Even a little more OP
Recently one of our church journals opened its pages to an argument concerning the type of music which is to be sung in our churches… Much of the discussion was beside the point… It was argued that the music of the Church must come out of the heart of the people… If a given generation has a religion which is cheap and soft and worldly, the music of the Church, it was implied, should reflect that kind of religion… Hardly… The music of religion must come out of the heart of the people, but not out of the heart of a single generation… There must be timelessness and universality about it… If we believe the same things which Bach believed, we shall be able to understand him and his music… If we cannot understand him, something is wrong with us and not with him… Faith and music are not twins… The first is far more important than the second… They are mother and child… It is inevitable that a child will have some of the beauty and glory of its mother… As I listen to the Mass in B Minor this still spring afternoon, the years drop away, and I hear the far echo of the men and women who have made music for Him whose hand plays the melody of the spheres… David singing in the night, the traditional hymn in the Upper Room, the subdued music of the saints in the catacombs… In early paintings and carvings they represented Christ as Orpheus with his lyre… A beautiful idea… The final music of the voice of God changing men by its forgiving power into something new and different and better… After the catacombs the chanting of the Church for 1900 years, from cathedral and chapel, from cloister and choir, from altar and pew… The long silence of the people until an Augustinian monk told them to sing again, because they were an essential part of the choir of God on earth… Luther knew that heaven never denies gifts like music to the many… He knew also that it is not difficult for a faithful heart to understand the music of the Church… Perhaps in this way also the truths of our faith are very much like the truths of music… A child can understand them, and a sage must puzzle over them…—The Pilgrim, pp. 88, 89
