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Psalm 1 Opus 1 was written in 1972 for my Dad. My Dad is the closest I have come to knowing a saint. A man of compassion, a man of service, a man of intelligence and a man of courage who lived his faith to the fullest.
While this is not the first composition I wrote, it is pretty close to being the first. It is written in simple ABA form. I was flirting with music from the Romantic Period at the time. The composer, Frederick Chopin was the main musical influence behind this comopostin.
The picture on the left is me and Ruthie around the time this music was written. I was an undergraduate at the College of St. Thomas, majoring in music. The picture on the right is of my Dad.
Psalm Offering 1 Opus 1 was written for Dr. Gene Scapanski. Gene was the director of the Masters In Pastoral Studies graduate program in the St. Paul School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas. Gene encouraged me to pursue a Masters Degree in Pastoral Studies. I am so grateful to him that I did. He was able to see in me something I was not able to see.
Gene is pictured on the left. The picture on the right is of the graduate students and faculty in the MAPS program.
The composer, Paul Hindemith, was the inspiration behind this composition. It is in two part form, AB, AB, closing with a restatement of the A melody.
Psalm Offering 2 Opus was written for my children, Andy Luke Meg and Beth back in 1985. Andy was 10 years old, Luke was 8 years old, Meg was 4 years old, and Beth was 1 years old. My kids have always been my greatest legacy. The two photos posted are of my kids about 22 years apart.
As for the music, it is based on some music sketches from 1973 that I composed and revised into 1985. The form of the music is in three part form, ABA. The A melody is stated twice followed by the introduction of the B melody. There is a bridge followed by a development of the B melody that segues back into the A melody. It is written more in the manner of the Romantic period of music.
Since the feast of the Baptism of the Lord ends the Christmas Season and ushers in Ordinary Time, I thought it would best honor the feast with this setting of Psalm 98, one of the common Christmas Psalms. The first recording is a rather primitive one done with the Guitar Group at St. Hubert. The second recording is what it would be like if it were sung today, with flutes and handbells added to the score. The choir in the second is what I call the Our Lady of CGI music ministry. When you do not have a choir, you make do with what you can get from a computer program. This musical setting of Psalm 98 was written in 1985 for the choirs at St. Hubert, in Chanhassen, MN. The text of the psalm is below.
. ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH – Christmas Psalm
(Psalm 98)
Refrain:
All the ends of the earth have seen
The saving power of God.
All the ends of the earth have seen
The saving power of God.
Verse One:
Sing to the LORD a new song,
For he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won vict’ry for him
His holy arm. (refrain)
Verse Two:
The LORD has made his salvation known;
In the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
Toward the house of Israel, the house of Israel.
(refrain)
Verse Three:
All the ends of the earth have seen
The salvation of our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD all you lands
Break into song, sing praise. (refrain)
Verse Four:
Sing praise to the LORD with the harp,
With the harp and melodious song,
With the sound of the trumpet and horn,
Sing joyfully before the King, the Lord (refrain)
This Psalm Offering was composed in 1985 to commemorate the baptism of my godson, Jordan.
Musically, this Psalm Offering is a neo-Romantic period piece. The chromatic passages very Chopinesque. The structure of the music is in two part form, specifically, AB, bridge, a development of the A melody, and two variations on the B melody before the ending.
Abba, Yeshua, Ruah is a choral piece I wrote for my diaconal ordination on September 24, 1994. Abba is Aramaic for Father, Yeshua is Aramaic for Jesus, and Ruah is Hebrew for Spirit. The recording is captured from the VHS tape from the ordination. This music is dedicated to Trish Flannigan, who was the administrative assistant/secretary for the Permanent Diaconate at the time I was in diaconal formation. Though never ordained, she remains the finest deacon of us all. The text for the music is below.
Abba, Abba,
May we be dwellings of your holy love,
The love which you grace all below, above.
May we be dwellings of your holy peace,
The peace for which all souls thirst and seek.
You loved so much that you sent your Son,
Only in you can we live as one.
Dwell in us Father, so that all may feel
The touch of your love and your peace-filled will.
Yeshua, Yeshua,
May we be servants of You, Holy Word,
Servants of you, compassionate Lord.
O may we seek you among the very least,
Inviting all to the Father’s feast.
You loved so much that you gave your life,
You conquered our death so that we may rise.
O loving Jesus, may our bodies be
You living Body for all to see.
Ruah, Ruah,
O Holy Spirit, come and make us whole,
Enflame our hearts, our minds, our souls,
Inspire our actions, our fears relieve,
So we may give to others what we receive.
Vessel of hope on our world outpoured,
Your healing breath our lives restore,
Infuse our lives now with your holy gifts,
So in you, source of love, we may always live.
I believe we spend our lives trying to discover our true selves. This is beautifully expressed in Psalm 139, prayed most often in the Evening Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. We want to know our selves as God knew them when we were created in our mothers’ wombs.
From the time I was in 3rd grade (about the time this photograph was taken of me at camp), when I first sat down at a piano, I knew my life revolved around music. By the time I reached my 12th birthday, I knew that my life’s purpose was composing music. Against the advice of my high school counselor, I continued to pursue music as my major in college, and though there were many more talented and skilled musicians around me, I held my own among them. It was not my chief purpose to be a music educator or performer, however, those occupations did put bread on the table and have helped to provide for my family. And, so, I wrote music. I have written a lot of music. Any of it published? No. I have never really pursued publication. I wrote for the sheer joy of writing music. Is any of the music worthy of publication? I believe some of it might have some promise in that area.
So why all this music now? While I was laid up recovering from a fall I had in late summer, I could only really sit at the dining room table. So I started to look over all the music I had written and began painstakingly transcribing it to a digital format on my computer. Were someone to ask me who are you? I would tell them to listen to the music I wrote, particularly the piano music. It is within this music that my true self is found. The greatest benefit of that fall which forced me into this endeavor was a rediscovery of myself, that person whom God named while I was being created in my mother’s womb.
There is a great overreaching arch that stretches from the point of our birth to the point of our death. Throughout that arch I have found my life revolving around music, my beloved Ruth, and the Church. As I am on the downward side of the arch I have reencountered my self as composer of music. In all the transcribing I have done and continue to do, I am rediscovering my self, where I began and where I am today. And when the transcribing is completed, I will pick up where I left off and continue to compose music, just like I intended to do when I first sat down at a piano keyboard in 3rd grade.
Psalm Offering 4 Opus 2, like quite a few of the Psalm Offerings from Opus 2, began as musical sketches written in 1973 and later revised and/or rewritten in 1986. It was during the summer that I “re-composed” Psalm Offering 4. I was taking my Church Social Justice class at the St. Paul Seminary with Fr. Sean O’Rearden, and, had just finished reading the massive ode written by the late Penny Lernoux entitled “People of God,” which described the courageous faith life of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan peasantry, many of whom lost their lives to the Right Wing Oligarchs of those countries. Archbishop Oscar Romero, along with Cardinal Arns, Bishop Helder Camara and other bishops who constantly faced threats of martyrdom at the hands of the same butchers who were disappearing people of faith. Archbishop Romero was the beloved shepherd of his sheep and willingly gave his life, like that of the Good Shepherd, for his flock. It is to him, and to the many untold and unnamed martyrs of El Salvador that this Psalm Offering is dedicated.
As to the music itself, it is written in a minor key. Note how the beginning measures and the ending measures are essentially the same, bookending, as it were, the music. The primary melody is introduced, and then repeated, with a development of the triplet figure as a bridge to the secondary melody which quickly evolves back into the triplet figure bringing the music to a recapitulation of the primary melody.
If listeners have not noticed it by now, I have a great fondness for the open, sounding diads of the Perfect 4th and the Perfect 5th. When studying music history as an undergraduate, I was drawn to the harmonies that made up the music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The major triad (chord) had not been yet discovered, in fact, the major chord was looked upon as a kind of dissonance. The preferred/acceptable harmonies of that period of music were octaves, Perfect 4ths and Perfect 5ths. I find this sort of harmony very appealing and can only surmise that it is a result of my musical gene pool inherited by my great grandpap Marron, who was an Irish Traditional musician. Much of Irish Traditional music closely resembles the song structures and harmonies of Medieval music which might explain its appeal to me.
For those of us in church ministry, Christmas is a journey. It is a journey into weariness, especially when, like this year, the Christmas liturgies begin on a Thursday, end on a Sunday, only to recommence on a Thursday to end on a Sunday. Throw a funeral or two in the midst of it all and by the time the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord arrives signalling the end of the Christmas Season and ushering us into Ordinary Time, we are all ready to exit the metaphysical wormhole that is the Christmas Season.
For myself, the mystery begins with me being quite the curmudgeon on Christmas Eve, with Ruth eager to bid me adieu as I leave for the first of many Christmas Masses. Why I am a curmudgeon? I haven’t the slightest clue. Why do I return from the first of many Christmas Masses totally changed? I haven’t the slightest clue. I can surmise why, but I have never been able to accurately pinpoint the reason why. Welcome to mystery.
Ultimately, Christmas is a Journey into Mystery, not just of human behavior but the behavior of God. Why on earth would the Logos, the Word of God through whom all life was and is created, so be diminished to take on our frailty, our weariness, our curmudgeonly natures? While one can say with quite assurance, the reason is Love, and I certainly wouldn’t argue that reason, could not God have chosen some other way to express God’s love for all of us? Of course, God could. Why God chose to incarnate in human form is a mystery. However, I am very thankful that God chose to do so.
We hear time and time again in Luke’s infancy accounts of Mary pondering the mystery of her baby incarnating the presence of God. Mary invites us to emulate her example. She invites us to be drawn deep into the Mystery of the Incarnation, to ponder anew the incarnation of her Son throughout this season and throughout the rest of the Liturgical Year. God is present around us and within us. As this Christmas Season concludes may we continue to ponder in our hearts the mystery of the God who delights in surprising us!
We sadly have the tendency to look at all issues in life from a absolutist stance. In a serious study of history, Absolutism has led to incredible tragedy in the course of human life. For centuries, Religions, especially Catholicism, believed in Absolute Monarchies, believing that no matter how despicable a king or queen might be, no matter how ruthless or how immoral a monarch’s behavior, that monarch was ordained by God to rule. We now know how baseless that absolute belief was. On the other side, world governments, from the time of Robespierre’s Reign of Terror in France to the Communist revolutions saw all religions as an absolute evil and were ruthless in their persecution of religions. Absolutism serves no one. Absolutism does not build up the human community but rather tears apart the fabric of human life.
Today we have absolutists on both sides of the political divide that has led to a strangulation of the United States government, with the common good suffering as a result of the resolve on the part of the absolutists. We tend to lump organizations into all or nothing categories. Planned Parenthood is a good example of this. Moral absolutists condemn Planned Parenthood for the abortion services it offers women. What the moral absolutists refuse to acknowledge is that Planned Parenthood is not just an abortion mill. Planned Parenthood offers low income women, at little to no cost, many needed gynecological services that low income women cannot afford, especially in States that provide little to no medical aid to the poor. While I am vehemently opposed to the abortion services, I just as strongly support all the other important services Planned Parenthood provides low income women. Were we to apply the same standards to our religious and political institutions, they would quickly be ended and dissolved.
Absolutism totally abandons the teachings of Jesus who taught by word and example that one must learn to sift that which is valuable from that which is not. Jesus taught that because there may be weeds growing in a field of wheat, you don’t burn down the wheat to rid the field of weeds. It is important to harvest the crop and sift the weeds from the wheat. As Christians living in a pluralistic world, we must learn to do the same if we are to be faithful disciples of Jesus.
