Homily for Mass with the Blessing of a New Pipe Organ

August 17, 2023
St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church
Flower Mound, Texas

Ephesians 5:15-20
Psalm 47
Luke 1:39-47

As we gather this evening to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and within this celebration to ask God’s blessing upon this new pipe organ that will be used to praise God beautifully and fittingly, we listen to the words of the Gospel of Luke describe the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary with her elder kinswoman, Saint Elizabeth, the pregnant mother of Saint John the Baptist. This reading of the Gospel then concludes with the first words of Our Lady’s “Song of Praise,” the Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

We recognize in this encounter between the Blessed Mother and Saint Elizabeth, and also in the encounter of the unborn prophet Saint John the Baptist and the unborn Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, not only a moment that changes human history, nor even the primary example of evangelization, but most wonderfully the exemplary liturgical moment between the human and the Divine.

This is the exemplary liturgical moment because we see in this event all of the Good News that we celebrate at the Liturgy: we see the prophetic action of the unborn Saint John the Baptist leaping in the womb of Saint Elizabeth; we see the charitable and humble ministry of the Blessed Virgin Mary towards Saint Elizabeth; we see the Word of God Incarnate within the humble and receptive body and soul of the Blessed Mother. Finally, we see all this culminating in her song that at once praises God and proclaims what He has done and what He continues to do through His saving Word in the sublime beauty of the Incarnation: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

The pipe organ upon which we invoke God’s blessing today is not simply an instrument of great artistic beauty. We invoke God’s blessing that through its use as an instrument we might be drawn more intimately into the mystery offered in Word and Sacrament here with effect in our lives. As the late Pope Benedict XVI remarked in 2006, at the blessing of a new pipe organ in the Old Chapel of Regensburg, Germany: “The organ has always been considered, and rightly so, the king of musical instruments, because it takes up all the sounds of creation — as was just said — and gives resonance to the fullness of human sentiments, from joy to sadness, from praise to lamentation. By transcending the merely human sphere, as all music of quality does, it evokes the divine.”

It is this mystery of the human and the divine that we celebrate, not only as individuals but even more so in our communion as His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. These four marks of the Church are gifts given by God to and through the Church, as gifts they must not be taken for granted by our indifference or our presumption. Our salvation depends upon our willingness to receive them as gifts through the confession of words and the responsive actions of our faith.

The Second Vatican Council taught, “Therefore sacred music is to be considered the more holy in proportion as it is more closely connected with the liturgical action, whether it adds delight to prayer, fosters unity of minds, or confers greater solemnity upon the sacred rites. But the Church approves of all forms of true art having the needed qualities and admits them into divine worship.”

The music of the Liturgy must always be directed to God in praise and gratitude for these gifts given to us communally, and not privately in each of our own individualized subjective experience. The music of the Liturgy is directed to the Word proclaimed and the Word Incarnate. This music lifts us up communally as the Church in unity. It is not a form of entertainment. The music of the Liturgy clarifies for us the reality that the Eucharist is the Source and Summit of our Christian life.

This is important to remember because our current culture suggests that the Eucharist is a type of party that we have among a group of acquaintances that gives each of us the height of emotional experience by which we presume to measure the quality of God’s presence. This results too frequently in music that simply excites the passions like secular music does, but in its excitement does not draw us deeper into the mystery of the Word of God, to know God as He has revealed Himself and not as we can only discover Him in the limits of our fallen intellect. We cannot serve God if we do not first know Him and love Him and, in the Liturgy, God affords us the grace of this opportunity.

This type of music directed to entertainment stimulates us but leaves us empty and confused about what God offers us in His Word. It becomes more about us, and our attention to Christ is thereby diminished. Saint Paul warns us exactly about this temptation in his letter to the Ephesians that we proclaimed as the first reading of this Liturgy: “Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord. And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another [in] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”

Saint Thomas Aquinas commenting on this passage from the Letter to the Ephesians wrote, “We meditate on honest actions that we should do; on the divine praise and what we should imitate; and on the joy of heaven and what we should render homage to, and how. The first effect of the Holy Spirit is a holy meditation, and the second is a spiritual exultation; from frequent meditation the fire of charity is enkindled in the heart. From this a spiritual joy is born within the heart; thus, Saint Paul mentions singing and making melody so that our affections would be stirred by spiritual joys towards good works.” This is clearly revealed in the Visitation of Our Lady and in her Magnificat.

On the other hand, we must remember that the function of liturgical music is not simply a linear and discursive explanation of the faith like a theological treatise that engages only our intellect. True liturgical music involves the senses and the passions in a way that draws us into God’s right order for human beings in accord with God’s creative design, but not in an abstract way in which order is externally imposed from above.

As the late theologian Joseph Ratzinger observed years ago, “Whether it is Bach or Mozart that we hear in church, we have a sense in either case of what gloria Dei, the glory of God, means. The mystery of infinite beauty is there and enables us to experience the presence of God more truly and vividly than in many sermons. But there are already signs of danger to come. Subjective experience and passion are still held in check by the order of the musical universe, reflecting as it does the order of the divine creation itself. But there is already the threat of invasion by the virtuoso mentality, the vanity of technique, which is no longer the servant of the whole but wants to push itself to the fore.”

In a few moments I will bless this pipe organ. Let us pray that in the beauty that it provides as an instrument in this beautiful church, we, the People of God, might be drawn into deeper contemplation of the Word of God, that we might exult in His beauty amidst the ugliness of the sinful character of this fallen world, so that we might fittingly love God and our neighbor as He desires. Let our hearts proclaim with the Virgin Mary, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”