Over 55 years ago, when I was on retreat at Weston, the Jesuit philosophate and theologate in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I was surprised to hear music at a liturgy that I had not heard before. Liturgical folk music had been around for the several years since Vatican II had concluded, but it seemed to me to lack the vibrancy one might like.
I had liked Gregorian (and Ambrosian) chant, and though I appreciated the vernacular of the folk music, it was, as often as not, repetitive and jejune. What I heard at Weston was early music by the St. Louis Jesuits, some of which I believe has never been published. I returned to Shrub Oak with that music in my bag and taught it to the Jesuit community there where I was the music director for the community.
Which brings me to a hymn written by Roc O’Connor, SJ, who was not a member of the original St. Louis Jesuits, who indeed was not yet a Jesuit: “Seek the Lord,” based on Isaiah 55:6-7, with its line “to forsake our sinful lives and turn to the Lord.” I like its energy but I must admit, I don’t much care for that particular line.
Nor do I care for it when that phrase — or one similar — is used in a homily other than in its historical context. I must admit I don’t hear that line often, but I do from time to time. I sit in my pew — or up near the piano, if I am singing — an 80-year-old man, surrounded by members of my faith community, people of all ages, most of whom I imagine are not, in their daily lives, particularly
sinful.
Of course, as Pope Francis once said, “Who am I to judge?” While I do know some regular churchgoers who were convicted of nonviolent felonies, I suspect that they have “forsaken their
sinful lives.” But for the most part, the churchgoers I see and sense around me in the pews are simply ordinary citizens trying their best to live upright lives.
They deal with disappointments, they try to control their impatience, they help their aging parents, and give their children the attention they deserve. They rake their next-door neighbors’ leaves or shovel their walks when it snows. They help out at the local food pantry, they give a disabled friend a ride to the doctor’s, or push her wheelchair to Mass at the church a few blocks away.
They go to work, pay their bills, and go on vacation. And I suspect that at times, they go to bed at the end of the day thinking they could have done better that day. Which may well be true. But more likely, they have done the best they could given all that transpired. Tomorrow they might do better — or they might not. But they will try, just as I try. For me, I find I am not my best self
when I am surprised, when I am caught off guard by something in my relationships, perhaps, or in my errands during the day, caught off guard by something that I expect to be routine but suddenly is not.
And later, when reflecting on my day, I am also not my best self when I focus on these moments. As the spiritual director Paula D’Arcy has said, “God comes to us disguised as our life.” My life is far from being the life of a perfect being, so focusing on my imperfections, recriminating myself for them, is usually little more than a source of discouragement.
I already know what most of my imperfections are; I needn’t dwell on them in an attempt to do better tomorrow. We often hear God referred to as a loving parent. For me, that is almost an abstraction. I prefer to think of God as specifically being the loving parent of a toddler who, as that toddler takes his first steps and falls, applauds his successful steps rather than laments the fact that he or she didn’t make it as far as the couch. “Yay, Max!” “Yay, Claire!”
That said, when a homilist is addressing his congregants’ spiritual lives, I would much prefer not hearing “forsake your sinful lives and turn to the Lord.” What would truly help me continue on my path in the life of the spirit would be to hear, “Yay, Frank! Keep going.”
Frank Bolton has been involved with music for 70 years. He sings at St. Saviour Church in Park Slope and is a longtime member of the Park Slope Singers.