Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem

This has been for a long time for me a favorite piece of music--Mozart at his best.  Something earthshattering.  The melancholy, the rising, the resurrection, the appeal to Jesus.  The violins.

Each note of the Requiem reverberates with me because in our house we listened to it practically daily for a year.  My mother was in a large choir and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra played for the choir performance.  She would practice her parts by playing the record over and over again.  In those days we did not have many records and we children were not allowed to touch the record player.

The pathways in my brain for the Requiem were laid down early and throroughly.  I can sing the whole thing in Latin without a book.  I did it over the cooking tonight.

The only thing--the good thing-- is that we need not pray for mercy for the dead and we need not fear and we need not be sad.

When I say the Apostle's creed I sometimes think that all is complete--only the resurrection and judgment is not.  "He will come again to judge the living and the dead."  It could be today, it could be my own quick or slow death.  We don't know how and when it will be.  But we should firmly trust and be hopeful and glad. 

When I go to communion after the creed I think, "How can I be still judged?  How can I still worry?  I am part of his body.  He cannot leave his body behind.  My sins will be covered and he will be my Savior."  It's all good.  It will not be "lacrimosa" for those in Christ.