Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) noted that “it belongs to the essence of human beings that they come from God’s ‘art,’ that they themselves are a part of God’s art and as perceivers can think and view God’s creative ideas with him and translate them into the visible and the audible.”1 From the Early Church through the High Middle Ages and on to the present, the Catholic theological understanding of God and art has robustly developed and I have taken a keen interest in the interrelatedness of my own line of work - as a classical and studio musician - and the work of God - holiness.
Hence, I have gradually compiled a list of Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God who were musically gifted. In my research, I have identified at least 88 saints, blesseds, and venerables who were gifted with the knowledge and skills of music of which they often contributed to the Church’s liturgy and work of evangelization, 42 of whom lived from the time of the Early Church to the High Middle Ages. This includes instrumentalists, singers, composers, hymnographers, music teachers, choir directors, and more. The topics of saints and music are mutually complementary, in that they each reveal “the beauty that is already waiting and concealed in creation”.2 I treasure how the form of created beauty takes its shape or matter in the lives of those who correspond to God’s diffusive love through their gifts to our rich heritage of music. As a professional musician myself, I had a keen and personal interest in expounding the Church’s teaching on sacred art. I have had the opportunity to contribute my talents to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - the foretaste of heaven - as well as appreciate the fine talents of other musicians who allow their ego to be swept up into the great symphony of God’s beauty, subsumed into the undying truth revealed through creation. My interest in hagiography was also a contributing factor to my interest in this essay which, I pray, might have a lasting influence in my own personal sanctification through the communion of saints.
The value of the Church’s musical tradition is considered “greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this preeminence is that, as a combination of sacred music and words, it forms a necessary or integral part of solemn liturgy.”3 This incredible tradition came through the work of many sainted persons who, opening themselves up to cooperate with God’s grace, made visible the uncreated, transcendent qualities which point man toward God in a hidden communication of souls. Because God is Truth, the source of all truth, and calls mankind to be sanctified in the truth (John 17:17 RSVCE), everyone is drawn toward the truth and “bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth.”4 The philosopher, Hans Urs von Balthasar, states that beauty is the criterion of truth 5 and it is certainly true that beauty cannot be detached from our appreciation of a vast mountain range, a waltz by Strauss, or the face of a beloved because they all participate as created things in the universal Form of infinite Beauty or First Cause. Appreciating beauty in created reality is recognizing the signature of God, the Artist, written across His creation. Aquinas defines beauty as “things which, when seen, please.”6 When we contemplate the saints, we are contemplating the truth and beauty that they exemplify, radiating the truth and goodness of God in their lives and their works. This is expressed in many forms, one of which is art, where the saints freely and generously cooperate with God, the giver of artistic skill and knowledge. God’s beauty in his work of creation is reflected distinctively in the greatest divine art form, the saint, who leads other souls back to God, the source of perfect beauty and truth.
Music, Beauty, & Worship
As the saints of each age of the Church give witness to the truth of the Gospel not only in how they live but also in the various means they transmit the faith, they are freely responding to God’s initiative, as beauty always elicits a response or acknowledgment of that which is perceived. Because truth is beautiful and because the intellect of man needs to comprehend the truth in its various forms of expression, music is and has been of inestimable value for the evocation of what is beyond words, raising man’s mind and heart to God in worship and adoration. The order and harmony of all great music in general, and sacred music in particular, echoes the order and harmony of Creation given by the Artist of all true beauty. In the hearts of many saints and musicians is awakened a desire to express divine truth in various tangible forms and many musician saints gave truth a form in music, inspired by and ordered to the love and contemplation of beauty. Indeed, as Beauty is an aspect of God, the contemplative aspect of our faith is aided by sacred music which, addressed to God, brings delight to the heart of man in tune with truth. St. Thomas Aquinas, in answering the question, “Whether God should be praised with song?”, replies that, as the soul can be moved by music, then it is true that God should be praised in song. 7 An additional treasure contained within true sacred music is its ability to fully evoke man’s glorification of the beauty, truth, and love of God made visible in the Incarnation of Christ. This is a beautiful link between God and man: the Incarnation of God - which makes visible Him Who is perfect truth and beauty - is the model by which so many from the earliest times of the Church have striven to make transcendent truth and beauty visible in the words and sounds of sacred music. Because sacred music is a physical symbol of uncreated reality, the truth and beauty of our faith is portrayed in a personal manner “because Christian truth is personal and heaven is made up of persons in relationship”8 with God. The many saints who were musically gifted in the first ages of the Church created music which was informed by and transmitted the truths of our faith.
Early Church Musicians
To highlight some of the great musician saints who contributed to the early work of evangelization through this sacred art, I present St. Caedmon, a 7th century composer and singer, whose divinely inspired contributions to sacred music is recorded by St. Bede in the monumental work, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. His vocation began as a layman in the humble work of animal husbandry for the double monastery/abbey of Whitby, North Yorkshire, England. A simple man and unlearned, he was of advanced age when he was miraculously gifted with the ability to play the harp and compose hymns in verse for the praise of God. The following day St. Caedmon recounted the divine encounter to the monks and nuns of Whitby and, upon hearing him sing and play the harp,
“concluded that heavenly grace had been conferred upon him by Our Lord. They explained to him a passage in Holy Writ, ordering him, if he could, to put the same into verse. Having undertaken it, he went away and, returning the next morning, gave it to them, composed in the most excellent verse. Whereupon the Abbess, understanding the Divine grace in the man, instructed him to quit the secular habit and take upon him the monastic life.”9
Throughout the remainder of his life, St. Caedmon would contemplate the message of man’s creation and redemption which he then would put into the form of hymns and songs which were of particular value to simple countryfolk who more easily understood and remembered the messages of these songs than the eloquent homilies they heard. It is thus that St. Caedmon is the first Anglo-Saxon poet whose name, history, and literary examples have survived to the present.
Another saint and musician is the 6th century Italian, St. Venantius Fortunatus, famed for composing some of the greatest works of hymnody in the Church’s treasury. “Vexilla Regis prodeunt”, “Pange lingua gloriosi”, “Salve festa dies”, and “O Gloriosa domina (virginum)” are just some his prolific works which have survived the ages, although his larger volume, Hymns for all the Festivals of the Christian Year, was unfortunately not preserved.10
Drawing attention to the work, “O Gloriosa domino (virginum)”, - the second half of a larger work entitled “Quem terra, pontus, aethera” - we find a delightfully medieval work of Latin in praise of Our Lady which was selected as part of the breviary hymnody.11 As the strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary took roots in the medieval era, St. Fortunatus contributed to the theological imagery of Our Lady’s title, Porta caeli, gate of heaven.12
Conclusion
My own devotion to Our Lady, though it began in my adulthood as a convert to Catholicism, took root not only in my devotional life but also in my musical contributions to the Sacred Liturgy - Ave Maria by Bach/Gounod and by Schubert, so beloved - and an original instrumental composition of my own with the title drawn from St. Fortunatus,“O Gloriosa”. I treasure how the form of created beauty takes shape in the lives of those who correspond to God’s diffusive love through their gifts to our rich heritage of music. May we echo the cry to God of St. Augustine:
“How I wept, deeply moved by your hymns, songs, and the voices that echoed through your Church! What emotion I experienced in them! Those sounds flowed into my ears, distilling the truth in my heart. A feeling of devotion surged within me, and tears streamed down my face—tears that did me good.”13
1 Joseph Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord: Faith in Christ and Liturgy Today, tr. Martha M. Matesich, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996, p. 106.↩
2 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord (Crossroads Publishing, 1996), 103.↩
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