Episode 3: Entering the Ecstasy of the Divine Song

This series of reflections is based on Benedict XVI’s "A New Song for the Lord," pp. 141, 152160. Order the book here

Today’s reflection:

To live in search of Meaning – ever seeking fuller discoveries of it, new encounters with it, embracing all the depths and heights of it, all the descending and ascending – is the journey of a human life authentically lived. And, if we can remove the layers of falseness that have been caked on to the word, we will rediscover that this is what Christian liturgy is in its deepest essence. On this journey, encounters with Meaning (Logos) become music. The Word we encounter is itself song and incarnates itself within us as such. When this happens we are being drawn by the attraction of primordial forces beyond mere rationality. We are being drawn by the attraction of the hidden sound of creation, the song that lies at the base of all things. This “musification” of the natural world [“The hills are alive with the sound of music…”] is not only the discovery of the Spirit descending into creation, it is also the discovery of creation ascending toward the Infinite, returning to her source. Worship (liturgy) happens when we discover the song already implanted in all of creation and sing in unison with it [“The hills fill my heart with the sound of music / My heart wants to sing every song it hears…”].

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