COMMENTARY: Losing Religion, Finding Faith

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.) (UNDATED) As gentle strings and muted voices ease into Gabriel Faure’s “Requiem,” I understand immediately why the church rejected this piece a century ago. It’s too peaceful, too accepting of […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

(UNDATED) As gentle strings and muted voices ease into Gabriel Faure’s “Requiem,” I understand immediately why the church rejected this piece a century ago.


It’s too peaceful, too accepting of death as part of life. The necessary elements of the funeral Mass are present, but the intimate tone focuses on the theme of rest, not judgment, not terror, not guilt, not any of the tools that the church has used to compel obedience. I understand why the priest whose parish hosted the work’s debut in 1906 primly distanced himself from the work.

Again and again our choir returns to “requiem.” Rest. Rest in peace. Even the “Dies Irae” is peaceful, in stark contrast to the rage of Mozart’s “Requiem.” It’s as if an angry father decided not to raise his hand in righteous wrath against the child, but to turn his hand over in a gentle beckoning.

I have sung the “Sanctus” of Faure’s masterwork. But I have never heard the piece in its entirety. I am deeply moved. I watch the singers, and I can tell they are moved, as well. This music is humbling, not because it is large or technically showy, but because it allows the normal human voice to sing, and when one sings to God and to one’s friends, pride falls away and, like a mother singing to a child, one who loves shares a gift with one who loves. What matters is the bond formed by giving, not the performance itself.

My heart swells, for I treasure being serenaded like this. I treasure being embraced by the gentleness of God. I am glad we receive the musicians’ gift in silence, rather than the noise of applause.

Over the years, I have seen pride destroy the church, just as the Apostle Paul warned. No one person or type of person, no one situation, no one expression of pride, no one enemy. But all of us turning haughty and angry faces toward one another, determined to get our way, acting out our jealousies, fussing about proprieties, judging one another.

It’s as if we saw a play once about pompous, prickly and proud people cursed with long memories, and we decided the only way to be a faithful churchgoer was to take a part in this tragedy and make it ours.

The mock-solemn acolyte who slows the procession to a crawl so that everyone can see him. The altar worker who dons white gloves and fusses over silver as if these were the very bones of Christ. The matriarch who tells the story of a grander moment than this, before the inadequate current pastor arrived, before the new people arrived, back when things were as they should be. The bishop who demands fealty but knows nothing of his clergy. The pastor who worries more about his vestments than the souls of his flock, the preacher who cares more about her privileges than her preaching. The rule-enforcers who are blind to the gray areas where life is actually lived. The meeting-goers who plot and fume. The meeting-runners who say hasty prayer, as if God were but the opening bell to a long day of trading.


I could go on and on, and I suppose I have. I have allowed such pride to wound me, to own me, to engage me in its hateful pursuits. I have taken my part in the tragedy of pride.

My feelings today, then, are about more than music. They are an expression of that relief which comes when one seeks only to be of the “same mind,” as Paul put it _ not to win, but to belong; not to prevail, but to love; not to gather stale crumbs of power, but to receive Living Bread. It is that relief which comes from setting aside what Paul calls “selfish ambition” and recognizing one’s proper posture before God and before humankind, namely humility.

Faure lost religion while providing music to haughty aristocrats at a prominent Parisian church called the Madeleine, where the grand saw only their reflections in a mirror. But he gained a faith that enabled him to present death as a friend.

DEA END RNS

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!