Light of Christ – Deo Gratias: A Bodily Experience

The colossal and worthy Paschal Candle snaked its way through Boston’s Belvedere Street and began to climb up the church stairs to the front door of the church. I riveted my attention on its solitary light and entered the pitch blackness of the interior church with the moving assembly. A voice sang out, “Lumen Christi. Light of Christ.” We sang our response:  “Deo gratias. Thanks be to God.”  I felt bodies breathing beside me. Suddenly, at the end of our first dialogue, the processing choir echoed an acappella four-part affirmation of our exhortation, beginning in the bass section. [i] Because of my rapt attention on the rich symbols at my disposal, I lost my way out of the assembly and somehow ended up in the men’s section of the choir. Staying on the proverbial road less taken, I allowed my swelling heart to merge with the emergent voices surrounding me through this expertly arranged and prayerfully sung processional, magnifying the pronouncement of Christ as Light of the world. As the church illuminated with our growing candlelight, Richard Clark’s processional music soared in a circling succession of musical keys, continuing to resonate a fuller and more robust response with each dialogue and choral embellishment throughout this triptych of symbolic human sound.

As I made my way into a pew, my eyes fell upon my daughter Martha standing near the Paschal candle and flanked by two candle bearers as she prepared to sing the Easter Proclamation in the presence of our beloved elect and the entire Christian assembly. Enveloped in gratitude, I thanked God for what I believe was a foretaste of the Reign of God.

Throughout the fifty days of Easter, how might we weave Christian mystagogy culled from the experience of the Vigil with your music ministers to prayerfully examine their experience of the symbols of Easter? Liturgy requires our ‘full, conscious, and active participation”[ii] as a Christian right and duty as the “priestly people of God”[iii]. We cannot achieve that mandate without implementing mystagogy before, during and after public worship, both internally and externally. This particular form of ancient theological reflective practice must find a way into the practice of ecclesial leaders on every level. I say this particularly to musicians who rehearse and implement sacred music but often times do not theologically reflect on its spiritual impact as a symbol of God. The Spirit wants to change us in unimagined ways; be ready.

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[i] Lumen Christi: Music for the Paschal Candle Procession. Music by Richard J. Clark. Text from the Sacramentary. CaticaNOVA Publications, PO Box 1388, Charles Town WV. www.canticanova.com

[ii] Sacrosanctum Concilium 14

[iii] 1Pt 2:9