So important is an understanding of how the noble art of music works, and so important do we consider familiarity with great composers in the Western tradition, that all of our students here at the College are required to take two semesters of Music Theory & History in their junior year.  True, this is only a beginning, but a serious beginning must be made—one that stretches from the fundamental ingredients of music (rhythms in simple and compound time signatures, pitch in bass and treble clef, key signatures, the circle of fifths, scales and intervals) all the way to some of the greatest masterpieces of the art, like the St. Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Unlike less complex forms of aural stimulation, “art music”—a better term than “classical music”—needs, and deserves, to be given multiple hearings, with full attention.  One needs to give this rich music a chance to speak to one’s soul, to convey its beauties to one’s mind, to mould one’s heart.  It’s not supposed to be instant gratification; there is more intellectual substance to it.  A cartoon, for example, tells you right away what it’s about, and you laugh at the joke.  In contrast, an artfully written novel or play takes time to enter into and appreciate.  Like a good wine, it must “breathe.”         

Just as there are great books, which are known to be great by the common consensus of scholars and thoughtful people across the ages, and just as there are great paintings and great sculptures, so too there are great works of music, known and felt to be such by educated musicians and music lovers—works notable for their depth of feeling, nobility of sentiment, exquisite artistry.  Ignorance of these is as bad, for someone who seeks to be educated in Western (and Catholic) culture, as ignorance of Dante and Shakespeare in literature, Plato and Aristotle in philosophy, Augustine and Aquinas in theology.

One often hears a false claim: today’s popular music is “more emotional,” some say, while traditional music is “less emotional.”  In reality, the emotions evoked in today’s popular music are more crude and monotonous.  The emotions elicited by the music of Bach or Mozart, being more intellectual, are actually more profound and pure—therefore, more variegated, subtle, and rich.  There is no expression of joy or sorrow as profound as what you find in Bach’s cantatas, Mozart’s piano concertos, Beethoven’s string quartets.  Intellectual pleasures are the highest pleasures but the awareness of them requires a certain limiting and purifying of the passions as such.  Nevertheless, the final result of this is the ability to experience passions that are more subtle, more all-encompassing, more fully what passions are supposed to be.

Although one cannot train the ear in a day, a week, a month, or even a year, a beginning must nevertheless be made in developing the skill of attentive listening to beautiful sound that is inherently worth listening to.  That is what we attempt to do, and it is certainly my hope and prayer that our students will become, not only witnesses to what is true and lovers of what is good, but also ambassadors for the beautiful, captivated by the reflection of the face of Eternal Beauty.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

Just a few days ago, on December 15, Pope Benedict XVI gave an address to university students of Rome in which he said many things that apply pointedly to the great adventure of faith and reason that Wyoming Catholic College is engaged upon. Taking as his text James 5:7—“Be steadfast, brothers, until the coming of the Lord”—the Pope then spoke eloquently about the “interior attitude necessary to prepare ourselves to hear and welcome again the proclamation of the birth of the Redeemer in the stable of Bethlehem.”  As a teacher, I am often struck by how much patience, dedication, and care is required of both students and faculty in order to develop that inner attitude of receptivity to the astonishing truth that the Eternal Word of the Father, the Divine Wisdom in whom and for whom all things exist, has become man, so that we might become God through His grace. 

This is the crowning truth of our salvation, and each Christmas reminds us of the ineffable goodness of God towards us.  It is a truth that anyone, no matter how simple, poor, or illiterate, can hear, believe, welcome, and rejoice in.  But it is a truth that the world, the flesh, and the devil hate to hear and strive unceasingly to suppress with a variety of tools—contempt, social disgrace, sophistical refutations, specious alternatives, violent threats, or silence.  This is why every age has desperately needed educated Catholics as teachers, preachers, apologists, writers, witnesses, beacons, leaders.  There will be no formation of such Catholics without the same kind of hard labor and patient endurance that characterizes the farmer.  St. Augustine grasped very clearly that to attain even a basic understanding of the mysteries of divine Revelation, one must devote oneself to a whole host of disciplines with great constancy, energy, and concentration.  The work is both gratifying and wearying to our human nature; we often do not see what is ahead, where we have come from, or how we will succeed.

The Pope said to the university students: “The Apostle's exhortation to patient steadfastness, which might somewhat perplex the people of our time, is in fact the path toward a profound acceptance of the question of God, the meaning it has in life and history, because it is precisely in the patience, fidelity and steadfastness of the search for God, in the openness to him, that he reveals his face. We do not need a generic, indefinite god, but the living and true God, who opens the horizon of man's future to the prospect of a firm and sure hope, a hope that is rich with eternity and that permits us to face the present in all its aspects with courage.”  Surely this is what our age needs; and it will not get what it needs without men and women who have been formed as seekers of God, lovers of his face, alive with his life, ablaze with his hope—and, at the same time, equipped to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

The words of our Holy Father are utterly vital to bear in mind as we proceed with the “farming” of the intellectual life, where results are not instantaneous, and where technology cannot substitute for character and wisdom: “Patience is the virtue of those who entrust themselves to this [divine] presence in history, who do not let themselves be overcome by the temptation of placing all hope in the immediate, in the purely horizontal perspective, in technically perfect projects which are far from the deepest of realities, that which gives the human person the highest dignity: the transcendent dimension, being a creature in the image and likeness of God, carrying in the heart the desire of ascending to him.”

Our Lady, Mother of the Word made flesh, Seat of Wisdom, our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope!  Pray for us, for all the students, teachers, administrators, and their families this Christmas season.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

It struck me as wonderfully fitting that on this feastday of St. Cecilia, heavenly patroness of music, I would be discussing with my juniors and seniors today texts that, in different ways, are closely connected with her.

The juniors in Christology are reading Colossians, Philippians, and Hebrews.  There is a particular verse in Colossians that has always been cited in connection with St. Cecilia herself, in the acts of her martyrdom: “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Col 3:16).  The Psalter of David, above all, connects us with thousands of years of Jewish and Christian worship, and more importantly, connects us right now with the prayer of Christ and the angels and saints in heaven.  We are so blessed that every day at the College chaplaincy’s principal Mass, the cantors and congregation sing, in Latin and English chant, the inspired words of the psalms at the Introit, Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion, thus fulfilling the explicit wishes of the Second Vatican Council.

The seniors, for their part, in the course on sacramental and liturgical theology are reading Venerable Pius XII’s magnificent encyclical on the sacred liturgy, Mediator Dei, which includes an extensive treatment of the beauty of liturgical music and of chanting of the Divine Office, woven of “psalms, hymns, and songs.”  Through the study of Pius XII and other classic documents, we learn better how to balance and relate the nova et vetera, the “new things and old,” that Holy Mother Church gives to us in her public liturgy—above all, how to celebrate the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite in continuity with the great Tradition of the Church, embodied in the Extraordinary Form.  Even as Pope Benedict XVI desires and has legislated for the universal Church, so we celebrate both Forms at Wyoming Catholic College, with a sound understanding of how the active participation of the faithful is to be pursued through gestures, words, singing, and meditative listening.

In keeping with our emphasis on dignified public worship in accord with the best of the Church’s Tradition, the College community is greatly looking forward to the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal, which will come into effect this weekend, the First Sunday of Advent.  All students, faculty, and staff received a copy of the Magnificat Roman Missal Companion as a way of preparing for the change, so that we might have a better appreciation for the riches about to be made available to all.  I want to highlight the closing words of Anthony Esolen in his splendid essay “On the Art of Translation” (pp. 15–24 in the Companion): “So when we pray in this [new] translation, let us not be embarrassed by beauty, by intricacy, by elevation, by mystery, by the potency of repetition, by fullness of heart and of expression.  Let us instead consider every word of the Latin to be like the wine at Cana, and let us be grateful for translators who humbled themselves to accept that wine, without desiring to translate it back into water.”  In a community like WCC’s, which, in keeping with Vatican II and the subsequent Magisterium, already warmly embraces the use of Latin chant, it can only come as truly good news that our English-language Masses will now reflect more accurately the beauty of the official Latin Missal.

Sancta Caecilia, ora pro nobis!

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

St. Thomas Aquinas interprets the Lord’s words “Blessed are the clean of heart” in terms of perfection within oneself, as a necessary disposition to heavenly beatitude (cf. Ia-IIae, q. 69); and he interprets “Blessed are the peacemakers” in terms of perfection towards others, since the work proper to peace is the uniting or harmonizing of what is separated or discordant in human relationships.

Having a clean heart is a prerequisite to being a peacemaker, since knowing what peace truly consists in follows from having a well-ordered or “peaceful” soul. Aristotle makes the same point in the Nicomachean Ethics, where he discusses the wicked man who is at odds with himself, who is fragmented and restless in his consciousness, as opposed to the virtuous man who is at peace—not, mind you, smug or self-satisfied, since he goads himself on to do virtuous deeds (the greater the better); but rather, with the peace of self-possession that comes from self-mastery and habitually cleaving to the good.

Peace among men cannot come from hearts that are not at peace. Relationships of justice among men cannot arise as long as hearts are possessed of unjust desires and ambitions. “Seek first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you,” says the Lord. One can only promote the peace of another—peace with another and among others—if one first loves the other’s good. Peace demands a good willed for the neighbor for his sake, and the good of another can only be loved by one whose heart is already attracted to the good in itself—that is, by one whose heart is pure. Clarity of the heart’s “eye” is what makes it possible to see how great a good peace really is and to know how to foster it; cleanness of heart is the condition of both insight and foresight.

“My peace I leave with you: not as the world gives do I give to you.” Peace of soul is something only God can give us, and without it, we are lost. Indeed, without the peace that comes from resting in God’s will, much of what we do will become harmful to us, as we injure ourselves with our own “good intentions.” It is not enough to do something generically good. We seek to do quod Deus vult, quomodo Deus vult, et quia Deus vult: what God wills, in the manner God wills, and because He wills it.

For this reason, among others, a college that is truly Catholic must pay attention to the spiritual formation of its students. They are not disembodied intellects who are taught mere conceptual doctrines, whether in theology or mathematics or any other discipline; nor are they brute animals who climb the heights to forage and fight like mountain goats. A Catholic student is, first and foremost, an adopted son of God, whose soul needs grace as a plant needs sunlight and moisture to grow, as an animal need fresh air to breathe. A Catholic college allows, beckons, beseeches Holy Mother Church, in the person of her sacred ministers, to nourish students’ souls with the bread of angels, to heal their hearts with the absolving balm of confession, to guide their steps with the reflected light of spiritual direction, to surround them with all the great and small reminders of our true origin and destiny, our Alpha and Omega. She makes this an explicit goal of her institutional life and culture.

True, a college as such exists to offer an academic curriculum. A Catholic college, however, must do more, and joyfully does more: it is not one-dimensional but three-dimensional. It offers a spiritual training ground in which the immediate goal of academic formation, of cultivating intellectual virtues, comes together with ongoing formation in and exercise of the moral and theological virtues. This tightly-knit threefold cord of theological virtue, intellectual virtue, and moral virtue is what binds into unity the many elements of a Catholic’s daily life, and in a special way, a student’s life. What a joy it is to see this unity emerge, year by year, as our students drink in peace from the Lord’s glorious wounds and seek to be peacemakers in a wounded world.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

This morning I leaned out of my window and looked out to the surrounding mountains, the silent trees, the snow hidden in clefts of rock, the solitary raven perched on a high branch; as my ears grew attuned to the quiet of the world I heard the chirping of unseen birds and the faint sound of the wind blowing across the field; I saw four sparrows flying in perfect formation, a leaf skimming along the ground.  The sky was grey.  Things were somehow still and in motion, restless and at peace.  It was for me a moment of wonder: so beautiful, so inexhaustible are these things, every single one of them speaking of God.

The death, or decrepitude, of theology.  Theology is moribund because metaphysis is moribund; metaphysics is moribund, because natural philosophy is moribund; natural philosophy is moribund because natural history is moribund; and this is so, because men are no longer looking and listening to the world, but watching television, reading newspapers, bending like slaves over the workdesk or popping instant dinners into the microwave.  The only way that authentically Catholic, profoundly speculative, affective theology will blossom is by a total immersion once more in the good and beautiful creation of God.  This is what Augustine did; I think of the famous passage in the Confessions where he poses his deepest questions to the world around him, and that world gives him an answer, because he is truly listening to it.  This is what St. Thomas did, too.  Edith Stein says that God is the primary theologian and the world is his theological Summa.  In like manner Ron McArthur claims that Augustinian interiority is fundamentally different from Cartesian interiority because Augustine looks upon himself, as upon the world, with the warm wonder of a lover seeking his lost beloved, not with the cold gaze of rationalism that freezes whatever it looks at.

The other thing that can happen is that men make themselves blind to what is to be seen or heard by adhering to preconceived theories that render the mind incapable of making sense out of what the outer and inner senses present to it by way of experience.  Put differently, it is possible to paralyze or impede the intellect’s progression to natural judgments.  That this can happen is obvious: consider Aristotle’s refutation of the relativist in Book IV of the Metaphysics, where it is taken for granted that someone is at least able to say, and maybe even convince himself that he really thinks, that something can both be and not be at the same time in the same respect; better yet, consider when Descartes says in his Meditations that the people walking around the street outside the window might actually be automatons dressed up as men—for how could he really know otherwise?  This is the kind of swamp of confusion into which the undisciplined, or bizarrely over-disciplined, intellect can sink.  The typical modern man on the street has an undisciplined mind: he has been so brainwashed by errors, by swallowing contradictions of first principles, that he is not capable, in any habitual way, of making intellectual progress by a series of disciplined judgments and inferences.  Someone like Descartes, or more recently a Stephen Hawking, has, on the other hand, an unnaturally “disciplined” mind: so exclusively and narrowly is he trained in a certain way of thinking or a certain body of data, that he can no longer evaluate the full range of reality as it is given in spontaneous consciousness and apprehended by many different kinds of psychical acts.  This is something Aristotle points out in Metaphysics II, 3.  Once again, Aristotle is far ahead of us moderns, and that is one reason, among many, why WCC students study Aristotle all four years of the program.

Josef Pieper reminds us that creatures bear within themselves a trace of the incomprehensible mystery, the unfathomable depths, of their Creator.  Gerard Manley Hopkins, and, in his own way, William Wordsworth, do the same; it is not for nothing that WCC students memorize the poems of these poets.  Poets desire to have knowledge of singulars as such; they express this knowledge in their descriptions and metaphors which, while being in tension with the goal of singling out unrepeatable experiences, nevertheless bring home to us the message and meaning of the world as a word that God is speaking to me, to you, at this very moment.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

The Wyoming Catholic College Choir traveled to Cheyenne this past weekend for a most wonderful occasion: the priestly ordinations of Brother Michael Mary of the Trinity and Brother Joseph Marie of Jesus, monks of the Carmel of the Immaculate Heart in Clark, Wyoming, and the first of their community to be ordained to the sacred priesthood.

Presiding at the Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite was His Excellency, the Most Reverend James D. Conley, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, assisted by many priests of the Fraternity of Saint Peter who traveled from Nebraska to celebrate with special joy the Feast of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Carmelite Doctor of the Church.

The monks had invited the Choir to sing for their ordinations, and the Choir—to the number of about 45 young men and women—responded enthusiastically to the invitation, singing Palestrina’s Missa Brevis and motets by Palestrina, Byrd, Victoria, and Hassler.  In all my years as a choir director, I have never been so deeply moved and impressed by the sacred liturgy as I was on this day, and I would imagine that many students had never before experienced anything so beautiful, majestic, solemn, and edifying in the holy temple of God.  Indeed, it seemed like a foretaste of the heavenly Jerusalem.  We all felt grateful, proud, and humbled to be a part of this blessed event, and even more, to be members of so glorious a body as the Catholic Church with her age-old worship that never grows old.  These two monks, who come from a flourishing monastic community centered on the ancient Carmelite liturgy, are proof of the perennial vitality of the Tradition that goes before and follows after us.

Words can scarcely describe the awe-inspiring, sublime liturgy of the day, with all its poignant prayers, its rich panoply of sacred symbolism, and the glorious music provided by the College choir, the Gregorian chant schola, and the immense German pipe organ, in the setting of the newly-restored Cathedral of St. Mary’s.  A few photographs can give only a slight sense of the occasion.

Please keep the new priests in your prayers and say a prayer, too, for the College Choir as it strives to serve the Lord and His people with music notable for its holiness, artistic quality, and universality.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

Most Catholics have heard of “Theology on Tap,” when priests or bishops meet with young people in a pub for open discussions of Catholic questions.  And many have heard of “Life on the Rock,” a live EWTN show that recently featured students, faculty, and staff of Wyoming Catholic College.  Last week in Lander, though, the College’s seniors pioneered a new event: “Theology on the Rock.”

“Rock” here doesn’t mean the faith and teaching of St. Peter and the Church of Rome, for, since our entire curriculum is already founded on that rock, there would be nothing new about it.  No, it’s rather more literal in meaning.  The two theology professors of the senior class decided that the weather was too fine, and the Thursday morning schedule too open, to pass up the opportunity for a hike and a class outdoors.  The result, for my section, was a pretty demanding hike up Fossil Hill in the Sinks Canyon area, with the blessing of a breathtaking view from the top and an enjoyable class on catechetical homilies by St. John Chrysostom—and, for posterity, a gallery of splendid photos.

It was work to get up there, which, in retrospect, reminded me of the ascent of Sinai, the ascent of Calvary, the ascent of the spiritual life, and, more mundanely, the demanding “climb” of academic work.  At the top, it was a wonder and a joy to look out over the vast cerulean sky with its flecks of cirrus cloud, the rolling patchwork of green and gold on the hillsides below, the distant horizon of gray peaks, the pock-marked Precambrian rocks beside us.  Talk about God’s “First Book”!  It was the kind of thing that makes His Second Book come alive: “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20).

Once we were there, it was a sweet relief to sit down and turn the mind to thoughts of the very same God whose magnificent handiwork surrounded us on all sides.  The class discussion plumbed the sermons of Chrysostom and stuck closely to the text, which everyone had prepared beforehand and carried up with them, like so much wood for the sacrifice.  Our one distraction?  A falcon that swooped down nearby and, after a moment, was gone.  It made us all silent for a moment, which is a very good reminder of how our words stand to the Eternal Word.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.

Everyone says that education is the key to the future, the solution to our problems, the only way to form the nation’s destiny.  But does anyone have a clue what education is really about? For government bureaucrats, it’s often a buzzword that means: spend a lot of money on professionals who have a vested interest, even though statistics show that students are getting stupider and stupider all the time.

Education, from the Latin ex-ducere, means “to lead out”—so the logical question is, lead out from what?  From ignorance, error, and sin, into knowledge, truth, and holiness.  It is a reflection of the journey of Israel, led from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Canaan.  True education presupposes the Christian revelation of man’s fallen plight and of the wisdom from above that can heal him and elevate him.

Admittedly, there is no merely human teacher who is altogether free from ignorance, error, and sin.  But as we know, some sins are qualitatively worse than others; some errors are more massive and pernicious than others; and some kinds of ignorance are far more terrible than others.  Teachers do not have to be already perfect to be effective guides to the Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom that stands beyond all of us.  As long as they are tethered to the truth that sets us free, as long as they hint at the beauty of holiness, as long as they exemplify a hunger and thirst for reality, their students will be blessed indeed.  Their students will catch a glimpse of what it means to be fully alive in Christ.

The point of liberal education is not to form perfect beings on the model of already perfect beings but to initiate a lifetime of apprenticeship to the one true Master, Jesus Christ, freeing the mind from the debris of a collapsing late imperialistic urban culture and freeing the heart from the chafing shackles of confined and self-centered desire.  Students who receive such an education are granted the opportunity to find a spiritual freedom that is more precious than all the riches of this world.  And when they go out into the world after graduation, they will prove over time to be the leaven that lifts the loaves, the salt that flavors the food.

Sometimes people wonder how much good can come out of a tiny school in the remote backwaters of Wyoming.  It is not much different from the question posed by Nathanael: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Jn 1:46).  Notice that Philip, in responding, doesn’t start an argument; he makes an invitation, which is a bit of a challenge: “Come and see.”

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College, as well as Instructor in Music History and Theory.