I thought this was a particularly apt song and production given the recent conversation here about Peter Damian's ecclesiology and Ponam in Deserto Via. I especially like the way the idea of "one voice" moves back and forth between singularity in plurality and multiplicity, expressing a single Spirit. (That is, sometimes "one voice" means a single voice in the midst of many, and sometimes it means many persons singing with the same Spirit.) A hermit participates in and recognizes both realities in her solitude. Others, I believe, should be able to recognize the same in her.
My first experience of community was not Church; it was orchestra. So, when I hear something like this, it reminds me of that first awesome moment when the conductor brought down her baton and all of our individual parts, parts we had learned at home and only heard alone, came together in a sound I had never imagined or guessed was possible! It was my first introduction to a hint of the reality Peter Damian describes in his Letter #28. In one way and another, whether as a violinist in orchestras, a Franciscan, a theologian reading the Scriptures or people like Peter Damian, or a solitary hermit journeying toward deeper union with God, it has always been about "surrendering to the Mystery," both transcending and enlivening our world.
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