Amy Welborn knows a good conversation starter:
In honor of St. Cecilia… Post your most memorable spiritual/musical moments here. Not just your favorite hymns, but, if you can, a real moment in time in which music has revealed something to you about God, life and truth.
Many, many comments. Some are very moving. Some make me want to rush out and buy chant CDs.
…maybe the time I sang Balshazzar’s Feast with my 4-month-pregnant wife in the audience, at the very back of the hall, (on the 4th floor, to boot)…and when we, the 200-voice chorus, did the shouted "SLAIN!!!!" our firstborn damn near jumped out of my wife’s uterus…
The hearing of the "Salve Regina" (in Latin), after Compline, at "Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles" Trappist monastery, Azul, Argentina, some 9 or 10 years ago. It was my first retreat at a monastery.
Once, when I was going through a pretty hard time, my little sister (who was middle school age at the time, I think) wrote out all of the words to "Be Not Afraid" and mailed it to me, along with some other words of encouragement. It meant so much to me then and now, when I hear that song I can’t help but think of the comfort it gave me when I read those words in my sister’s letter. I still have the letter.
Each time I listen to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, I am reminded that God really does exist. It is the aural equivalent of walking along a long, deserted ocean beach in early autumn, after the crowds have gone but before it’s too cold to endure the wind coming off the water. I know this sounds melodramatic, but ’tis true. It may be sad to say so, but I do need this sort of reminder from time to time. Thank you, God, for the Atlantic Ocean and for J.S. Bach.
…one morning our eclectic local station played a piece so beautiful I actually had to pull over because I was tearing up. I recognized the first verse of Psalm 51 in Latin, and the music matched the psalm so perfectly that it took my breath away. It made me want to rush over to the church and confess all my sins.
My brothers and I singing a folksy arrangement of the Lord’s Prayer at my sister’s wedding. It wasn’t the harmonies or the arrangement that made it spiritual. It was four Catholic guys singing lovingly to their very pregnant sister in her groom’s Baptist church with just family and a few friends and God looking on. So many opportunities for that to have gone horribly, but grace saved the day, and the 16 years since.
Many, many more at the link. Enjoy.
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