Musical Mystery in the Sacramental Journey II: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Excerpt: Heaven Starts on Earth: Grace Heaven starts on earth. Heaven starts on earth because of grace, and this is because grace is a veritable created participation in the very life, love, and knowledge of the Trinity. And since the Trinity's dwelling place is heaven, by sanctifying grace, we get a taste of heaven! It is therefore arguable that if we even get some such grace, we will experience heaven. But alas, where do we get the best grace? STUDENT: I got it! The Sacraments! Hence, whichever sacrament gets us in the door is the one thing necessary to get us a taste of heaven. TUTOR: You got it! And which one do you think that is? STUDENT:Of course, this is Baptism!. This also makes sense because Baptism is the only sacrament necessary for salvation. And yet Baptism is not isolated. It is mystically caught up in the whole sacramental economy. How will this apply? TUTOR: Good question. What about this: what if the sacraments had a musical analogy that could build on this heaven thing. Guess what? There is! Don’t believe me? Come and see. STUDENT: Ok, this sounds kewl. Hit me! TUTOR: Firstly, let us recall in more detail our sacramental scale: descending joy. For the simplest piano analogy, this is CBAGFEDCB, or C descending down to the octave C, pure note by pure note. Also, we recall that C is the most illustrative key on the piano because the pure notes are the white keys, and the sharps and flats are the black keys. Here it is in the numbers, noting that there are nine steps instead of seven since, besides the seven sacraments, two steps fill out our life at either end: birth and death. 1 Natural birth 2 Baptism 3 Confession 4. Eucharist 5. Confirmation 6. Marriage 7 Holy Orders 8. Anointing 9. Death STUDENT: I remember this well, thank you! What now? We were discussing is the absolute minimum step In life to get a taste of heaven. TUTOR: Yes, we have that baptism is the necessary sacrament to get us into heaven. BUT, in our musical scale of the sacraments above, Baptism is not the first note. Not the first note, you say?! How can that be?! Because, mon frere, one has to be born NATURALLY before one is born SUPERNATURALLY. Hence, natural birth is the first note, and therefore also the first note before baptism. STUDENT: Aha, I get it. Hence, of the notes in our scale, not merely Baptism, or note 2, is needed for salvation, but also the first note, 1, or natural birth. TUTOR: Yes, this puts the scale in context. From here, we can ask that if natural and supernatural birth give a minimum participation in heaven, is it possible that there is a full theology of all sacramental steps that will be in heaven, and no more, at least in principle. STUDENT: That is a great question. Is there a solution? TUTOR: Yes, and it is common sense: if these two sacramental steps, or notes, [natural birth and baptism, or notes 1 and 2] reveal the minimal conditions of getting a taste of heaven, then the full musical implications of these notes should reveal every sacramental sign or activity that will remain in heaven, either literally, or in principle. STUDENT: Ok, great, but how? That is, what you mean by full musical implications of these notes? TUTOR: Excellent! It means this: the full musical implications of these notes is attained by taking the complete base chords of the roots. Why? Because the base and complete chord of a note clearly indicates the full musical implications of the note. And actually, we will see that this music perfectly shows the theology. STUDENT: That makes perfect sense! I cannot wait to see this. And let me guess: the full chords are just from common sense music theory. TUTOR: You are absolutely right. And toward that end, what do you think the two chords are? STUDENT: Yes, clearly, the base key major chord is just Cmaj, since we are in key of C. or Dmaj if in key of D, and so forth. As for the next chord, we have the full chord of B in key of C. This is a little technical. We do not take the chord of 2 in ascension but in descent. For, if it were 2 in ascent, it would be Dm. In this case, because we are descending, B is actually 7 in the regular ascent scale. And In the major scale of ascent for a base key, the 7 is diminished. Hence, for key of C, B is Bdim. TUTOR: Right on. Can you work out the particular notes? STUDENT: Sure. We all know that the major chord for a base key is 1 3 5, where five is the fifth, and 3 is the third, major version. Hence, for C, this is C E G. However, since we are descending, G occurs first, and then E, or CGE. TUTOR: Good, and Bdim? STUDENT: Yes, with similar argumentation, B dim is B D F, or again, because of descent, B F D. TUTOR: I will ignore the acronym, as this site is rated PG. STUDENT: Same here, I won’t tell a soul if you won’t. TUTOR: Is that the Bangles? STUDENT: No, that is 10 years late. It is the Go-Go’s. TUTOR: Ok, fine, so let us move on from the eighties. STUDENT: Sure, and I w ill rush us out of the cheese syndrome. The chords reveal these notes: CGE [Cmaj] Derivatively, this is, in sacramental steps: 1. Natural birth, 4. Eucharist, 6. Marriage Similarly forBdim [BFD (big, oops, sorry)], or in sacramental steps, this is: 2 Baptism 5. Confirmation 7 Holy Orders So, presumably, these should be the six sacramental dimensions that will be in heaven either literally or in principle. TUTOR: Amazingly, they are! I will start us out! No Eternal Mark, but Eternal Activity Let us begin with the natural life sacraments: Firstly, obviously, our natural existence will be in heaven forever, elevated. Next, the literal Eucharist will not be in heaven, but communion will be; we will have communion at the table of heaven with our brothers and sisters; knowing one another, our lives, our love, sharing what has happened, our gifts; also, the sabbath; the Eucharist is supremely celebrated on the NewSabbath of our time. Heaven is the Eternal Sabbath, the New Creation. Next, we know that literal Marriage will cease, but figuratively, we will all corporately be married to to Jesus, the Wedding Feast of the Lamb and His Bride. Jesus will "penetrate our inmost being" with His truth, mystery and love, and we will receive it into our souls, conceive it, and offer ourselves back to Him in eternal spiritual ecstasy. This completes the first chord, or Cmaj. Now for the second, Bdim: 2 Baptism 5. Confirmation 7 Holy Orders No Eternal Activity but an Eternal Mark With these sacraments, there is something to note here: the activity of the sacrament does not persist, but the indelible mark does. We can show this by walking through these sacraments. http://www.catholic365.com/article/...tal-journey-ii-heaven-purgatory-and-hell.html
