The Organ - Fr. Aaron Hess

       About 2 weeks ago, I was invited to go down to the seminary in Cincinnati to attend a rare event: the blessing and dedication of a brand new pipe organ.  While in seminary, I would play organ for Mass on Mondays as well as during our Evening prayer and adoration throughout the week, so I had put a lot of time into the old instrument.  However, for various reasons, it unfortunately was not working well anymore and needed to be replaced, and so began the process of researching, funding, and building a new instrument, leading up to it’s dedication.  And it was glorious!  As the organ was blessed with incense billowing between the pipes, the organist played a joyful melody through them, and you could sense the prayers and praise of the hundreds of people there rising up and filling the surroundings like the smoke and the music did.

There is a reason that the Church says that the organ should hold a place of importance in our Catholic Churches.  Musicam Sacram, the document from Vatican II that talks about music at liturgies, states, “The pipe organ is to be held in high esteem in the Latin Church, since it is its traditional instrument, the sound of which can add a wonderful splendor to the Church's ceremonies and powerfully lift up men's minds to God and higher things.”  This doesn’t mean that other instruments are not able to be used and cannot lift people’s minds and hearts in prayer to the Lord; I personally started as a piano player for many years before learning the organ, and there are still times that I hear piano music at Mass that brings me to a true wonder and prayer.  But there are a number of reasons that we can say that the organ has a special place in the heart of the Church and in our own hearts.

First of all, the organ is not the most important instrument that we use as Christians.  That would actually be our own voices!  Our voice raised in song and prayer is the most important music that we can offer to the Lord.  The organ, though, imitates as closely as any other instrument the mechanism of the voice.  Just as air is pushed through our throat and windpipe to vibrate them and make noise, so too is air pushed through the “lungs” of a bellow in an organ to rush through the pipe, making it vibrate just so to make a note.  Another reason is that the organ can cover an enormous array of sounds and volumes.  You can hear flutes gently playing, a trumpet joyfully crying out, strings supporting a lush atmosphere while an oboe pierces through with a beautiful or haunting melody, and of course the power behind a full organ sound.  And all of this can be accomplished through the masterful work of one musician who sits behind the console.

I think this last point gives one of the best reflections on the organ being so important.  As I just layed out, there are many parts coming together to make a whole: different pipes, each individually crafted and carefully tuned for hours, each able to make a clear sound by itself.  But together, they make a magnificent sound.  So too do all of us as individuals bring our own gifts and talents, but together as a church and a community, we can bring about so much good, allowing our prayers and praise and good works to rise up like incense and fill the entire world with the glorious sounds of the Gospel message of Christ.