I’ve been thinking about music lately: the way it encourages and illustrates the hallmark of community so near and dear to the Benedictine way.
There’s the well-known sentiment (often attributed to St. Augustine) that “He who sings prays twice.” By implication, music amplifies or nourishes our emotional and expressive capacities, and therefore our relationships with God and each other. If singing is “pray[ing] twice,” the beauty of a melodic line communicates more than we otherwise could, enfolding another layer of expressive form – another, nonverbal language – into our conversations with God.
So it’s only appropriate that music should be such a fruitful part of the Benedictine monastic tradition – from the hymns and the chants of the Psalter to the transcendent, sacred compositions of Benedictines like St. Hildegard von Bingen. And by extension, it’s beautifully fitting that music – offering harmonies of interrelation and opportunities for communal expressions of prayer in all its emotional, intellectual, and imaginative range – should exercise and embody community, not only within the monastery itself, but also within the College family.
Even without an official major or minor, students express a musical sense of Abbey community in a variety of formal and spontaneous ways. They perform in exuberant productions of Guys and Dolls – or they orchestrate an evening of “Dancing in the Light,” with the arts’ invitation to community expressions of faith. They attend bonfire singalongs or simply sit and play the guitar outside Stowe Hall. They join the choir or go caroling across campus. They bring their voices, instruments, and enthusiasm to Arts at the Abbey concerts – or more recently to the Friday night bluegrass gatherings outside the Haid Theater. I love the way music brings out a shared experience of beauty in each of these examples. Those of us listening have to quiet ourselves and attend to what’s in front of us. Those of us participating have to focus, not only on the part we play, but also on its meaningful relation to the whole. There’s something self-forgetful about music, which can remind us of the way communities lead us to sing a new song to the Lord.
As a member of the Belmont Abbey family of monks, students, friends, alumni, and benefactors, you will be in my prayers this weekend: that your summer is full of literal and figurative music. And if you’ve never had a chance to attend one of our campus concerts or musical events, I hope you’ll join us next year.
