The Rising
May 11, 2025
“O praise [God] with resounding cymbals, praise him with clashing cymbals. Let everything that lives and breathes give praise to the Lord. Alleluia!” – Psalm 150:5-6
As we continue the Jubilee Year of Hope, this weekend we celebrate the Jubilee of Musical Bands. Everyone loves music. While each person may not like every kind of music or every example of a kind of music, there is something about music that is human at its core. I think of our own “Virginia and Friends” musical group who bring the gift of music to nursing homes and homebound parishioners. When Virginia and Friends sing those “good ol’ songs” you see the joy on the faces of the sick and lonely. Her legacy continues, even two years after her passing on to her reward. That’s the power of music.
The Greek philosopher Plato wrote, “rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it . . . imparting grace, if one is rightly trained.” We each have our favorite band that brings us pleasure and helps us make sense of our life’s journey. Fr. Rick loves the Moody Blues. My mother-in-law loves the Beatles, and my wife loves Brad Paisley. Classic rock is a favorite in our office. Our new Office Assistant Rachelle loves Aerosmith, and our Office Manager Sandy loves AC/DC. My favorite band is Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.
For us as Catholics, we have a sacramental worldview where God can use the ordinary things of the earth and human life (such as water, bread, wine, oil, and music) to share his grace with us. We don’t believe music has to be explicitly “Christian” or “religious” to nourish us spiritually. For example, in our Lent Living the Eucharist small groups, we read and discussed how when we see our own “personal stories—stories of joy and sorrow, struggle and triumph, longing and hope—within the great story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, something happens . . . [we] begin to realize that the mystery of redemption is real and relevant to our own lives.” This is what Bruce Springsteen does in his song The Rising.
The song begins from the perspective of a firefighter ascending the stairs of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. “Can’t see nothin’ in front of me/Can’t see nothin’ coming up behind/Make my way through this darkness/Can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me . . . I left the house this morning/Bells ringing filled the air/Wearin’ the cross of my calling/On wheels of fire I come rollin’ down here.” Between verses we are meant to understand that the towers have collapsed, and the firefighter is carried up with all the souls of the dead. “Spirits above and behind me/Faces gone black eyes burning bright/May their precious blood forever bind me/Lord as I stand before your fiery light.” Springsteen doesn’t look away from the human reality of death and loss. This is exactly what we do when we commemorate Good Friday and contemplate the Cross of Jesus and the divine love and human sin that put him there.
The song continues with strong biblical resonances, “I see you Mary in the garden/In the garden of a thousand sighs.” We think of Mary Magdalen at the tomb of Jesus. We know that death does not have the final victory. Jesus will be raised on Easter Sunday morning. “May I feel your arms around me/May I feel your blood mix with mine/A dream of life comes to me . . . C’mon up for the rising!” While the line “a dream of life” is almost chanted, the song concludes with a collage of images of suggesting death and resurrection, grief and joy. “Sky of blackness and sorrow/Sky of love, sky of tears/Sky of glory and sadness/Sky of mercy, sky of fear/Sky of memory and shadow/Sky of longing and emptiness/Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life . . . C’mon up for the rising!”
While not an explicitly Christian song, The Rising is so pregnant with spiritual meaning, connecting the mystery death and resurrection to the national loss and awe for those who sacrificed everything we all felt on September 11. It wasn’t a call to arms to attack those who attacked us, an “uprising”, but an invitation to contemplate the meaning of this tragedy in light of Cross, sacrificial love, mourning, and Resurrection. This Easter Season, may we also find the ultimate meaning of our losses and our triumphs, our grief and our hope in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
“May your strength give us strength/May your faith give us faith/May your hope give us hope/May your love give us love.” —Bruce Springsteen, Into the Fire
This Sunday is also Mother’s Day. We salute and give thanks for the mothers who showed us and taught us faith, hope, and the strength of love. What is at the heart of being a mother, grandmother, godmother, or maternal figure? I think it may have to do with the willingness to connect their dyings and risings with the dyings and risings of their children. As Megan Smillie, a college classmate of mine has blogged, “we cook and clean, we kiss hurts, both real and imagined, we instruct and admonish, and give and give until we think we may fall apart. And we absolutely do fall apart, only to get up and give some more.” This kind of hidden sacrificial love is truly a reflection of God’s unconditional love for us.
We also recognize that today can be an emotionally fraught day for those who have lost a mother or mothers who have lost a child, those who would like to become mothers and have not, those who have been hurt by their mothers or who have hurt their mothers, mothers and children who are estranged, et.al. For all of us, we especially remember in this month of May that on his Cross, Jesus gave us the gift of his mother Mary to be our mother. May we all turn in trust to her maternal heart this Mother’s Day and always.