Spiritual Music

When I was little (six or seven maybe), the architecture and enormous structure of St. Peter’s Church held me in permanent awe. That awe included a kind of fear it generated, as if you were in the presence of a giant. Its interiors were even more awe inspiring, with its grand tall stained glass windows and mezzanine floor. With its very high ceiling, tall doors, and sombre silence, this church made you humble.

As a little boy, my curiosity knew no bounds. After all I was going to spent a major portion of my life here, so I might as well get to know the ground. When I left at 18, believe me, I knew the ground better than most. One day I wandered into the mezzanine floor of the church and looked to my right. I saw a small door open where a door shouldn’t be. The door led into the grand organ. I went to the door and peeped inside and saw many pipes, large and small. These were the intestines of the organ. I walked inside and saw two men working on the intestines or some mechanism. There were as surprised to see me as I them. Of course I hurried away scarred of of my wits. In my child’s mind those two guys could have been the elves that work for Santa. Then I thought I understood how that organ produces that heavenly music; a music so spiritual and so magical that it transports you to another dimension.

Now I am a bathing room Pavarotti, but I did always want to be part of that fabulous choir that sang to the accompaniment of the grand organ. I’ve heard the music Bruckner played on the organ in the very church in Austria and have heard mass in the DOM in Koln, but the choir in St. Stanislaus’s St. Peter’s Church had the power to make me cry when Jesus was being crucified on Good Friday mass.

Have we lost it? That fervor that made the choir sing as one angelic voice that could evoke such spiritual emotion; is it lost? Is the organ still there?