So, I admit it. I have many guilty pleasures, some I have never shared, some that are known that I wish were not, and some I just put out there. This is one no one knows, well not truth for long.
I love putting on boy choir music (in the car really loud) that I've sung before in past choirs, and sing. No not just sing, really get into it. I probably look ridiculous, but I don't care because I love it. There's something so glorious about over 100 people singing on the perfect pitch at the perfect time, and in that moment chills just become your body. When I can be apart of that I feel like, this is it. This is what God intended when he means harmony, peace. No one stands out, you all work together to make this perfect sound. It's not even about the sound, its the meaning behind the words and the emotion and work that goes into that note or word. It's a piece of heaven.
Tonight particularly I was listening to Ave
Verum Corpus written by Byrd. Kinda famous choral piece, whatever. Here's the text and translation.
Ave
verum corpus,
natum de Maria
Virgine,
Hail true body, born of the Virgin Mary.
vere passum,
immolatum in
cruce pro
homine:
Truly suffering, was sacrificied on the cross for mankind,Cuius latus perforatum,
Unda fluxit sanguine.
From whose pierced side flowed blood,Esto nobis praegustatum in
mortis examine:
Be for us a foretaste in the final judgment.O
Dulcis, O pie, O
Jesu fili Mariae,
O sweet, O merciful, O Jesus, Son of Mary,miserere mei. Amen.
Have mercy on me. Amen.
My favorite are the last two lines. You can hear the pleading in the song and in the voices. The song makes Jesus human and majestic at the same time and acknowledges is power in our lives. I just love it.
OK done gushing about my love of music.
I think what hit me more about the song tonight was the "have mercy on me" part. It's been a weird week with semi-important dates that shouldn't mean anything to me anymore, but I still think about it. I realized I really haven't forgiven things or person. I want to so badly, I have moved on... but it still hurts, it hurts a lot sometimes. The more I let it hurt me, the more I hang on, the further I am away from living how God would have me live. I think God's forgiveness is one of the hardest traits to imitate, but SO important to do. Jesus stresses forgiveness in the parable of the unmerciful servant, and this part gets me.
Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger his master turned him over to the
jailers to be tortured, until he would pay back all he owed. "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Matthew 18:32-35
To me this is really scary. But I think the point in the whole parable is that there is SO MUCH hope found in the enormous amount of forgiveness that God gives us, how can we really turn around and not do the same with each other. I don't know, but it's hard... and it sucks. I can bring up a lot of things people have done to me and how wrong I've been treated, but does that help? God could probably bring up a massively longer and heavier list of things I have done, but he doesn't, because he loves. He overwhelmingly covers me in mercy.
