Beauty, Subjectivism, and Liturgical Music
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    My boss, Fr. Rob Johansen, has written a good blog post on some issues relevant to us here. I'd recommend you check it out.

    Also on the blog is a recording of the school children singing the gloria. Criticisms of the organ playing not welcome.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,204
    This is really good stuff, Gavin. You're truly blessed to be working with a priest who is young, well-educated, well-spoken and willing to take on the great task of educating people in the tenets of the Faith.

    Permit me to add some quotes from Hans Urs von Balthasar, SJ, who has said the following regarding beauty:

    "Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance,"

    and

    "Not longer loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man."
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Excellent!

    From another post you started, "What is Beautiful in Music", to which I responded in January.

    "Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is an objective truth. Anyone who says differently subscribes to relativism. So too in art, music, and life. If someone THINKS something that is actually ugly is beautiful, I believe it has to do with the corruption of conscience. After all, con-science means to 'go with science' or is in touch with reality! When one struggles against the moral law, especially in a state of pride or indifference, one is given over to their own thinking. Everything becomes relative, and beauty becomes a subjective state of life."
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    Very powerful, Gavin, thanks for sharing. I wish I had the gift of writing with that kind of clarity!
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Gavin, who is the adult leading the children?
  • Jan
    Posts: 242
    Thanks Gavin. Really nice. Good to hear kids singing too.

    david andrew: I love those quotes! I plan on lifting them ; )
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Charles, that isn't a leader, but the microphone was right next to the priest.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Gotcha, Gavin, thanks. Good on the priest and you.
  • Jevoro
    Posts: 108
    i could not find the children singing Gloria...???
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    You know, that essay just made my day.
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