Holy Week Reflection: Suffering and Death

Before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, all four Gospel accounts of the Passion of Christ were proclaimed during Holy Week: Matthew on Palm Sunday; Mark on Tuesday; Luke on Wednesday; and John on Good Friday. Catholic school children of the era went to Mass every day during Lent, and Holy Week was a real challenge because we remained standing during the whole Gospel; none of this “please be seated” comfort that many parishes today utilize for the Passion’s proclamation. And remember, back then the Passion was proclaimed in Latin! 

After ten-plus minutes of standing at attention while hearing nothing but the holy drone of the ancient ritual language, it was blessed relief to kneel down for meditation after Jesus died. As Sister sternly explained in the classroom after Mass, “Our discomfort is nothing compared to the suffering that Jesus endured for us on the cross.” Ah, Catholic school education!* 

The suffering of Jesus. We Christians hear all our lives that “Jesus died just for you.” But what exactly does that mean? I don’t think that soteriology (the theology of salvation) can be reduced to a quick slogan. The redemption brought about by Jesus’ horrific death by crucifixion is rooted in rich and complex theology and biblical history. The ancient world’s concept of “sacrificial offering” as a way to win favor with God is an expression of humanity’s natural yearning for union with the divine, of a search to attain something that is beyond our material experience. 

It all comes down to death. We’re born. We live. We die. Is that it? That is the mystery that various faith traditions have wrestled with ever since those early humans looked up into the starry night sky and pondered the meaning of life. Christians believe in eternal life but, ironically, the doorway to eternal life is death. As a little kid might say to a parent who is trying to make him do something he would rather not, “Do I have to?” 

Over the years, I watched helplessly as my beloved parents and my brother Tops approached death’s door and eventually walked through it. Heart failure; cancer; the shutting down of the body because of old age – did they have to die THAT way? I have lost several friends and classmates because of accidents, unexpected illness, or suicide. Did they have to die THAT way? 

The Gospel of John teaches us that the Word became flesh: God became human. The Creator became creature. The unseeable Transcendence became visible and grounded. We know this Incarnate God by the name of Jesus Christ, who walked in our shoes, experienced the simple joys of childhood, and mourned the death of loved ones. He achieved success as a preacher and miracle worker and was warmed by the companionship of close friends, but eventually was betrayed and abandoned by them. Jesus would die, as we all must die, but did he have to die THAT way, on that horrible and bloody cross? 

I don’t have an answer to the question of suffering and death. I do know that every year, when I hear again the moving story of Jesus’ Passion, I am inspired by his silence. He endured his suffering without complaint. And when he did say something on that via dolorosa, it was all about compassion and mercy. 

“Weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children.” 

(Luke 23:28)

“This day you will be with me in paradise.” 

(Luke 23:43)

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” 

(Luke 23:34)

The pathway toward death that we all must walk is fraught with unexplainable suffering. But, as Jesus has shown us, death and dying can be a holy time of mercy and forgiveness. Somehow, in some mysterious and wonderful way, the cross was transformed from an instrument of terror into a symbol of hope. 

He humbled himself, 

becoming obedient to the point of death, 

even death on a cross. 

Because of this, 

God greatly exalted him 

and bestowed on him 

the name which is above every name, 

that at the name of Jesus 

every knee should bend, 

in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 

and every tongue confess to the glory of God the Father, 

Jesus Christ is Lord. 

-Philippians 2:8-11 

It is that hope in eternal life that I cling to. Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ defines who I am and what I believe in. 

 

The Cross shines through the aftermath of the tragic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. 

* Disclaimer: I was a CCD kid and did not have a Catholic grade school education. However, I certainly heard enough parochial school stories from friends, and I attended Catholic schools from high school onward. And I did go to daily Mass at my parish during Lent when I was in 6th, 7th and 8th grade. 

“In the Zone” with Classical Music

I am a self-taught musician and performing classical music does not come naturally for me. After all, the Beatles are the inspiration for my musicianship. Sure, I learned to read notes in 3rd grade because I played flute in my grade school orchestra. But my passion for music didn’t really get ignited until John, Paul, George and Ringo took America by storm on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. 

Then came the Folk Mass. I took up guitar in high school and it was all about chords. I briefly played the organ for liturgy and I now appreciate the discipline of learning how to play what is actually on the printed music. But as my knowledge of music theory advanced, I started analyzing the chords of a classical or liturgical piece and played my own arrangement. This approach became even more pronounced in the 1990s after I studied jazz theory, with its emphasis on comping and improvising. But one cannot and must not improvise Bach and Handel – unless, of course, it’s a deliberate jazz realization of a classical work, as Grover Washington did with “Jesu. Joy of Man’s Desiring.” But that’s a whole other discussion.

This brings us to the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah. Ten years ago, my parish music director thought it would be great for our choir to sing this iconic piece for Easter Sunday and our singers eagerly took up the challenge. Beverly, one of our sopranos, was also an accomplished concert pianist and I happily ceded the accompaniment to her while I helped plunk out the notes during sectional rehearsals. I’m proud to say that our choir learned to sing it beautifully. Alas, after a few years, Beverly moved away and I had no choice but to learn how to play this classical standard myself. 

Needless to say, Handel’s accompaniment is daunting for a rock and jazz pianist whose first performance in high school was a home spun rendition of Hey Jude. The page turning alone is intimidating, especially in the midst of playing through the piece at concert tempo. We used the traditional octavo with the old-school engraving, so when I flipped the page I had the hardest time finding my place – especially in the midst of performance where every second counts. As the Emperor famously said in Amadeus, “Too many notes!” 

Eventually, I created my own cut-and-paste accompaniment that removed the choral parts, so that helped. But there was no such shortcut to practice, and I spent hours upon hours playing through the “Hallelujah Chorus” with a metronome, slowly at first and then increasing the tempo to the recommended standard. My first Easter with this piece was passable; I wouldn’t exactly say I mastered it but it was good enough. Finesse wouldn’t come until a couple of years later. 

Some takeaways from this experience: 

1. It takes a serious personal commitment to master a classical song. A friend who is a concert pianist once told me that he spends a significant portion of his day in practice – four hours! In his youth, Lang Lang practiced six hours a day. That’s dedication!

2. There is an “in the zone” experience with classical music similar to what I’ve experienced in rock and jazz. Once I have mastered a song, I find it I can lose myself in classical performance just as I can during a rock jam. But I need to concentrate. I need to block out from my mind anything and everything except for the notes on the page. When I play rock music my mind can sometimes wander, but with classical music I can only think of what I am playing at the moment and nothing else. Without that depth of total concentration, I cannot play classical music effectively.

3. Handel was a genius!

Now excuse me while I go back to my piano and practice for Easter.

Bay Area Book Tour 2018: Going Home

Saturday, September 15 

All good things come to an end, sadly enough. This book tour was also my vacation time, and although giving concerts and lectures might seem like “work,” for me it was fun and relaxing, a change of pace from my regular routine at both my OCP day job and my weekend parish responsibilities. During this remarkable week, I was able to sell tons of books, do research at GTU library for my next books, visit my favorite city in the world (San Francisco!), eat in great restaurants, spend time with treasured friends, and meet new friends. 

Alas, it would soon be time to say goodbye to my friends, George the Dog and Steve the Cat. We had a couple of fun final days together, playing catch and just hanging out at the house. While I was counting cash and checks to deposit at the bank (a decidedly happy task), Steve kept hopping on top of my pile of dough. George just wanted to go outside and play. 

There were plenty of things to do around the house: laundry, cleaning up the boys’ mess of shredded shipping paper, and packing. It’s remarkable how animals can sense when a favorite human is going to leave them. Steve kept hopping into my suitcase as I tried to pack my clothes. Is that a universal feline instinct? George was moping with his head down on the floor. Animals know. 

Kevin and Siena weren’t returning until Tuesday so they arranged for another friend to take care of their pets after I left. As I wrote a note for her on the kitchen table, Steve hopped up and rubbed his head against my writing hand. I let him sit on my lap as he purred away. It was time to go to Oakland Airport and I summoned Uber. 

I sadly put Steve in the bathroom and then turned my attention to my moping George. As I sat on the kitchen floor to be at his level, he walked up to me and put his front paws on my shoulders, almost like a hug. Such a loving dog! He wasn’t making this easy. 

“Goodbye, Georgie,” I said with tears in my eyes as I gently patted his head. “I’ll be back. I promise!” After closing the front door, I waited at the porch for my Uber car. My heart was breaking as George whined and barked for me while he watched me though the front window. As my Uber car drove away from the house, I was crying softly. 

Animals are such a gift from God. I received so many blessings from this book tour but George and Steve made my stay in Danville especially fun and memorable. Thank you, Kevin and Siena, for letting me stay at your beautiful home and for sharing your beloved George and Steve with me. They touched my heart in an unexpected way and I am truly grateful.

“Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this Earth.” 

-Saint Francis of Assisi 

Bay Area Book Tour 2018: Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, CA

Thursday, September 13

On Thursday, I presented a lecture at the Jesuit School of Theology that is part of the consortium of ecumenical institutions of higher learning at the renowned Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California. It was the first week of the new school year. I had a handful of students, local pastoral musicians and, delightfully, members of a Catholic women book club who were eager to meet an author and discuss his book. 

If you’ve read From Mountains High then you know the historical significance of JST. 

The success of Neither Silver Nor Gold took the composers by surprise. With the blessing and support of their superiors, the five regrouped in Berkeley, California, during the summer of 1974 at Shalom House, the student residence of the Jesuit School of Theology. Tim had moved on from the Jesuits, but he wanted to come, and the others welcomed him with open arms. For the next five weeks, they would live together, pray together, and compose music. They did not have the goal of creating a new album. Their summer together was to be an extended retreat, a time to discern where the Holy Spirit was leading them. Neither Silver Nor Gold was a grace-filled confirmation that the gift of music was a seed that God had planted in them. Perhaps it was something they needed to pay attention to in a greater way… 

They bonded as seekers, as musicians, as brothers; and the Spirit blessed them with the inspiration to compose songs that would become an iconic part of the modern liturgical repertoire. 

-From Mountains High, page 58

So Shalom House was right across the street from the room where I was lecturing. I could see it from the window. After spending almost seven years of research, interviews and writing, to actually be at the hallowed ground where the St. Louis Jesuits composed “Be Not Afraid,” “Earthen Vessels,” “Sing to the Mountains,” and other iconic liturgical songs was nothing short of a thrill for me. 

I was still perfecting my Keynote software presentation and JST just unveiled its new media set-up for the school year. So we were a match made in heaven as assistant dean Paul Kircher and I scrambled to enable Bluetooth and wired connections between my laptop and their system. We eventually succeeded in getting everything working just ten minutes before our scheduled start! 

But the best connection might still be my acoustic guitar. Even with a smaller group, nothing matches the experience of singing those grand old songs and the memories they evoke. 

After the presentation, I enjoyed listening to personal stories from the folks who attended. Some of the women in that book club had great anecdotes of singing in folk choirs in the days of their youth. It’s this interaction with my public that makes book tours so rewarding. 

Grateful thanks to Paul Kircher, Assistant Dean of Students, and to Dr. Mary Beth Lamb for their gracious hospitality and warm welcome. 

Bay Area Book Tour 2018: Ken and Jesse at Holy Spirit Church, Fremont, CA

Wednesday, September 12

Tuesday was a day off for me. After a breakfast reunion in San Francisco with an old friend from Nashville who was visiting the Bay Area, I spent the afternoon at my favorite theological library in the country: GTU Library in Berkeley. I’m already doing research for my third and fourth books (!) and I happily got lost in the stacks, culling books and articles that will help ground the stories I want to tell. Can’t say much more on those projects yet, but more on GTU in the next blog. 

On Wednesday night I had a concert event with my buddy Jesse Manibusan at Holy Spirit Church in Fremont. Jesse is a true Catholic evangelist road warrior, bringing the Good News to parishes and communities all over the country and the world. But he rarely gigs at home in the Bay Area, so this was an opportunity for his local friends and large extended family to come and see him in action. They packed the church on a weeknight on the first week of school! 

A group of seminarians came from St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park and it was great to meet them. I also had a reunion with Amanda, a friend from St. Monica Parish who remembered me from when she was a child. She is now involved in music ministry herself. God is good! 

I have been performing with Jesse on and off since the 1990s, when we lived right down the street from each other in Alameda, California. We used to have a liturgy band that traveled to various Catholic high schools a couple of times a month to lead the students in their monthly school Mass. That was fun! We also did various youth ministry events for the Diocese of Oakland, but we really didn’t compose music together until he moved to Texas and I moved to Portland, oddly enough. After OCP released our Love Never Fails album in 2003, it seems like we spent a significant portion of that year sharing songs like “Fly Like a Bird” and “MC God” all over the country. 

It has been a delightful pleasure to collaborate with Jesse and watch him in action at events large and small. He has this unique way of engaging audiences across all generations but especially with young people as he calls them into deeper relationship with Jesus Christ through laughter, music and personal witness. Powerful! 

At Fremont, Jesse and I did our Fish With Me  concert set from when we toured together last year in support of our new album of the same name. For tonight’s show, he invited me to share a bit of my From Mountains High book presentation, and the crowd had a good time singing the songs of Ray Repp and the St. Louis Jesuits. Jesse’s cousin Rich filled out our sound with his skillful percussion. 

All in all, our Holy Spirit concert was indeed Spirit-filled. It’s always great to do music ministry with my brother Jesse, and I truly enjoyed meeting his relatives and circle of friends. Afterward, a group of us went out for sushi – of course! 

Bay Area Book Tour 2018: George the Dog and Steve the Cat

After an exhausting but fulfilling Sunday of presenting my books and meeting the public, I went back to Kevin and Siena’s house in Danville to fix dinner and chill out a bit. George was waiting for me with a paper bag in his mouth, part of a game we play. I’m required to lock Steve in the bathroom when I’m gone so he won’t get into trouble, and as soon as I opened the door he zoomed out and looked for his doggy buddy.

I decided to make a simple sandwich for dinner and George watched me with interest in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Steve was prancing on the dining table and counters, something he is not supposed to do. At one point, he jumped into the sink! Luckily, there were no dishes in it. Steve is eternally happy and playful; George just wants my attention, and now he had a ball in his mouth so we could play catch later. 

I have known George since he was a puppy, and he always remembers me, no matter how long it has been since my last visit. This was my first encounter with Steve. He was hesitant at first but we became quick pals. He started following me around the house, sitting in my lap when I’m at the computer desk or watching TV. By the third morning, Steve greeted me in the hallway by jumping up my pant leg and clawing his way into my arms. Awwww. 

I have never seen a dog and a cat get along as affectionately as these two. One evening, as Steve was sitting on my lap, George came over to rest his head on my leg so he could give his friend a friendly lick. In return, Steve placed a gentle paw on George’s snout. It was amazing and touching to see this interspecies bromance. 

George and Steve are quite a handful, and I could see why their humans need someone to stay with them. Many times I had to break up their playful wrestling matches because George is so much bigger, although I’m sure he would never intentionally hurt his friend. As the week continued and I sold more books, the empty boxes became the boys’ playground, in the same way that little kids like to play “fort” with chairs and sofa pillows. Steve loved jumping from box to box, even as George grabbed brown shipping paper in his mouth to run across the house with it. Of course, Steve got excited by this and chased after his buddy. By the end of my stay, I had quite a mess of shredded shipping paper to clean up! 

More to come . . . 

Bay Area Book Tour 2018: Church of the Resurrection, Sunnyvale, CA

Sunday, September 9 

Sunday night I drove down to the Diocese of San Jose to present a book signing concert at Church of the Resurrection in Sunnyvale. Music Director Amy Stacke, a longtime Facebook friend, hosted the event which was fairly well attended. The original plan was for the parish choir to sing with me in the sanctuary, but we decided it would be more effective for them to sing in the pews and help foster a better sense of assembly singing with those in attendance.

People seemed regaled by my stories of the composers and their times, and they enjoyed singing the grand old songs of the 1970s and 80s. Book sales were brisk; some people were already shopping for Christmas! The pastor, Father Phong Nguyen, bought 20 copies of From Mountains High on the spot to give as “welcome” gifts to the newcomers of the parish! 

Thank you, Amy and Fr. Nguyen, for your warm hospitality. It was a fun and memorable evening. 

Here are some photos from the event. Please note the beagle in the bottom right corner of the sanctuary’s stained-glass window. It’s the beloved dog of a previous pastor. Sweet!