Music as a stairway to heaven

Saint John Bosco recognised that a Salesian House without music was like a body without a soul. He made music with young people and encourage them to play and sing as part of the rhythm of the life of his houses. When he took the street children out of Turin into the countryside for walks it was a youth band that led them into fun and relaxation. Likewise, in chapel, it was the choir and enthusiastic singing that helped young people to touch the deeper spiritual values that moved their souls.

The emphasis on music and its connection with spirituality was an intuitive insight of Don Bosco. He would have been aware of St Augustine’s observation that “he who sings well prays twice!” He would have been more consciously aware of what happens to young people when they make music; how their spirit lifts, how they get into the present moment, how their breathing synchronises and how reconciliation is achieved with few words because music creates harmony at many levels. So music was an essential aspect of learning, of relaxation, spirituality and relationships for Don Bosco. It was home, school, playground and church all in one.

The ability of music to harmonise life is something that anyone who has been to any kind of concert can witness to. Whether it is classical or rock, a professional event or a school production, live music arches into a bridge that connects people in the present moment. That experience can offer meaning and healing without any words, energising and uniting people into more harmonious living. The rippling applause in a classical concert is not so different from the rippling of dancing bodies in a rock concert. The ability to feel and appreciate the music may be expressed in different ways but the core experience of being moved by music is probably common to both events.

Academics studying religious experience were surprised to find that music was the key pathway into spiritual awareness, even more so than prayer.[i] It was the pathway to

• ·        A sense of warmth
• ·        A loss of a sense of self
• ·        A sense of timelessness in the present moment
• ·        A solidarity in sharing something with others
• ·        An energy, joy and elation released as a community

These are the effects of good music, shared in a kind of community that is rooted in a sense of humanity that transcends all other divisions of race, personality and creed. Good music therefore can become a pathway to the present in the infinite and to timelessness in time. It takes a community into a sacred space where reality can be grasped beyond the womb of words.

That is wonderful stuff, but there is more. When visiting an older Salesian with dementia I found it very difficult to communicate. His memory had gone, he was having trouble framing sentences and looked isolated and uncomfortable especially in a one to one situation- until I started to sing some of the songs he knew. Then, all of a sudden he broke into song and into life. He sang without faltering, began to move with rhythm and grace and smiled with joy. The isolation had gone and we were singing together, using music to bridge into his loneliness. Afterwards his mood and his confidence were both strengthened and I left him more relaxed and at peace.

Music and rhythm operate from a different part of the brain than words and rational thinking. Music can trigger emotional states that can change the chemistry of the brain and initiate healing and health in the brain. So it is possible to sing yourself out of sadness and ease aggression through adagios. But science also suggests that more benefits of music come when a real effort is made to make music, especially with others. The commitment to learn an instrument or to sing in a choir lead to real effects on the neural pathways of the brain. The effort to coordinate voice, hands, eyes and to put in the hours of practice creates a healthier, more adaptable, mind.

For young people, stressed as they often are in western society, music is something of a saviour. It helps them to escape into the present moment and to share wordlessly with others. It is a spiritual pathway to reflection and meditation. Learning a musical instrument is linked to better reading, to an ability to multi-task and in older age prevents the early onset of age related decline. That is why schools and families need to encourage music and the making of music. It opens up a pathway to a healthier mind, a more relaxed body and, above all, it opens up a spiritual dimension to life that might help to save a young person’s soul.

So, get out your bongos, head off to the karaoke, sing in the bath and you might open up a spiritual stairway to heaven!

Don Bosco with his band 1860s

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[i] Greeley 1975  

Are you a pharisee? I am!

Most of us have an inner pharisee ready to write rules and organise even God. How many of these six signs are present in your life and attitudes right now?

1. Disdain for those at the back of the line- they should have tried harder

2. A spirit of exclusivity that excludes some and includes others

3. Focus on rules and expectations before loving kindness

4. A pattern of idolising the past leading to resistance to change

5. A quest for clone-like uniformity that suppresses the variety of gifts in people

6. My way or the highway attitude- an over-confidence in ones own judgements

We don't mean to get into this pattern of living and thinking but it is all around us. It permeates our schools, health service and consumer culture. Yo might have caught it accidentally.

Fortunately there is an antidote- The Gospel!

To avoid pharisaism take this Gospel attitude three times a day "Do not be afraid I am with you always"

The inner pharisee and the new liturgical translation

Many religious people have an “inner Pharisee” which needs to be kept under control. There is a part of most human beings that, like the Pharisees, tries to make life into a competition. That could be the result of a belief that love and affection has to be earned somehow: that in order to be loveable I must be better, try harder, and earn more brownie points from God. In following the path of such beliefs we slip away from the freedom of the gospel and slip into the grip of an inner Pharisee. In that deadly inner embrace fear grows, confidence evaporates and people are pushed into an unholy competition for God’s love.

To see the truth of this inner fault line we need look no further than an average family. There, in the rivalry between brothers and sisters, the same battle is being fought for the attention of parents and for the reassurance of being loved. There is a desperate hunger in many of us, young and old, to know that we are loved and that need can drive us into competitive, jealous and hard hearted living. This attitude is not good news and above all it is not the Gospel. The Gospel is a proclamation of the unconditional love of God consistently offered as a gift to every human being. It cannot be earned, controlled or dispensed as a commodity. The good news is that each of us is a child of God and that we are loved, as we are right now, by our creator.

Time and time again Jesus is seen in the Gospel reassuring people of The Father’s love: that we are worth more than many sparrows, that we should not be afraid, that we may all be one. The expression of the lavishness of God’s love scandalised the Pharisees. The good news was seen as a threat to the importance of rules for purification, the treatment of sinners and the use of punishments. When Jesus tells the Pharisees that there were prostitutes that were closer to God than many of them they found it impossible to accept. The Pharisees were on a collision course with the Gospel because they did not believe in the unconditional love of a Father God.

It is within this background that I believe we can understand how the new translation of the liturgy has emerged and the reaction it has received. It seems that in the process of translation that mercy has been eclipsed by merit and the implication that God’s love has to be somehow earned is stressed far more than the utter goodness and lavishness of God’s love and grace. Somehow the Pharisee that lies beneath the surface of many of us has emerged and asserted its grip. The result is that the prayers in particular do not express a warmth and a trusting relationship such as Jesus encouraged by his use of the name “Abba” daddy. Instead God is portrayed as someone who is disappointed with us and our imperfections leading to a sense of fear rather than trust in God.

It is not surprising that the Pharisaic part of us has taken the opportunity to reassert itself in the new translation. The shape of the Catholic Church, its sureness of identity and its authority, have all been challenged in the last few decades. The pressures for change in sacramental discipline, the impact of child abuse allegations and the ongoing erosion of attendance in some parts of the world have all contributed to an insecurity in traditional leadership. In this struggling situation we are told that the final instinct of a struggling institution is to rewrite the rule book and return to old certainties. The new translation with its return to a more controlling language is an example of that tendency to want to turn the clock back to old certainties. It tries to return to a situation where the church is seen as a dispenser of grace rather than as a revealer of God’s grace. 

To be in control and to be coherent is of course important and the pharisaic part of us wants to have things managed and accounted for. Pharisees can be forgiven for letting rules dominate the spirit because, like all people, they are dominated by fear and judgement. However, these are not times for clarity but for exploration, times for new searching and not for old answers. That is why the Pharisee aspect of each of us must be forgiven readily but not allowed too loud a voice about the future. As a church we need to let the Pharisee be eclipsed by a searching and creative laity. That sleeping giant in our church needs space to grow, learn from experience and re-negotiate its relationship to a clerical church. Later we will need the pharisaic mode of thinking when a more creative period has opened up new reasons for living and hoping.

So, for now, let us quietly put aside the new translation, and with great respect, consign it to the fire of God’s love. Then, instead of letting mercy be eclipsed by merit we might instead allow the merit of God’s unconditional love speak for itself.