Pergolesi: Miserere mei Deus

"You are that man!" David and Nathan by Matthias Scheits

     Psalm 51 (called the “Miserere” from its first word in Latin) is one of the greatest of penitential prayers.  According to the Bible itself, it is “A Psalm of David, when the Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”  Nathan came to King David, of course, to confront him after the king had committed adultery with Bathsheba,  and had arranged to have her husband Uriah killed so he could marry her himself. The Psalm is an expression of David’s sorrow after he has realized the magnitude of his sin.

     This psalm is closely associated with Lent because of its penitential character.  It has also been set to music many times, the most famous being the setting composed by Gregorio Allegri for use in the Sistine Chapel (I have posted three different recordings of Allegri’s “Miserere” since I started this blog fourteen months ago). 

     It seemed appropriate, during this first week of Lent, to investigate some of the lesser-known but still beautiful settings for this psalm.  The version, below was composed by Pergolesi (Giovanni Battista Draghi), an immensely talented composer who, sadly, lived for only 26 short years (1710-1736):  

Sunday Snippets - A Catholic Carnival (1st Sunday of Lent 2015)

     Welcome once again to "Sunday Snippets – A Catholic Carnival" (although the carnival atmosphere is somewhat muted, this being the Season of Lent).  Sunday Snippets is a weekly gathering of Catholic bloggers who share their posts for the week (that’s the snippets part) every Sunday (and that’s the . . . um . . . never mind).  The full gathering is here, at This That and the Other Thing, home of Sunday Snippets mastermind RAnn.  

Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross

     Before I get to the past week at Principium et Finis, I’d like to touch briefly on the topic of Lent. One of the distinctive features of the Catholic Vision is that we see the patterns of the next world reflected in this one.  The Season of Lent provides a good example.  We understand that we are prone to sin, that we must undergo a period of preparation before we can experience the joy of Easter.  And so through various penitential practices, including (but not limited to) the sacrament of Confession and the “giving up” of various things, we seek both to acknowledge and repent of our sins, and also to turn away from attachment to worldly things so that we can turn instead to God.

     The logic of these Lenten practices also applies in the next life, in Purgatory.  The word Purgatorium means a place of cleansing. The Catholic belief is that Purgatory is both a completion of temporal punishment (penance), and as the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, "purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven," for  those "who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified" (CCC 1030). That purification is sometimes described in terms of removal of our remaining attachment to sin (sound familiar?) .  

     While it's best to do whatever we can to avoid or lessen our time in Purgatory, it's a good bet that very many of us will experience it.  That’s something to keep in mind as we go through Lent here in this world: if it’s appropriate to purify ourselves in preparation for the Feast of Easter, how much more so for the Eternal Supper of Lamb in the New Jerusalem?

And now, on to the links for the past week:

Sunday – "Do You Consider Yourself A Leper?" As it happens, we all have reason to say, “If you will it, you can make me clean”  

Monday – “Benigno Zerafa – Dixit Dominus, Mov. II” It’s a shame to let anything beautiful go to waste, especially something created to glorify God.  So, here’s a little musical treasure brought down from the attic . . . 

Tuesday –“ J.Puccini the Elder: Dixit Dominus” When I was researching Zerafa’s “Dominus Dixit” I came across another version, under a familiar name . . . but not quite as familiar as it looked.  Anyway, here’s another treasure 

Wednesday – “Ash Wednesday: A Symbol Of Repentance, A Sign Of Hope”   I was sitting in the DMV Tuesday morning, waiting for my son to finish his driver’s test, and musing about how curious it is that people who don’t normally attend Sunday Mass show up on Ash Wednesday and, well . . . the result was this post 

Thursday – “Richard Dawkins Is Full Of Surprises ” Who knew that the celebrated atheist apologist entertained fond memories of the Anglican Church? But then, the whole atheist enterprise is not as reason-driven as they’d like us to think . . . 

Friday – “What Adam ate Brought Death, What Christ Usto Eat Brings Eternal Life”
  Thoughts on Lent, Sin, and Salvation inspired by an Ash Wednesday homily

De Profundis (C.W.Gluck)

    Christoph Willibald Gluck was one of the most influential composers of his time in the mid 18th century; he had an enormous impact on Salieri (whose Requiem Mass we've been sampling for the last couple weeks), Mozart, and many others. Perhaps no composer of his time had a greater influence on the development of the operatic genre. While his music is performed somewhat more often today than that of his protege Salieri, he is no longer one of the better-known composers.
     While Gluck's primary area was opera, he also composed musical settings for a few Psalms, few of which have survived. One that has come down to us is this hauntingly beautiful setting for Psalm 130 (linked below), a performance of which Salieri conducted at his old friend and mentor's funeral in 1788.
   

Blessed Pope Paul VI Is Proved Right Yet Again

     Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power [i.e., contraception] passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. (Bl. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae 17)

    Outrageous, but hardly surprising. As Pia Di Solenni reports [here], the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, the international aid group created by the United Nations, have been giving women in Kenya tetanus vaccine secretly laced with the HCG hormone, which causes infertility and miscarriages.  Di Solenni includes the text of a statement by the Catholic Bishops of Kenya detailing: the Kenyan government’s refusal to cooperate with the Bishops’ inquiries about the immunization program; their own clandestine efforts to acquire a few vials of the vaccine, all of which tested positive for the hormone; the “attempts to intimidate and blackmail medical professionals who have corroborated information about the vaccine, with threats of disciplinary action.” She also excerpts a portion of a statement by matercare.org that confirms the Bishops’ findings, and also reveals that the tetanus campaign in Kenya “is targeted at girls and women between the ages of 14-49 (child bearing age)” and involves giving five doses six months apart, which is not required for tetanus, but is necessary for the sterilization hormone.  The statement also reveals that WHO/UNICEF has previously done exactly the same thing in Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Phillipines.

     Sin loves company.  It’s not content to sit quietly by itself, but seeks to implicate others in its corruption.  And so we see now the working out of Pope Paul’s prediction: having freed ourselves from the burden of Christian morality, we determined first that contraception was Good for married people; next, if it’s good for them, well then, it must be good for everyone.  If it’s good for everyone, it must also be good for brown-skinned people living in poor countries, even if they don’t want it.  If they don’t want what’s good for them, then we more enlightened folks (having freed ourselves from the burden of Christian morality) have not just the right but an obligation to force it on them. 

     So it goes when we allow such power to pass “into the hands of those authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law”.  The problem is, such authorities and, come to think of it, individuals, tend to create their own precepts, their own “moral law”, but it is untethered to God’s law, which is the only law perfectly attuned to the true good of humanity.  Thus Henri de Lubac, S.J., famously said: “It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man cannot organize the world without God.  What is true is that, without God, he can only organize it against man”. 

     Catholics have long believed that our personal sins affect not only ourselves, but our neighbors, the Church, and the rest of the World.  We have usually taken these effects to be more spiritual in nature, but we can see that it is true in a very practical material sense as well. When we reject God and his precepts, we reenact the rebellion of Satan and the Fall of Adam and Eve.  And as we see here, even private sins can eventually become Public Policy.

     Now, going to confession and resolving to avoid further sin will not directly or immediately help the exploited women of Kenya: that requires exposing the wrongdoing and working to change the policies that allow it.  In the long run, however, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  If we want a more decent and moral world, we all (myself included  - mea culpa!) need to become more decent and moral people.  And we can only do that with God’s help.