Weekly HOMILY for July 22, 2012: 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B -- The Musical Rest

16^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

July 22, 2012 / 9:00 and 11:00am

St. Francis De Sales Parish, Abingdon

The Musical Rest

(Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

The Musical Rest

Most of us probably know that in music, we have what is called a rest.

The rest is simply a slight pause, a space, a silence between the sounds.  For example, Debbie, would you please illustrate this by playing a few notes from the hymn Holy God, we Praise Thy Name – first with the rest, and then without the rest.

I think we can easily hear the difference.  In itself, the rest is nothing, but in relationship to the other notes, it is crucial.

The rest provides a moment to get your breath, to reflect, or to highlight.  It makes the music a beautiful composition instead of just a series of notes.

The Prayerful Rest

In today’s gospel, Jesus invites the apostles to “come to an out-of-the-way place and rest a while.”

He invites them to a rest, a pause, a space, a silence from their busyness.  He does this because he knows that a prayerful rest, first of all, helps us to appreciate and place in perspective what we have been doing.

And second, a prayerful rest prepares us to say and do what comes next in our lives.  In other words, life and prayer can be just a series of words and actions without this rest.

The prayerful rest brings wholeness and a certain beauty to our life and our prayer. 

It does much the same as the musical rest does for a piece of music.

The Rests in Mass

There are times for such a prayerful rest right within our celebration of Mass.

For example, right at the (1) beginning of Mass, the priest asks us to recall our human need for healing, in other words, our sinfulness.  As soon as the priest invites us to do this, there is a rest.

And we have a moment, a few seconds, of silence.  This brief space puts us in touch with our need for forgiveness. The words asking for God’s forgiveness or mercy can only make sense after this rest.

Then, after we sing the Glory to God, the priest says, (2) “Let us pray.”  And again, there is a pause, a rest.

In this rest, we silently open our minds and our hearts to God and express our intention to have God come to us here in the Mass.  This prepares us for the prayer with which the priest lead concludes that silence. It’s called the Collect because it collects together the silent prayers that we have all just offered.

(3) After the homily, there is another pause or space or rest.  By this time, we have listened to three passages from Scripture and to the homily on them by the priest or deacon.

Here we pause and let the words sink into our minds and then into our hearts a bit or to ask what idea or cluster of words speak to me? The Profession of Faith, which follows, feels right and makes sense if we have first had these seconds of rest.

During the Eucharistic Prayer, there are actually two rests.  (4) After the priest pronounces the words of consecration first of the bread and then of the wine, there is a pause, a silence as the bread and then the wine are shown us.

Here the rest awakens us to what is happening, something beyond words.  It enables us to realize that we are actually repeating what Jesus did at the Last Supper.

And finally, there is a rest (5) after we receive Communion, usually after all have received and the hymn is completed.  This silence makes us aware that we have received the Lord Jesus himself, that we have actually consumed his body and blood under the forms of bread and wine. 

This pause is to sing into God’s presence within us at that moment.  It also helps us to live with that awareness as we leave church and go about our everyday lives.

Conclusion

So, much like a musical rest, in a glorious piece of music, the rests in our celebration of the Eucharist makes this masterpiece more than just a series of words, either our speaking to God or God speaking to us.

The rest helps us to experience and revel in what is being proclaimed or what is about to be proclaimed.

It makes our prayer a direct experience of union with God.