Over the last week, on this campus, the sound of singing filled the air during a multi-day retreat called “Praying Twice,” hosted by our retreat house. The intention of the retreat was to provide instruction in chanting the liturgy, as well as to cultivate a practice of chanting in one’s own prayer life. Participants sang some of the Church’s most ancient melodies and devoted special attention to shaping music that was originally intended for the Latin language, trying to make it sound a bit suaver in English.
My friend Ruth Cunningham, formerly of the famed women’s vocal ensemble Anonymous 4, was one of the retreat presenters, and as she led retreatants in chanting, she invited them to think about how to use their breath. In plainchant, many of the musical lines are long and spun out and require volumes of air to support them. So, Ruth said, take a breath, but treat it as a going-on breath, using a visual image from her Anonymous 4 days.
A going-on breath pauses for a quick intake of air, but it doesn’t leave the building for a shopping expedition or go outside for a chat with friends. A going-on breath serves as a practical necessity, as well as a musical pause, but it’s a pause with intention. It’s a pause that intuitively understands that there’s still music to come. The going-on breath must be oriented towards the music that lies ahead, to give it direction and focus. A going-on breath is not the end of a musical line, because there’s still a future ahead of it.
With this helpful image of a going-on breath, the singing of the retreatants changed. Musical lines had more direction and were less stagnant. The music itself gained more energy, shape, and purpose. The chant became vibrant, alive, and energized.
Maybe the Church needs that image of a going-on breath right now. Sometimes, it just feels like she’s stuck with no hope or definable purpose. We live in a peculiar time. I’m not certain that it’s scarier or more fraught with potential doom than other eras in human history, but the Church often fumbles to respond to a rapidly changing world. One thing is certain: with technological advances, the pace of life is speeding up exponentially. It seems that the Church is standing still, and the world is speeding by. Often, it appears as if more and more people increasingly see religion and faith as vestigial remnants of a tired past.
Now, add a pandemic to the mix, and things get very confusing. It’s as if for nearly three years we have paused to catch our breath because we’ve had to. We haven’t been able to do certain things for a while. We’ve been forced to slow down. But now things are accelerating again, although in many places, it doesn’t feel like the Church is. The Church is wondering where her people have gone. She is confused about how to be a viable source of meaning in a chaotic age. The Church is still pausing for a breath, but the future seems uncertain. At the end of a musical line, some have chosen to take their lunch break and have never come back.
Without the appropriate context, it’s difficult to see that in John chapter 17, Jesus is offering direction for an incipient Church that is pausing to catch her breath. Jesus himself, on the eve of his passion and death, is pausing to catch his breath, but it’s not an ordinary breath or one of exhaustion or one lacking purpose. It’s a going-on breath.
Jesus’s prayer to his Father is meant to be heard by his disciples and us. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is going on to his passion, death, and resurrection, and then ultimately to the right hand of his Father in heaven. This is what we celebrated on Ascension Day this past Thursday. Jesus has completed his earthly ministry, but the story is not yet finished. Jesus’s breath of a prayer to his Father on the eve of his death is radiating with hope. It’s the defining moment for a Church that will soon be formed and empowered to move forward. The disciples will be left forlorn, depressed, and aimless in the wake of their Lord’s death. They will surely doubt if a future lies ahead of them. But Jesus has anticipated this confusion. Before the worst occurs, he prepares them. Take a going-on breath, Jesus seems to say. There is a future ahead of you.
And if we recall the Scriptures, we know where this going-on breath is headed. This breath gives shape, purpose, direction, intention, and stamina for a group of disciples that are about to be set on fire. When in a few days the Holy Spirit alights on them, their future will be revealed, and they will be thrust forward in mission to the ends of the earth.
With a little help from Jesus’s prayer to his Father, can you visualize the Church’s future? In the brief span of time in which we take a going-on breath, can you dream about what lies ahead? Eternal life waits for us to receive it, not only ahead in the future but even in glimpses here and now. The Church will do even greater works than Jesus did. The Church can share in the remarkable unity of Father and Son. All that seems so impossible to us is possible. Jesus’s prayer to his Father is a prayer of confidence in what we as his Body can do.
Jesus’s prayer was a going-on breath, but we, in our own time, can easily forget that. And in this peculiar time, we are suspended in midair, trying to fathom our purpose, our intention, and our future. Do we even have a future, some say? Isn’t our future doomed, and aren’t we just here to manage decline? That’s what some are saying. How can our paltry numbers compete with numbers that actively work against us? How can hope compete with despair? How can justice compete with injustice? How can prayerful response compete with malaise? How can a mindset of abundance compete with one of scarcity? How can the voice of Jesus compete with the accusing voices of our culture, which tell us that our vision is an antiquated figment of our imagination?
The Church has paused to catch her breath. We are waiting to exhale and move on, but we are stuck. At the very least we are beset by doubts. We feel wholly inadequate for the task at hand. Until we remember where to focus our gaze. In the Acts of the Apostles, we heard two men in white say to the disciples, “why do you stand looking into heaven?” And, accordingly, we look down after Jesus goes into heaven, ready for action, but we see inaction. We look down ready for peace to reign, but we see fearful people, with ploughshares turned into swords. We look down to find unity amid our differences, but we see walls being built. So, can’t we just gaze up into heaven after all? It’s better up there.
Our gaze lingers on the sky above us. Can we be blamed for that? Perhaps in his prayer to the Father, Jesus has given us the counter image to the Ascension Day call to look down. Sometimes, we need to look up as well to be reminded that there is a future ahead. So, beloved in Christ, let’s try it. Lift your eyes to heaven for a time. Catch your breath, but don’t stop breathing. Lift your eyes, inhale, and find the breath you need to survive and thrive. This breath is not a stagnant pause. It’s not your last breath. It’s a going-on breath.
Jesus has told us this. When we lift our eyes to heaven, we remember that our future isn’t controlled by us; it’s controlled by God. And if we remember this, maybe we can remember that everything will be okay. All shall be well because our future is not in our own hands; it’s in God’s.
Take a breath, but with intention. Attend to the musical line that needs to be spun ahead. There’s a future ready to be shaped and directed by hope. Its jagged lines are ready to be smoothed, and its clashing dissonance can find pleasing harmony if not unison chanting.
Don’t let anyone tell you that your singing is over. Don’t let anyone tell you that your future is lost. The Good Shepherd of the sheep will allow no one to be lost, and especially not the Church. So, pause, take your breath, not just any breath, not too long of a breath, but a breath with intention. It’s a going-on breath. Breathe in all that is possible with a God who makes all things possible by the glorious resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ. Take your breath with an eye to that wondrous future, and then sing.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after Ascension Day
May 21, 2023