7th Sunday after Pentecost 15.7.07 Sing to the Lord
In welcoming Latin Mass choirs to Adelaide this weekend let us consider the place of sacred music in the liturgy and in our lives.
Why do we sing? For our own pleasure, yes, but when it comes to sacred music a lot of other things are happening.
We enjoy singing and hearing sacred music, but it also gives glory to God.
We can never exhaust the praises of God. He is infinite in glory and we could never say or sing all that can be attributed to Him.
The angels in heaven sing ‘sine fine’, without end, and our singing is just switching into their chorus.
Our singing has the further effect of lifting us to heaven, helping us to transcend our normal daily lives and filling us with inspiration.
This helps us to think better thoughts, and live better lives.
The epistle today reminds us that the wages of sin are death, and the Gospel that we must be like good trees, bearing good fruit.
One reason we sin is we do not see God clearly enough. If we could see His face we would never think of sinning.
We are like the Israelites who became bored and distracted when Moses left them for a time, and they made the golden calf. This symbolises all sin. We make false gods when we lose sight of the true One.
So we need ways of staying connected to God. Our worship is one of those ways.
It takes discipline to push ourselves out of bed in the morning, to pray a little longer, a little harder, to come to extra Masses - yet if we do these things we will feel a lot better and stronger. We are then fortified to go back to the outside world.
Our singing/worship is part of the effort we make to worship God. It is re-connecting to God, drinking from the source.
The way we feel when we hear this music is how we are supposed to live the rest of the time. There are times when we are really inspired that we feel like we could love all humanity; we are filled with goodwill.
Those feelings can die down very quickly. We want to lock them in so that the good feelings become good habits (virtues). And we become like the tree – firm under pressure, and bearing good fruit.
So our singing is more than just a nice sound. It is vital in making contact with heaven, in receiving help from heaven, and in gaining entry to heaven.
All the while giving glory to God, and pleasure to us.
It is something worth doing to the best of our ability. Any mistakes we make in singing will, we trust, be absorbed by the angels in their perfect and never-ending praise.
The psalms are themselves songs to God, and they exhort us to sing constantly. For example, Ps 95: O sing a new song to the Lord, sing to the Lord all the earth. O sing to the Lord, bless His Name.
