rachmaninoff, all-night vigil

It’s the Vigil of All Saints–time for some celebrating!

I perhaps already mentioned it, but I was so #blessed (haha) to catch The Philharmonic Chamber Choir (with Sonoko Mizukami and Julian Gregory) performing this in August.

The Wikipedia article links to this gem, Description of a “Real” All Night Vigil (1911) by Mikhail Skaballanovich:

When these professors shared their dreams [of organising a sung all-night vigil] with Bishop Gabriel (Chepuro) of Akkermansk, who was a supporter of their approach to liturgics, he accused them of naivete and said that it would cost 3,000 rubles and require two years of preparation. The idea of an ideal all-night vigil, thus cast into the air, fell into the soul of two pious fourth-year students – the priest Z. T. Saplina (of Kursk) and I. A. Lagovsky (of Kostroma; the aforementioned individuals hailed from Ryazan’, Lithuania and Kherson). They decided that this all-night vigil was something they really had to undertake, and found among the students about twenty singers who expressed themselves ready, with no small risk to their voices, to sing, even if it took all night, i.e. from 6:00 P.M. until morning.

There’s something rather charming about highlighting the serious risk to voices from singing all night (for the record, they reportedly ended at 1.50 in the morning). Where can I sign up?

Christ the King

gratias agentes Deo Patri, qui dignos nos fecit in partem sortis sanctorum in lumine: qui eripuit nos de potestate tenebrarum, et transtulit in regnum filii dilectionis suæ; in quo habemus redemptionem per sanguinem ejus, remissionem peccatorum: qui est imago Dei invisibilis, primogenitus omnis creaturæ: quoniam in ipso condita sunt universa in cælis, et in terra, visibilia, et invisibilia, sive throni, sive dominationes, sive principatus, sive potestates: omnia per ipsum et in ipso creata sunt: et ipse est ante omnes, et omnia in ipso constant. Et ipse est caput corporis Ecclesiæ, qui est principium, primogenitus ex mortuis: ut sit in omnibus ipse primatum tenens: quia in ipso complacuit, omnem plenitudinem inhabitare: et per eum reconciliare omnia in ipsum, pacificans per sanguinem crucis ejus, sive quæ in terris, sive quæ in cælis sunt.

[We] giving thanks to God the Father, Who made us worthy to share in the lot of the saints in the light, Who snatched us from the power of darkness and brought us over into the kingdom of His own beloved Son; in Whom we have redemption by His blood, and the remission of sins; Who is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creatures: for in Him were made all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible–whether thrones or dominations, whether principalities or powers, all through Him and in Him were created: He is before all things, and all things in Him consist. He is the head of the body of the Church, He Who is the principal, firstborn of the dead: that in all things He might hold the primacy, for in Him it pleased God that all fullness should reside, and through Him for all things to be reconciled, making peace through the blood of His cross, whether they be on earth or in heaven.

Col 1: 12-20

I like mucking about with translating St Paul, especially these doxological passages. They’re so rousing, I can hardly help myself.

DOMINÁBITUR a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad términos orbis terrárum. V. Et adorábunt eum omnes reges terræ: omnes Gentes sérvient ei.

Also, it is so pleasing to see declensions at work. In English that would just be plain old “from sea to sea”.

Happy Christ the King!

Nouwen on silence

Abba Tithoes once said, “Pilgrimage means that a man should control his tongue.” The expression “to be on pilgrimage is to be silent” (peregrinatio est tacere), expresses the conviction of the Desert Fathers that silence is the best anticipation of the future world. The most frequent argument for silence is simply that words lead to sin. No speaking, therefore, is the most obvious way to stay away from sin. This connection is clearly expressed by the apostle James: “… every one of us does something wrong, over and over again; the only man who could reach perfection would be someone who never said anything wrong–he would be able to control every part of himself” (James 3:2).

James leaves little doubt that speaking without sinning is very difficult and that, if we want to remain unsullied by the sins of the world on our journey to our eternal home, silence is the safest way. Thus, silence became one of the central disciplines of the spiritual life. St Benedict, the father of the monastic life in the West and the patron saint of Europe, puts great emphasis on silence in his Rule. He quotes the Psalmist who says, “I will keep a muzzle on my mouth… I will watch how I behave and not let my tongue lead me into sin” (Psalm 39:1). St Benedict not only warns his brothers against evil talk, but also tells them to avoid good, holy, edifying words because, as it is written in the book of Proverbs, “A flood of words is never without its faults” (Proverbs 10:19). Speaking is dangerous and easily leads us away from the right path.

The central idea underlying these ascetic teachings is that speaking gets us involved in the affairs of the world, and it is very hard to be involved without becoming entangled in and polluted by the world. The Desert Fathers, and all who followed in their footsteps, “knew that every conversation tended to interest them in this world, to make them in heart less of strangers here and more of citizens.”

This might sound too unworldly to us, but let us at least recognise how often we come out of a conversation, a discussion, a social gathering, or a business meeting with a bad taste in our mouth. How seldom have long talks proved to be good and fruitful? Would not many if not most of the words we use be better left unspoken? We speak about the events of the world, but how often do we really change them for the better? We speak about people and their ways, but how often do our words do them or us any good? We speak about our ideas and feelings as if everyone were interested in them, but how often do we really feel understood? We speak a great deal about God and religion, but how often does it bring us or others real insight? Words often leave us with a sense of inner defeat. They can even create a sense of numbness and a feeling of being bogged down in swampy ground. Often they leave us in a slight depression, or in a fog that clouds the window of our mind. In short, words can give us the feeling of having stopped too long at one of the little villages that we pass on our journey, of having been motivated more by curiosity than by service. Words often make us forget that we are pilgrims called to invite others to join us on the journey. Peregrinatio est tacere. “To be silent keeps us pilgrims.”

The Way of the Heart, Henri Nouwen

vasily kalinnikov, symphony no. 1

[A computer recommended this to me today.]

It’s delightful! Of note is the nationalistic flavour (or maybe I’m the only one still hearing Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil in my mind) and the twinkly-eyed yet grave bass and cello passages in the first movement. The photo is pretty great too, and much more pleasant than staring at people playing the piece against the severe backdrop of a concert hall. Speaking of which…

It also reminded me of Chen Zhangyi’s Rain Tree, which I can’t believe I’ve never posted about. (This video gives you a pale idea of what that was like.) That, too, had a kind of nationalistic flavour and a scenic quality (quivering leaves in the heavy humid air with the barest of breezes wafting by). I’ve heard recordings of it again since, beginning right after I first heard it in person, and nothing has come even close.

lead kindly light

I remember fondly the desk in our lab, along the wall in the room splashed with sunlight, where I sat that summer, when (even more than matrix multiplication and superpositions) all that occupied my mind was the tentatively joyful walk in the dark that is conversion. Nearly all that I cared to listen to was this album, and especially this song. It seemed a little uncomfortable to find that the author of the poem set to music here was a convert to Catholicism–would that unduly prejudice me?–but however gingerly I found myself led by the same light into what even now seems every day to look more and more like Paradise. (And yet, we know it is not!) Funny to think that none of us shall know how much of the walk remains for each; the best we might do is to sweetly, meekly take one step as a time as He allows us to, and we would be hard-pressed to find anything more fulfilling or wondrous.

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond […]

via Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us! —