If you read yesterday’s post you might be wondering how my music class last night with the seminarians went. I think it went ok and they coped well with the “what do you remember from last class” test that I began the session with. Then they did especially well learning to sing “with one voice” as is a mark of good liturgical music.

I also played them the opening of Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei from yesterday’s post followed by a twenty minute appreciation of classical music clip that you can watch or listen to at this link. The clip was recommended to me yesterday by a FFF reader who suggested that I drop everything and watch immediately which I did and was grateful that I had taken the time.

All this good music expresses the life that is deep in the human soul. Such quality music is both a self expression and a communication of the divine at the same time. – a two-way flow of heart-felt conversation.  This is why the healthy person is moved by beautiful music; it resonates with what is deepest and cannot be satisfactorily communicated in words or gestures alone.

In the midst of good and evil, ups and downs, and through the routines and demands of life we need to be able to express ourselves and to know that we are heard. In every culture good music serves this higher and deeper purpose.

The people listening to the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading knew their sin and were being challenged by the prophet: “Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow.”

All of that’s a big ask when we already have so much else demanding our time and energy. We have problems at work, financial worries, uncertainty about the future and tension in our families. The daily stresses of human existence haven’t changed that much since Isaiah.

And then, right in the midst of this complex life the Lord issues the wonderful invitation to Isaiah:

“Come now, let us talk this over,
says the Lord.”

An Invitation:

• Take a moment to become aware of all the stuff that is a part of your life this week. Now hear Jesus speak to you and respond to him in free-flowing and heart-felt honest conversation: “Come now, let us talk this over, says the Lord.”