CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 27, 2012 (Zenit.org).- After listening to a «mosaic of sound» on St. Augustine, Benedict XVI reflected that the composition shows the only way to know the saint is by keeping the whole picture of his person and teaching in sight.</p>
The Pope was honored with a concert Wednesday at Castel Gandolfo, offered by the German Diocese of Wurzburg. The performance, titled «Augustinus, a mosaic of sound,» was intended as part of an international symposium on St. Augustine, which is currently taking place at the Augustiniaum in Rome. The piece was composed by Winfried Bohm and Wilfried Hiller, and performed by the choir of the cathedral of Wurzburg.
The Holy Father gave a brief address after the concert, thanking the musicians and the representatives of the diocese.
«The title of this work on Augustine describes it as a ‘mosaic of sounds,'» the Pope noted. «Painted impressively in seven musical images, composed in turn by different voices, songs and melodies, was a portrait of St. Augustine in sounds. It is a mosaic. Some stones shine, according to how the light falls and the point of observation, but only in the whole does the image appear. This mosaic represents the greatness and complexity of Augustine the man and the theologian, which is saved from a classification and a systematization tending to evidence too much only single aspects. Thus this composition tells us that, if we really want to know Augustine, we must never lose sight, while we are occupied with the particular, of the whole of his thought, of his work and of his person.»
The Pontiff suggested that the music also showed Augustine’s timeliness. «Man’s struggle and his search for what is most intimate to him, the search for truth, the search for God remains at all times; it does not concern only a rector or teacher of grammar in the lacerations and upheavals of late antiquity, but every man in every time.»
The Holy Father praised the conclusion of the work, which presented the opening words from Augustine’s Confessions: «You are great, Lord, and very worthy of praise; great is your virtue and unfathomable your wisdom. … Those will bless the Lord who seek Him, because seeking Him they find Him, and finding Him, they praise Him.»
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Full text: www.zenit.org/article-35611?l=english
