Music

...The first was a lullaby--the most gorgeous of lullabies--an early Samuel Barber song that was recently rediscovered and recorded...

...I know that some people still hold the image of the Infant of Prague dear, but it remains difficult for me to grasp what it communicates about the mystery of Christ...

...Those critiques make sense in terms of most of the ways I had seen Christ's kingship depicted...

...But those images never appealed to me...

...I never put energy into overthrowing them...

...Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee...

...Music When I was a child ! once sat sobbing on the floor Beside my mother's piano As she played and sang For there was in her singing A shy yet solemn glory My smallness could not hold And when I was asked Why I was crying I had no words for it I only shook my head And went on crying Why is it that music At its most beautiful Opens a wound in us An ache a desolation Deep as a homesickness For some far-off And half-forgotten country I've never understood Why this is so But there's an ancient legend From the other side of the world That gives away the secret Of this mysterious sorrow For centuries on centuries We have been wandering But we were made for Paradise As deer for the forest And when music comes to us With its heavenly beauty It brings us desolation For when we hear it We half remember That lost native country We dimly remember the fields Their fragrant windswept clover The birdsongs in the orchards The wild white violets in the moss By the transparent streams And shining at the heart of it Is the longed-for beauty Of the One who waits for us Who will always wait for us In those radiant meadows Yet also came to live with us And wanders where we wander...

...Set to a poem by Alfred Noyes, "A Slumber Song of the Madonna," it surprised me by its power to draw me into a paradox that had not quite fit my own Christology: Sleep, little baby, I love thee...

...Feminist theologians have rejected kingly images of God as distant and patriarchal, misplaced at best, distorting at worst...

...Whenever I'd seen images of an infant king in the past, I was always put off a little...

...Impiously, I saw it as a comical "Jesus-as-Barbie" sort of religiosity...

...A joke I heard later: "What did Mary say when she first saw Jesus dressed as the Infant of Prague...

...You're not going out of this house dressed like that...

...It was a taken-for-granted part of my religious world, but not one to which I related...

...Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring, Mother has only a kiss for her king...

...Anne Porter I loved the whole poem, and its setting, but found special resonance in the last two lines...

...Hushaby low, Rockaby so...

...Their messages of power or prescience--in an infant, no less--showed no signs of human vulnerability...

...Only to know that I love thee, I love thee, Love thee, my little one, sleep...

...How should I know what to sing Here in my arms as I sing thee to sleep...

...Most puzzling were statues of the Infant of Prague...

...The feast of Christ the King is built on scriptural references and an interesting history, but it never oc.cupied much of my religious imagination...

...In contrast, I found these newly encountered images of Jesus to be deeply compelling, drawing me into the reality of Jesus' Passion...

...More recently I came across two other images of Christ as king that brought tellingly different responses...

...If this had remained my primary religious image of divine kingship, I'd never have been drawn to the same level of reCommonweal | 2 December 17, 1999...

...Why should my singing so make me to weep...

...Years later, traveling in Prague, I saw in a store window a large poster depicting at least a hundred regal outfits that could be purchased to dress the statue...

...The notion of kingship was not simply triumphal...

...One of them stood on my mother's dresser as long as I can remember...

...Jesus was shown to be king through his "nails and lance," "Sweat and care and cumber...