Welcome, friends! I’m so glad you’re here to read the first ever edition of Transcendental Threads. It’s been an absolute joy to bring this newsletter to life, and I’m so glad I get to share it with you.
Before you dive in, here’s a quick summary of what you’ll find in this edition:
The name Mozart might make you feel excited, yawn-inducing-bored, or just plain old indifferent, depending on your feelings about classical music; but if you’ve never heard his Laudate Dominum, you are in for a beautiful treat.
Does reading church history make your head spin? Are you confused on whether or not Catholics pray to saints, ask saints for prayers, or if there’s a difference between the two? Q&A section goes into these & more in great depth.
Letting go of grudges is hard. And frankly, for many of us, refraining from wishing misfortune or mishaps upon those who’ve wronged us can be really difficult. But a verse from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans recently stuck out to me about this.
At the end of this newsletter, I’ve included a short list of resources to dive deeper into some of these topics. Unless otherwise stated, I have no affiliates with any links or resources shared. I’ve found them helpful & want to share them with you!
Without further ado – let’s get started, shall we?
Beauty
Mozart’s Laudate Dominum: An Audial Glimpse of Heaven
W.A. Mozart wrote his Vesperae solennes de confessore when he was twenty-four years old as the last work he composed for the Salzburg Cathedral. The Vespers were originally written for liturgical use, but they’re mostly used in concert settings now because nobody really has the resources to put together a choir and orchestra for Vespers on an unknown feast day. And when I say unknown, I mean seriously unknown, as the details of what saint’s feast day these Vespers were written for have been lost to history.
My first introduction to Mozart’s Vespers was actually in high school, when my high school choir director programmed them for the advanced choir I was part of. Looking back on it now, I do question if that was the best decision on his part, as the Vespers are pretty difficult for the performers, and my classically-trained vocalist friends tell me that it’s better for the voice to be more developed before taking on this work. But it was truly a blessing to be introduced to this beautiful work, and I’m grateful he programmed it when all’s said and done.
The Vespers are written for full choir with orchestra. Most of its six movements, or sections have the choir on full blast, to put it in colloquial terms, with some orchestral breaks. However, the fifth movement – Laudate Dominum – breaks a bit from this, featuring a solo soprano in the beginning and bringing the choir in later on.
If you were to ask me to sum Laudate Dominum up in one descriptive word, “ethereal” would be my word of choice. The movement is gentle and reverent, yet gives a sense of grandeur in a manner reminiscent of the domes of Baroque cathedrals, or Renaissance madonnas. The soprano soloist soars over the orchestra, and later on, over the choir, too. I truly feel this is an audial glimpse of Heaven, so to speak – but you’ll have to listen to it yourself to decide for yourself!
The recording below is of soprano Mary-Ellen Nesi with the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra. Take five minutes and listen with your eyes closed. This piece is genuinely refreshing for the soul.
Truth
Q&As: Learning Church history, intercessory prayer, and more
Q. Favorite way to learn Church history? Sorting through church documents is confusing.
A. I could not agree more. I’m not a naturally organized person, so trying to sort through church documents has never, and likely will never be the way to go for me. Unless I have a sudden desire to sort through church documents and spend about two and a half weeks buried in them until the desire’s passed.
Thankfully, there are a few good books on Church history out there. Most of them are… academic, shall we say. Which isn’t bad at all, but those doesn’t make for the most enjoyable read.
However, there is one book I discovered about a year and a half ago that’s become one of my all time favorite reads. Catholic historian Steve Weidenkopf’s Timeless: A History of the Catholic Church is an absolute treasure. It covers the entire span of Church history in just 573 pages (which is a pretty incredible feat, considering that’s almost 2,000 years worth of history). It’s written in a style that reads more like a well-told story, making for an enjoyable read.
You can find the book on Amazon, or support a Catholic business by purchasing it here.
Q. Do Catholics pray to the saints?
A. Yes and no.
Do we pray to the saints in the same way we pray to God? Heck. No. Absolutely not. There is zero worship involved with the relationship we have with the saints, whereas there most definitely is plenty of worship involved with the relationship we (ought to) have with God.
Do we pray to the saints using the definition of prayer that defines it as a petition? Oh yeah, definitely. That we do.
To get into technical terms, this is called intercessory prayer. We petition the saints in Heaven to pray for us, in the same way we might ask our family and friends for prayers. In both cases, it’s crucially important to recognize that asking for prayers does not replace our ability to go directly to God in prayer. Intercessory prayer is a tangible witness to the parts of the Body of Christ working together.
The saints in Heaven are very much a part of Christ’s Body as we are here on earth. It would be rather silly to say all those in Heaven have been excluded from the Body because they’re no longer on earth, wouldn’t it? After all, Sacred Scripture tells us that those in Heaven are alive in Christ – and more alive than we are on earth! Petitioning the saints to pray for us is a way of recognizing and participating in the Body of Christ in its fullness.
And, as the apostle St. James tells us in his epistle, “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” (James 5:16) Once again, we know from Scripture that only the righteous may enter Heaven and experience total union with God. The prayers of the saints have great power, because the saints are truly righteous in the eyes of God, having been perfected by Him through His grace.
So, to recap:
We don’t worship the saints through our prayers.
We pray to the saints in the sense of petitioning them to pray for us.
Whether it’s asking people on earth or the saints in Heaven to pray for us, intercessory prayer is a tangible witness to the Body of Christ in its fullness.
The saints are righteous, having been perfected by God, and the prayers of the righteous are powerful.
Q. How does one defend the teaching about homosexuality? I find it particularly hard.
A. St. Francis de Sales once wrote, “Cook the truth in charity until it tastes sweet.” He’s onto something here. Jesus tells us that He is the truth, and we know from 1 John that God is love. Truth without love is just facts, not the Truth that God is.
So – how does that play out with difficult teachings of the Catholic faith?
I think the first place to start is to understand clearly what’s not being taught. The Catholic Church doesn’t hate people who identify as LGBTQ+. The Catholic Church doesn’t point a finger at anyone with same-sex attraction and say they’re automatically going to hell.
Another thing that’s important to recognize is that every desire, in its deepest core, contains in it a fragment of what our hearts truly desire: God. However, desires are easily disordered because of original sin, pointing us away from God and toward literally anything else. Not a single one of us can escape disordered desire. This is fundamentally important to understand. My disordered desires may look different from your disordered desires, but what ties them together is that both have a disordered quality. They’re pointing us away from God in some way.
But even there – having disordered desires isn’t sinful. Acting on them carries varying degrees of sin, depending on what the desire is. Acting on my desire to eat seconds at Thanksgiving dinner even though I’m absolutely stuffed carries a lesser degree of sinfulness than if I were to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage. Now, if my fiancé and I acted on our desires for physical intimacy while we’re engaged instead of waiting to act on them within sacramental marriage, that would be a mortal sin. The same goes for someone experiencing same-sex attraction acting on their desire for physical intimacy with someone of the same sex. Sexual activity outside of marriage is what’s condemned, not the desire for sexual activity. Both desires point to a deep longing for total intimacy with God, which is what we were made for.
Say you’re having a conversation with someone who disagrees with you on the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. If you gently point all this out, you’ll probably find that where the disagreement really lies is in what defines marriage. The Catholic Church defines marriage as being between a man and a woman who are capable of having sexual intercourse, because the potential to bring forth children is intrinsic to marriage. Not whether or not you are actually able to have children, but the potential. That’s why marriage between people of the same sex isn’t allowed, because those unions can never, through natural means, result in a child.
Marriage is also recognized as a gift, not a right. Yes, we have the right to choose marriage because we have the gift of free will, but it’s a calling from God. We can’t demand this calling from God as a right we’re entitled to. We can’t demand anything from God as a right! All good things we receive from Him are gifts, and gifts cannot be freely given if they are demanded. Our society, on the other hand, recognizes that we have free will and thus have the right to choose whether or not to marry, but it doesn’t contain within itself anything further about it being a calling from God, etc. That’s why our society’s definition of marriage and the Catholic Church’s definition of marriage are at odds.
With all that being said, I think the real reason this is a thorny topic for people to discuss is because of how deeply personal it is. And, to circle back to the quote from St. Francis de Sales that I shared at the beginning, this is why it’s so important to be loving in all discussions on this topic.
There’s so much more that could be said about this topic, but I hope this is helpful. I’ve included a link to an authentically Catholic ministry for those who identify as LGBTQ+ in the resource section, and their approach is probably the most beautiful I’ve seen.
Goodness
Romans 12:19 & things that do not help with letting go
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” – Romans 12:19
In all honesty, I’m not sure why I’m writing about this verse. I don’t feel like I can expound on it the way I would like to: thoroughly. But the Lord brought it to my attention, and I keep bringing it to Him, and the answer is the same – “write about this.” It’s not a complete reflection, and I have more thoughts on this that aren’t fleshed out yet. But I’m going to offer you what’s come to my heart.
I’ve never been good at letting go of grudges. Forgiveness is not something that comes naturally to me. For years I’ve brought this with me into the confessional – and the grace from this sacrament is the only reason I’ve made any progress on it. It’s gotten significantly better over these years, to the point where there were several months where I thought, “Maybe I’ve finally overcome this. Maybe forgiveness is easy now!”
But in recent months, my struggle with this has come back with a viciousness. I experienced the loss of a friendship in an ugly way this year, and the fallout has included a white-hot anger toward this person that I’ve never really experienced before. The anger isn’t entirely unrighteous; prayer and speaking with those wiser than I am have showed me this anger is *mostly* warranted, understandable, and reasonable. But it began to spin out of control, and frankly, I’ve had to hold myself back a few too many times from sending a harsh text or voice note, or calling this person up to dole out exactly what I’m feeling, or even just wishing some kind of retribution would come to this person.
It’s mostly subsided at this point, leaving a painful ache in its wake when I think about the situation. But I was struggling with it once more when this verse flashed through my earbuds as I listened to Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz.
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” – Romans 12:19
It stuck out to me in a manner that nudged me to take this deeper into prayer, and in doing so, I realized there’s something really healing within these words.
God is both justice and mercy. If someone who hurts us repents and turns back to the Lord – praise God for that. And if they do not, the Lord is the one who will give out justice. We don’t need to make that petty remark, send that biting text, or trash talk that person to everyone who will listen in order for justice to be served, or mercy bestowed.
Of course there are times when it’s prudent to act, like in abusive situations that warrant intervention or legal action. There are also many situations in which the right thing to do is absolutely to call out the person who’s hurt us. Those aren’t the times I’m trying to address here.
I’m talking about when people hurt our feelings, suddenly ghost us, gossip about us behind our backs – and in turn we’d like to be petty, or lash out, or even wish misfortune upon them when we shouldn’t do that. Righteous anger doesn’t involve pettiness, or actively wishing that someone’s life choices will get them into trouble. That only serves to allow us to hold onto grudges, and holding onto grudges do not allow you nor I to move on. It rarely hurts the other person, and it usually only hurts us. God made us for more than that. He made us for true healing, and while He provides true healing for us in a multitude of creative ways, it ultimately always comes through Him.
That we shouldn’t aim to “get even” with those who hurt us is a hard pill to swallow. But there is comfort to be found in knowing that God is justice and mercy. Let’s bring our hurts, our wounds, and our anger to Him and continually lay it at His Feet, and in His Heart. He is justice, He is mercy, and He ultimately has the answers & healing we seek because He is Love.
Resources & further reading:
Books:
Timeless: A History of the Catholic Church by Steve Weidenkopf
Friends in High Places by Tim Staples
Articles:
Praying to the Saints – Catholic Answers
Ministries:
Eden Invitation – authentically Catholic ministry for those who identify as LGBTQ+
Before I sign off – it’s January 1 at the time of this publication, and Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Catechism in a Year podcast has just launched from Ascension Press! My fiancé John and I are planning on going through it together, and let’s just say I’m very happy to have an accountability partner in listening to this podcast after I fell off the train with Bible in a Year for the second year in a row and spent a month and a half listening to five to nine episodes a day in order to finish on December 31st. Am I crazy? Possibly. In other news, I’m even more excited to marry John because after we get married in May, we can listen to it together while we get ready in the morning together, or something like that.
Anyway, I wanna know from you – are you planning to listen along? Are you still struggling to finish Bible in a Year? Did you even know this was a thing?? Let me know in the poll below!
Well, that’s all for January’s edition of Transcendental Threads! Thank you so much for reading – it means the world to me. I hope you found some tidbit of beauty, truth, or goodness to ponder within this edition.
Know of my prayers for you, and I’ll see you in February!