Receive Who You Are

Last year, while researching a talk I was to give to our catechumens, I stumbled upon a quote from St. Augustine in the Catechism of the Catholic Church at paragraph #1396. At the time of his writing which would have been in the 4th century, Bishop Augustine composed a mystogogical reflection to help his neophytes understand the meaning behind the Eucharist that they had just received for the first time. What struck me upon reading it was how completely fresh and modern it sounded to my 21st century ears. Though 1600 years have passed, there is still much meaning to be contemplated within Augustine's description of the mystery of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. This is what I read:

"So now, if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the Apostle Paul speaking to the faithful: you are the body of Christ, member for member. {I Cor. 12:27} If you, therefore, are Christ's body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord's table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying, "Amen" to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear, "the body of Christ," you respond, "Amen." Be a member of Christ's body, then, so that your "Amen" may ring true." SERMON #272

In the recording from our Lenten concert this year, you'll hear a couple of our choir members really shine. The main soloist on this piece, Sarah Bolling-Mancini is joined on alto harmony by Nimalie Stone. On the final refrains and on the Coda, you'll also hear the choir of IHM energetically providing the descant, "Corpus Christi (body of Christ) Sanguine Christi (blood of Christ). We will live in Christ's own Spirit. One body and blood and one soul, one divinity; receive who you are."

While playing the piano on this piece at our concert, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the vibrant faith of our singers and players coming to life and resounding within the semi-darkness of the church. As I listen to this recording, it continues to stir my soul to hear us joining the chorus of our 2000 year tradition of belief in the real presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist.

The instrumental parts for strings and woodwinds were arranged by Mark Scozzafave, who along with his wife Aimee, are alums of IHM's music ministry. Though we missed their participation in our concert this year since they have returned to their careers and their incredible music ministry at their home parish of Old St. Pat's in Chicago, we were so pleased that Mark could share his considerable musical gifts with us in this way.

How grateful Michael and I are to hear our musical ideas come to such beautiful fruition through the collaborative spirit of so many inestimably talented people who have also become dear friends. We'd like to thank you, too, for listening and for taking part in our music ministry in this way! As always, we certainly welcome your feedback.  Lyrics can be found after the jump.

We Are The Work Of His Hands

As promised (and at last!), we're going to be uploading some of our new music.  The song I'm uploading today, We Are The Work Of His Hands, is actually a couple of years old, but we only just introduced it to our parish at the recent Lenten concert.

This song was inspired by a simple insight that God, our Father, shared with me not long after the birth of my son, Peter.  He was just a few months old at the time, and he and I were up late together one night while Mom was getting some well-deserved rest.  I was holding him in my lap, and he was smiling up at me.  And in that moment I felt immensely proud - a sense of pride that I’m sure every parent knows well.  Proud for no other reason than that here in my hands was my beautiful, wonderful son, and what a blessing it was that God had entrusted me with such a great gift.

And then I was overcome with the sense that God, the Father, was there, looking down on us, holding us in hand, and feeling that same sense of fatherly pride for the two of us.  I don’t know that I have ever in my life had cause to doubt God’s love for me, but by the same token, I had never felt that he was particularly proud of me either.  But as soon as He graced me with that insight, I felt like I should have known it all along.  He’s looking down on all of us as a proud Father, and knowing that makes me want to make Him even more proud.  The memory of that evening is something I will always treasure and we've tried to capture some of that in this song.  Drawing inspiration from the creation story, the lyrics urge us to continue God's great work of creation and make Him proud.  Lyrics are after the jump.

(One final note, we had some technical difficulties with the recorder at our concert and unfortunately part of the third verse was lost.  Special thanks to Bob Gillespie for some fantastic editing work to make this presentable - I'm willing to bet most folks wouldn't realize that half of verse 3 is missing.  All the lyrics are included below in case you're curious!)

A Final Triduum Reflection

And here is the final spoken reflection from our 2012 Lenten Concert.  Written and delivered by Cory Labrecque, this reflection is on the eleventh chapter of John's Gospel, the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

Reflection on John 11

Good Friday Reflections

We have some exciting news.  We just received a copy of the recorded 2012 Lenten Concert, Til Love Embraces All, which means we have new songs to post here.  Special thanks to Jeff Brugger and Bob Gillespie for doing all the recording and editing.

We'll start posting some of this new material after Easter, but in the interim, we thought the occasion of the Triduum was a great time to post the spoken reflections that were given at the concert.  The theme of our concert this year was a meditation on the Scrutinies. The concert was organized into three sections, each built as a reflection in word and song around one of the Scrutiny stories from the Gospel of John.  We began each section with a spoken word reflection on the respective Gospel story.  Today, we are posting two of those reflections.

First is a reflection on the fourth chapter of John's Gospel, written by Fr. Stephen Vrazel and delivered by B.J. Abraham.
Reflection on John 4


And second, a reflection on ninth chapter of John written and delivered by Drew Denton.
Reflection on John 9



We'll post the final spoken reflection from the concert tomorrow.