Missa Solmenis

Who's going to the sacrifice: The lamb of God or just more lambs?

I went to mass last night. Well, kind of: Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis  is far more enjoyable than any mass I have ever been to. Did I miss the point? Are you supposed to enjoy mass? I mean, isn’t enjoyment of mass idolatry? I went for the music; for the wall of voices, for the lead violin melody in the Sanctus, supposedly marking the ascent of the spirit of Jesus to heaven after  the resurrection. Perhaps it’s idolatry – I loved the music rather than the God it celebrates – but wasn’t it parasitism, too? I mean, Beethoven would never have written such beautiful music if he hadn’t actually believed that there was a God , would he? In going to this concert, taking pleasure from it without returning the faith that sustained the work that created it was I freeloading, stealing?

I don’t know, but taking that argument to its logical conclusion, I could just as easily argue that non-believers should be banned from attended concerts such as that one. Maybe there should be restrictions on who can and who can’t go to performances of Missa Solemnis because if you let atheists in the door then ,eventually, there may not be any more music like that.

As I listened I was reminded of that old cliché – the devil has all the best tunes – and I thought of how wrong that was. God has some pretty good stuff, too. If Beethoven had not intended his music to enjoyed as music, for it to appeal to infidels then why did he make it so beautiful? I have the dimmest memories of what it’s like to be at an actual mass but the one impression I have is of the mind numbing tedium of the experience. If God had ever wanted his message to be delivered directly he would never had invented Beethoven. I think He loves idolaters.

The last section of Missa Solemnis is the Agnes Dei. I suppose it’s a sacrifice for God to let Beethoven take the credit for what is, after all, His gig – mass. The sacrificial nature of language has been in my head a lot recently; how it is that in order for certain things to have meaning, to have presence,  to be in the centre, others things have to babble into meaninglessness, disappear and fly to edges. I guess what I find really puzzling about Christianity is this tendency to allow, to demand sacrifice. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, who grants us peace.

Those living in the cradle of Christianity - the Middle East - must look to those living in its political home - Europe - with terror and cynicism. Every demand in the “war on terror” is a demand for sacrifice. Sacrifice of hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq & Palestine; all across the region. 

Only a fool would look to Germany in hope. Christianity may preach love your enemy, but, in its relations with the Orient, with Africa, with Asia, Europe massacres everything in its way. There has been very little Christianity in how Europe deals with non-Christians; there are people alive tonight who’ll probably be dead in a few hours thanks to American, Israeli and British air raids.

I don’t know, this part of the world (Europe) has a lot of blood on its hands, there are a lot of dead bodies in the foundations of the building of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. And yet, the message of the new testament – to love your enemy, to sacrifice the most powerful (the son of God!) to save the vast masses – is at odds with the facts. It must seem to outsiders that Europeans often do not practise what they preach. There’s an apparently forked tongued babble of love and hate that must infuriate those on the outside.

 

The killings in Paris last month show how that fury can manifest itself. Those killings, however, are irrelevant in comparison to the barabarism of Europe.

It remains to be seen as to whether the barbarism that sustains European civilisation can be changed because that is the real threat to that civilisation. The military thuggishness and economic greed of America and Western Europe created the problem in the Middle East – jihadi fundamentalism is just a more technologically primitive and infinitely smaller scale relative.

Going to Beethoven last night reminded me of why non Europeans love and hate Europe. On the surface great beauty and high ideas. Look closer and you’ll see murder and genocide. Who’s going to the sacrifice? It won’t be the European ruling classes if they can help it.