16th 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.
Dear Father,
ReplyDeleteAs always, you have summarized and taught. The image is tight and perfect--but we need to listen. Then we really have a "musical rest". With love,
Don