It is perhaps the first bit of wisdom I have gleaned from aging rather than from wit, reading, or conversation: that the particular paths of our life are not infinitely variable, and are instead closely guided and guarded by grace.

It’s a common feeling in our day that, in the breadth of the span of human life, one should be able to “do it all:” that a complete life is one in which every taste has been had, every desired experience partaken of, every vista beheld. And while the obvious error of this approach to life is its deemphasis on obedience to God’s designs for you, it also errs in its mistaken optimism regarding the infinite opportunities that life supposedly offers. There are many opportunities, sure to say, but in choosing one thing rather than another at each point we sequentially close off the many opportunities might have been in the taking of those proffered. This is a truism that should be embraced; for though to many it may seem a sad fact of limitation, it is actually a quite freeing realization.

What occasioned this more abstract discussion was a thought about music. The functionally infinite variety of music that has been composed and produced is an amazing fact. For professionals, it is a trove to be explored as widely as possible. But for most of us, the exposure we will have to the great and good works of musical art are limited by time and opportunity. Even with the ready availability of recordings of such music, we will buy and listen to this album, rather than another, on the basis of an unfathomable stream of contingencies: who we know, where we go, what is being played by our local symphony the Sunday we happen to attend.

For we who are also amateur musicians, this should occasion a secondary consideration. What a humbling and, to this musician of modest ability, almost frightening thought: that we should be the instrument, or the player, who should render a piece of great music for other people who may only hear it that one time. It is possible that, of a Sunday, the rendition of the Salve, Regina that our modest Schola sings will be the only time a visitor in the congregation will ever hear that marvelous text, or the particular chant mode in which we sing it that day. Or again, consider the organist a-practicing, alone in a grand or modest Church, when a penitent or confused modern stumbles along. His practice-time, studdering attempts to bring to life a Bach Chorale may be the backdrop that pushes the wary young man deciding whether he should kneel, giving himself over grace; or he could drive him away, never to return. Even the simple fact that that same music, the great performances of which stir my soul even in memory, maybe be rendered to another through my humble artistry is stunning.

Yet it ought not to discourage us, but to call us forward to greater trust in grace and providence. As sad as it would be to think that mine should be the only voice a particular man should hear render a great Marian or Eucharistic hymn, far sadder is the thought that the same man might pass all his years in this vale of tears without ever having the chance to hear even a poor offering of that divine music.

And returning to the abstraction in which I began, recognition of this particularity of performance should inform all of our lives. God asks that we give every moment of every day to Him, living and loving as He does. For if we may be the only instrument of mere music to reach some soul, how much more urgent that we should seize each opportunity to show Christ to the same person who fleets across our path. Let us strive to keep this thought ever before us in our prayers and our lives, so that we may each day be instruments of God’s grace.
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