We are back in Ordinary Time -- no great feast, no special Masses, etc. We have returned to the numbered Sundays and weeks of the Church's sometimes confusing calendar to the "ordinary" Catholic. With our focus turned from the great season of Easter and the several major feasts of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we can take time to look at our lives and our faith.
Last Wednesday during his "ordinary" scheduled audience, Pope Benedict XVI used the occasion to offer us the opportunity to look at one aspect music in our Church. He brought forward the name of an "ancient" that surely 99% of the Roman Catholic world would hear and say "Who's that?"
Romanus was a man known as the "Melodist." Not Methodist, mind you! He was a 5th century Syrian. After studies and ordination to the Diaconate, he moved to Constantinople. There he began to produce his "kontakia." These were metrical hymns that were to be chanted. There are 89 such hymns that have survived the ages until now. These words and musical arrangements give us the opportunity to experience "the rich theological, liturgical and devotional content of the hymnography of that time" (Pope Benedict XVI).
Romanus was an accomplished catechist, the role of most (permanent) Deacons of that time. His major theme in his teaching was "the unity of God's saving plan revealed in Christ.... His hymns, steeped in Scripture, develop the teaching of the early Councils on the divinity of the Son, the mystery of the Incarnation, the person and role of the Holy Spirit, and the dignity of the Virgin Mary."
So, what should we understand about this man and his message to us in our "ordinary" time? Pope Benedict concluded his presentation about Romanus with an answer to our question. "Romanus shows us the power of symbolic communication which, in the liturgy, joins earth to heaven and uses imagery, poetry and song to lift our minds to God’s truth."
These words might help to understand why hymns are so important to our liturgies, so important to our personal devotional life. Each hymn is not simply a way to praise God and honor the saints. Each hymn is a story. Singing the verses, all of them, tells the "whole story."
