From the holy throng<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Who raised their glorious song<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Over Bethlehem.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As I grew\nolder and started school, I began to learn more about angels, like my guardian\nangel, along with archangels Gabriel and Michael, and the angels over Bethlehem\nwho raised their \u201cGloria\u201d on Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hark! His name reminds us<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Of that blessed morn<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Jesus Christ was born,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Savior of the world.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n As my adult\nlife as a music director got underway, and after some theological\/scriptural\neducation, I noted something of a curious aversion in the Sunday Lectionary<\/em> to the angels and trumpets of\nthe end-times. The Lectionary, <\/em>for\nexample, skips 1 Corinthians 51\u201352:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not sleep, but we shall be changed in a mere instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later on\nthis liturgical year, as we come to the conclusion of Matthew\u2019s gospel, we will\nnot hear Jesus speak about the end-time angels and their trumpet:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “And the Son of Man will send forth angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together the elect from the four winds, and from one end of the sky to the other,” (Matthew 24:31).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harold has a trumpet<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For a future time,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A morning made sublime<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With eternal light.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Likewise, the trumpet of 1\nThessalonians 4:16 can be skipped by using a shorter option of the reading\n(though the \u201clonger\u201d reading is only five verses). Sadly, the trumpet-playing\nangels of Revelation 8 never appear at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As much as I\u2019ve wondered why\nthis phenomenon occurs, I doubt that there was some active anti-trumpet lobby\nbehind the Lectionary<\/em>. Perhaps it\u2019s the\nliteral, Bible-as-textbook approach to scripture of our modern era, in which\nthe colorful, dramatic imagery characteristic of so much scriptural language\ngets downplayed. As someone who has always enjoyed this kind of language\u2014and\ndabbles in poetry\u2014its omission from our Sunday readings often strikes me as unnecessary,\nand a bit regrettable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Practicing with passion<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is his way to pray,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Until that splendid day<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christ will come again!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Given my backstory, when it\ncame time for the trumpet to appear in St.\nCecilia\u2019s Orchestra<\/em>, of course it had to be played by an angel named Harold.\nWorking on his poem helped me reflect on the end-of-time aspect of Advent and\nits relationship to the Christmas story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That relationship has\npuzzled a few people. They have asked me how an angel who sang \u201cGloria\u201d over\nBethlehem could also sound the trumpet at the end of time. I think these folks\nare products of that literal, compartmentalizing approach to scripture. We\nthink of Christmas as joyous; the end of time as terrifying. We gloss over the\nangel telling the shepherds not to be afraid. We forget that when Jesus teaches\nhis followers about the end times, he tells them to be confident and joyful at\nhis return. Why not be as joyous at the return of Christ in glory as on the day\nof his glorious birth? Why shouldn\u2019t an angel who sang at Bethlehem play the\ntrumpet on that last day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We, like angel Harold,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Always must prepare<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For that trumpet\u2019s blare<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sounding heaven\u2019s call.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re thoroughly comfortable\nwith Christmas and its annual return and rituals, but not so much with the\nopen-ended, unknown nature of the end of time. For this reason, Angel Harold\u2019s\npoem is open-ended, its rhyme scheme (ABBC) placing the rhyming couplet in the\ncenter, with the final line remaining open\u2014as our hearts and lives must be to\nthe unknown day of Christ\u2019s return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, we can look to Angel Harold for our example. Like him, we are herald messengers of joyful Good News. Taking our cue from him, we must daily practice and let the message of the gospel sound forth. When that last trumpet will sound, we do not know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Image: \u201cTrumpet\u201d by Michael O\u2019Neill McGrath. Poem: \u201cHarold Is an Angel\u201d by Alan Hommerding. From St. Cecilia\u2019s Orchestra,<\/em> copyright \u00a9 2010, World Library Publications. All rights reserved. Used with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was very little, I truly thought that \u201cHarold\u201d was an angel\u2019s name, and that the man who owned and ran Harold\u2019s Grocery down the block from our house was lucky to have an angel\u2019s name for his store. (I also thought there was another angel named \u201cLow.\u201d Clearly I was not some sort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":50380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3118],"tags":[464,1803,3380],"class_list":["post-50378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-celebrandi-new-ws","tag-advent","tag-angels","tag-gospel"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Trumpet-1-271x400.jpg\")
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