grant them eternal rest. Amen

The Presentation of Our Lord, Atheism, and The Problem of Suffering

 And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:33-35)

Girolamo Romanino: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

     The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord presents us with a paradox, or maybe a series of paradoxes, which can lead us deeper into the mystery of Christ.  On the one hand, it is our last look back at the recently concluded Christmas Season, and we experience some of the joy and wonder of that season, particularly in the prophetic utterances of Simeon. Simeon proclaims him “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). His final words, however, foretelling that Christ will be “a sign that is spoken against” and warning the Blessed Mother that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” redirect us toward the quickly approaching Season of Lent and beyond to the sorrow and suffering of the Triduum.  The last thing we see in Luke’s account of the Presentation is the prophetess Anna, who pulls together the apparent contraries in Simeon’s prophecy: she “spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).  In the end, the glory of Christmas and the sword of Good Friday come together on Easter Sunday: redemption only comes from the light shining through the darkness of suffering, and we catch a glimpse of the entire story in the Feast of Presentation.

     Given the above, I found it interesting that this story [here] appeared just this morning: Englishman Stephen Fry, an “outspoken atheist”, was asked what he would say if he found himself, contrary to his expectation, face to face with his Creator in the afterlife:

 “I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.

“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault,” Fry continued. “It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’ That’s what I would say.”

"Outspoken Atheist" Stephen Fry

In other words, the old Problem of Suffering, which I spend a lot of time discussing with my adolescent religion students.  For us Christians this problem is resolved in the Mystery of the Cross, as we saw above: it’s a paradox that leads us to a higher understanding.  For the unbeliever, however, it is a contradiction which, if followed to its logical conclusion, leads to annihilation.  The atheist believes that all reality is reducible to matter, and that this present world is all there is.  Suffering, therefore, is the worst thing that can possibly happen:

Fry went on to question why the God of the universe would allow pain and suffering and argued that doing away with belief in God makes life “simpler, purer, cleaner, more wroth [sic] living, in my opinion.”

Doing away with belief in God, however, really only makes Fry’s problem worse: instead of leading to redemption, suffering is now random and pointless.  Not only that, but it is something that everyone experiences, it’s inescapable.  The only way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate not God, but humanity.  Fry’s fellow atheist, the philosopher David Benatar [here] proposes just this solution is his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. 

    Small wonder that The Presentation is included in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, despite Simeon’s ominous (and alarming, no doubt, to Mary and Joseph) utterance.  We are reminded that, through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, Christ has sanctified suffering, that it is no longer a random, meaningless evil, but a path to Heaven.  That is, indeed, Good News.

    

Sunday Snippets - A Catholic Carnival (1st Sunday of Advent 2014)

     Welcome to a new Liturgical Year, and welcome also to Sunday Snippets, A Catholic Carnival.  Sunday Snippets is a weekly gathering of Catholic bloggers who share their posts from the week past here, at This That and the Other Thing under the benevolent gaze of our leader in snippetude, RAnn.

The view from Principium et Finis World Headquarters Wednesday, 26 Nov.

     Today is also the First Sunday in Advent, the beginning of a special penitential season set apart to prepare ourselves, as I say in yesterday’s post, “for the coming of Jesus, not only at Christmas, but at his second coming, and also his coming for each one of us individually.”

     Now, you might be afraid that I’m one of those people who is prone to ranting about keeping Advent and Christmas in their own appropriate seasons and not celebrating Christmas too early; and you’d be right, but I’m not going to do it  today: there will be plenty more opportunities for that over the next four weeks.  I’m thinking more about the meeting each one of us will have with Christ at the end of our own lives – or maybe more accurately, the meeting that I will have with Him at the end of my life.  It may seem that the Creator of so immensely vast a universe would have little time for me or you.  Jesus tells us otherwise:  

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.  (Matthew 10:29-31)

The details matter, the particulars matter.  God chose a particular people to preserve his Word and to nurture the Word made Flesh, who came forth as a real individual person, as a tiny baby, in a specific town, at a definite time, not in some indefinite mythological past; for which reason the Evangelist Luke  made sure that we knew that Augustus was the emperor and Quirinus the governor.  The Nicene Creed similarly named  Pontius Pilate as the Roman procurator under whom Jesus was crucified.  And because people matter, not just collectively but as individuals, we relate to the Church through the lives of individual Christian men and women, the Saints, and we call upon them by name so that they might speak for us before the throne of God. 

     The Season of Advent, then, is a reminder to us that the infinite God has enough time and attention for each and every one of us.  Christ is coming, and we will meet him, face to face.  There will be no hiding in the crowd, no slipping past unnoticed.  We are given a reminder, and the opportunity to prepare ourselves: let’s not pass it up.

     Now, moving from the sublime to the . . . well . . . less than sublime, let us say (although I do my best), let’s look at the past week at Principium et Finis.  This was actually our busiest week in quite a while:

Monday – It’s ironic that perhaps the only reason Antonio Salieri’s music is played today at all is that he was turned into a monstrous caricature in a very successful play and film; he wasn’t a murderer, of course, and he was a gifted composer: “ Salieri: Requiem in C minor – Sanctus & Benedictus” [here]

Tuesday – Unlike Salieri, St. Catherine of Alexandria has not seen her reputation blackened (aside from the accusation that she is only a fabrication), but she certainly merits more attention than she receives today: “St. Catherine of Alexandria, Patroness of Modern Women” [here]

Wednesday – The old “clump of cells” canard: “Abortion Myth #10” [here]

Thursday – For what should we be more thankful than God’s love?  And what better time to bring back my favorite photo of my bare feet in the surf than a Thanksgiving Day blessed with 10 inches of snow? “What Is Man That Thou Art Mindful Of Him? (Thanksgiving Throwback)”  [here]

Saturday – The discovery of a long-unnoticed flaw in my trusty rosary is the occasion for reflection on God’s perfection, my own lack thereof, and the coming of the Christ:  “Be Vigilant At All Times” [here]