Beauty

The 2010 European Tour Indiana Wesleyan University Chorale before Bernini’s altar in St. Peter’s after having sung for Mass.

Currently, the Indiana Wesleyan University Chorale is a few days into their European Choral Tour.  As a member of the Chorale (said “in the present” because “once in Chorale, always in Chorale…”), I think back on my time standing on those risers (and, on occasion, the podium, as assistant conductor for two years), and I recall the immense privilege it was to be a part of such a great ministry.

I had the great opportunity to travel with the Chorale to Europe twice, once to Germany and Austria, and then Italy and Vatican City.  I will never forget singing for Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.  What glory.  As the priest elevated the Host during consecration, a huge peal of thunder rocked the church. As our tour guide, John, joked afterwards, “Now that’s transubstantiation for you.”

As the Chorale is currently touring the Parisian countryside to begin their tour of France and England, I am reminded of my very first choral tour of Europe.  It wasn’t with the Chorale, but with the Sound of America Band and Chorus.  After graduating high school, I was accepted to the chorus of this honors group and experienced a twenty-day tour of some of the greatest cities in Europe:  Munich, Salzburg, Paris, Venice, and so many more.

At the time I was Protestant and had never been inside a church built in a historical architectural style.  When I stepped inside my first, St. Jakob’s in the medieval walled town Rothenburg ob der Tauber, I was mesmerized.  I had never been in such a beautiful building. I was captivated by soaring rib-vaulted Gothic ceilings, the exquisite stained glass windows, and the masterpiece that is the Holy Blood Altar, which houses a thirteenth-century crystal cross which serves as a reliquary for what is said to be a drop of the Precious Blood of Christ.  It was the first time I had ever seen an ornate ambo, particularly one elevated, and I remember saying to myself, “Now THAT is how the Word of God should be proclaimed!”

The churches I experienced through the tour seemed to get better and better.  What I didn’t realize was that St. Jakob’s, while beautiful, was actually rather simple and reserved.  Here is a view of the sanctuary from the nave of the Salzburg Cathedral.  Or how about the small country church of the village of Abtenau?  I got to see the rose windows of Notre Dame and Cathedral of Strasbourg, and take in the beauty of Saint-Sulpice.

All of these churches were impressive, but nothing could prepare me for what I would experience in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.  I will not provide a picture primarily because photography is not generally allowed within, except for very brief periods, in an attempt to preserve the worshipful, sacred nature of the space; I also will not do so because pictures simply cannot do it justice.  [I won’t tell anyone if you…happen….to google “St. Mark’s Basilica interior.”]

On my second trip to Venice (this one with Chorale four years later), we were sitting off to the side before the Mass we were to sing for.  We had the immense blessing of sitting for nearly half an hour in the silence.  Silence…is beautiful.  When was the last time you experienced silence?  It’s been a while, I would guess.

About fifteen minutes before Mass, a voice, from somewhere behind the altar, hidden, began chanting.  Ethereal, soaring, more Byzantine than Gregorian, evocative of the “ancient,” and the unknowable.  It seemed to me to be mystery made incarnate.  Other voices joined in antiphon, a call and response, the voices filling the immense space, resounding in the five grand domes that adorn the holy shrine.

This is beauty. This is a way we can know God.  How is it possible to experience that and not understand there is some great mystery just beyond this veil of humanity Who has revealed Himself in transcendental ways:  truth, beauty, and goodness?  [That is certainly rhetorical, because I myself have gone through a period where no amount of “proof” or “evidence” could cause me an intellectual assent to the existence of God.]

It was this encounter with beauty that began in me my conversion of faith.  I experienced God in such a powerful way during the summer of 2006.  I experienced Him in beauty.  I was well-travelled, and had seen Acadia National Park, and Yellowstone, I had spent a week on Cape Cod during a summer, I grew up often visiting the impressive Stone Mountain in Georgia, had spent time at Sanibel and Captiva , and I had walked the beaches of Mexico.  I lived in one of the most beautiful states in the Union and had experienced the splendor of Pure Michigan [laugh all you’d like, have you seen the Sleeping Bear Dunes? How about the Straits of Mackinac? Hiked the Tahquamenon Falls?].

I had experienced the beauty of God’s creation, but I had never really experienced beauty dedicated to God by the work of human hands.  “This,” I said to myself, “is a sign of truth.  This must be evidence of the true Church.”  I had been taught in my Reformed tradition the Belgic Confession, which states in Article Twenty-Nine:

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church– and no one ought to be separated from it.

I agreed with all of these things, but I felt there was, needed to be, more.  I had already begun to understand that if Christianity is incarnational, if the Word had been made incarnate taking on human flesh, shouldn’t all creation, everything we do, be brought into the realm of “the Church”?  Marks of the Church shouldn’t be only ecclesial practices.  The sacred must extend beyond.  The fides (faith) of man must be wedded to the ratio (reason) of man.  I felt I was lacking that marriage in my faith tradition.

This encounter of beauty is what set me up for seeking more in my faith, wanting to find something deeper.  Experiencing the rich tradition of beauty in Europe helped point me to a great truth of God, His beauty, in a way I had never known before.

If anyone in the Chorale is reading this, open yourself up to beauty.  Experience the majesty of the work of Christians from centuries past.  Worship in the spaces hallowed by Christian devotion and prayer, in some places for over a millenia.  See beauty, see God.  And, as Prof always says, take those “mental snapshots.”  You never do forget them.