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“A much greater source of anxiety to Us is the style of action of those who maintain that liturgical worship should shed its sacred character, who foolishly say we should substitute for sacred items & furnishings ordinary common things in daily use.” —Pope Saint Paul VI (14 Oct 1968)

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Views from the Choir Loft

Basking in Beauty’s Glow

Fr. David Friel · March 1, 2015

NE OF MY FAVORITE subjects for consideration on this blog is beauty. I would like to turn to this theme again today, since the readings & orations for Mass today relate to the topic.

In the Transfiguration, Jesus appears in all His radiant beauty. He reveals Himself to his closest friends, allowing them to see the splendor that He customarily reserves from sight. Bishop Sheen once shared a great insight concerning the radiance of the Transfiguration: “It was not so much a light that was shining from without as the beauty of the Godhead that shone from within. . . . Divinity shone through humanity.” 1

This is what so often happens—beauty shines through humanity, by God’s grace.

Upon seeing our Lord transfigured on Mount Tabor, Peter says, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here!” He then suggests the building of three tents, so as to prolong the experience.

So often, Peter’s impulse here is disparaged. Scripture scholars make a big deal of how petulant Peter can be. Preachers take up the theme of how “you can’t stay on the mountaintop.” All of that has its value. But, viewed another way, isn’t Peter’s impulse perfectly natural? We desire quite intuitively, after all, to be in the presence of beauty. Once we are in beauty’s presence, why should it be judged unreasonable to want to remain there?

Peter’s desire that the Transfiguration be prolonged is a wholesome longing. We all share similar experiences, every time we attend a concert that we hope will never end or when we stall our departure so as to sneak in extra time visiting with nieces or nephews or grandkids. Beauty begets within our hearts a desire for further exposure to that beauty.

True beauty inspires within us a hunger for more, a longing for time spent beholding the beauty. This pondering is the essence of contemplation, and it’s a quality I admire in St. Peter.

One of the gifts of the third edition of the Roman Missal is its inclusion of solemn Prayers over the People for each day of Lent. The prayer of blessing appointed for the Second Sunday of Lent is an eloquent reflection of the beauty surrounding the Transfiguration:

Bless Your faithful, we pray, O Lord, with a blessing that endures for ever, and keep them faithful to the Gospel of Your Only Begotten Son, so that they may always desire and at last attain that glory whose beauty He showed in His own Body, to the amazement of His Apostles.

The beauty of our transfigured Lord did, indeed, inspire “amazement” in the Apostles. May the glory of the Lord elicit a similar “amazement” in each of us!




NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1977), 158-9.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Beauty, Bishop Fulton J Sheen, Roman Missal Third Edition Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and serves as Director of Liturgy at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
    This coming Sunday—13 July 2025—is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C). All the chants have been conveniently assembled and posted at the feasts website. The OFFERTORY, Ad Te Levávi, is particularly beautiful.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Music Director Job • $80,000 per year
    Our readers will be interested in this job offering for Music Director at Saint Adalbert’s Basilica, located 40 minutes from where I live. My pastor was recently elevated to this basilica. He is offering $80,000 per year, plus benefits. I’m told Saint Adalbert’s Basilica is utterly gorgeous and contains one of America’s most magnificent pipe organs. It would be fantastic to have a colleague nearby!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Simplest “Agnus Dei” Ever Published
    Our choir is on break during the month of July. I needed a relatively simple “Agnus Dei,” so I composed this setting for organ & voice in honor of Saint René Goupil. It has been called the simplest setting ever composed. I love CARMEN GREGORIANUM (“Gregorian Chant”), especially the ALLELUIAS, INTROITS, and COMMUNION ANTIPHONS. That being said, some have pointed out that certain sections of the Kyriale aren’t as strong as the Graduale or Vesperale. There’s a reason for this—but it would be too complicated to explain at this moment.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Pope Pius XII Hymnal?
    Have you ever heard of the Pope Pius XII Hymnal? It’s a real book, published in the United States in 1959. Here’s a sample page so you can verify with your own eyes it existed.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    “Hybrid” Chant Notation?
    Over the years, many have tried to ‘simplify’ plainsong notation. The O’Fallon Propers attempted to simplify the notation—but ended up making matters worse. Dr. Karl Weinmann tried to do the same in the time of Pope Saint Pius X by replacing each porrectus. You can examine a specimen from his edition and see whether you agree he complicated matters. In particular, look at what he did with éxsules fílii Hévae.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed

Random Quote

A hymn verse need not be a complete sentence, but it must have completed sense as a recognisable part of the complete sentence, and at each major pause there would be at least a “sense-pause.” Saint Ambrose and the early writers and centonists always kept to this rule. This indicates one of the differences between a poem and a hymn, and by this standard most of the modern hymns and the revisions of old hymns in the Breviary stand condemned.

— Fr. Joseph Connelly

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