"The glory of God is a human being fully alive, and to be alive consists of beholding God."
-St. Irenaeus
Music is powerful. For me it has the power to excite, reminisce, soothe, and even spiritually enrich. I have mentioned the role that music plays in my life before in these posts. Growing up I was exposed to various types of music, especially classical thanks to my sister Mary's violin and piano passions, and as such developed an appreciation for its beauty and ability to move. As an educator, I truly believe in music's ability not only to more fully develop students into well rounded human beings, but also to help with things like math, problem solving and creativity. As a Catholic educator, I am often reminded of St. Augustine's words, "When you sing you pray twice;" I recognize the role that music plays in our worship, adding to our full, conscious and active participation in the Celebration of the Eucharist.
Music, along with art, physical education, Spanish, media skills and computer, is part of what many schools deem special or elective classes. Outside of the core curriculum of Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies and Religion, these classes help to supplement the overall education of students. For some students, they act as the motivator to go to school and make the other classes more tolerable. To me, they help to develop the entire person - mind, body and soul.
Fr. Michael Himes states, "Whatever humanizes, divinizes." In other words, those things that make us more fully human, make us more like our Creator. Made in His image and likeness, the more that we separate ourselves from our fellow mammals, the closer we can get to God. The more musical we become, the more like God we also become. The more we come to know about art, the more we come to know about God. The more we develop our human bodies and do those activities that only humans can do, the more we develop into the creatures our Creator created us to be. The more we do anything that makes us more fully human, more fully alive, the more we become like Jesus.
Jesus was fully human and fully divine. He divinized our humanity. He made holy those things that make us human - like cooking, like singing, like talking, like writing, like reading, like throwing a football, like typing on a computer, like learning a new language, like painting, like sculpting.
Every day is sacred. Every moment an opportunity to touch divinity.
Sing. Laugh. Play. Pray. Read. Speak. Love.
Live.
