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Silent as Light
Our new Holy Father, Benedict XVI, has asked us to cultivate our "interior wonder" about Christmas. The Holy Father's injunction came to mind the other day as I was listening to my latest CD acquisition, Hymns of Grace, sung by the choir of men and boys at San Francisco's Episcopal Cathedral.
It's a treasure in its entirety, but one hymn in particular caught my attention as good for the creation of interior wonder--it's the old hymn that begins "Immortal, invisible, God only wise" (you can listen to it here on the Oremus hymnal). Here are the first two verses:
"Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
in light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
almighty, victorious, thy great Name we praise.
"Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
thy justice like mountains high soaring above
thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love."
It was composed by Walter Chambers Smith (1824-1908), a pastor of the Free Church of Scotland. "Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light"--that is not the way we tend to think of God today. It is more majestic than God Our Buddy. The Ancient of Days--the very appellation inspires awe.
Christmas, one might think, evokes just the opposite sort of reflection on God, the God who became one of us. But we cannot begin to grasp the magnitude of God's choice to do this unless we know that it was a deity unresting, unhasting and silent as light, who chose to be born in a stable. I think we often fail to be impressed by God's majesty, though His handiwork is all around us.
As readers of this blog may have guessed, I love hymns. There are some wonderful CDs available to help us cultivate interior wonder. The Prayer Book Society offers a recording of the Anglican Communion, the 1928 Prayer Book, by the Choir of St Thomas' Church, Houston and Chorus Angelorum. It has the crispness and clarity of a bell. The Benedictine monastery of Solemnes in France preserved the Gregorian chant; there are few more wonder-producing forms of music than this chant. I do not yet own any Solemnes CDs, but I know that Barnes & Noble has a CD of Christmas chants from other monasteries and choirs in Europe. I am not very good at praying, but I take solace from St. Augustine, who said, "He who sings prays twice." I hope it doesn't matter if you're tone deaf, as I am, as long as you give yourself over to wonder.
It's a treasure in its entirety, but one hymn in particular caught my attention as good for the creation of interior wonder--it's the old hymn that begins "Immortal, invisible, God only wise" (you can listen to it here on the Oremus hymnal). Here are the first two verses:
"Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
in light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
almighty, victorious, thy great Name we praise.
"Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
thy justice like mountains high soaring above
thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love."
It was composed by Walter Chambers Smith (1824-1908), a pastor of the Free Church of Scotland. "Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light"--that is not the way we tend to think of God today. It is more majestic than God Our Buddy. The Ancient of Days--the very appellation inspires awe.
Christmas, one might think, evokes just the opposite sort of reflection on God, the God who became one of us. But we cannot begin to grasp the magnitude of God's choice to do this unless we know that it was a deity unresting, unhasting and silent as light, who chose to be born in a stable. I think we often fail to be impressed by God's majesty, though His handiwork is all around us.
As readers of this blog may have guessed, I love hymns. There are some wonderful CDs available to help us cultivate interior wonder. The Prayer Book Society offers a recording of the Anglican Communion, the 1928 Prayer Book, by the Choir of St Thomas' Church, Houston and Chorus Angelorum. It has the crispness and clarity of a bell. The Benedictine monastery of Solemnes in France preserved the Gregorian chant; there are few more wonder-producing forms of music than this chant. I do not yet own any Solemnes CDs, but I know that Barnes & Noble has a CD of Christmas chants from other monasteries and choirs in Europe. I am not very good at praying, but I take solace from St. Augustine, who said, "He who sings prays twice." I hope it doesn't matter if you're tone deaf, as I am, as long as you give yourself over to wonder.
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