George Harrison’s song “My Sweet Lord” has always “blessed me”, as the ladies in Texas say. Well, it blesses me up until poor, apostate Harrison starts caterwauling about some Hindu idiocy, about halfway through the track after the instrumental bridge. But before that, it’s an achingly beautiful and completely relatable cri de coeur to Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to see Him with the veil of friendship that we must have in this world removed. “I really want to SEE You, Lord, but it takes so long, My Lord….”
If you ever struggle with the hiddenness of God, I wrote a piece a while back explaining why it HAS to be this way – FOR NOW. The Punchline: It’s because of love, which can never, ever be coerced. Once you understand it, it makes you love Him even more, and paradoxically, it makes His presence and operation in events, both big and small, all the more obvious. And it makes His promise that what He has waiting for us in the Beatific Vision is beyond anything we can possibly imagine all the more credible, desirable and worth sacrificing everything worldly in order to achieve. And, again, paradoxically, the more you’re willing to sacrifice in the worldly sense, the better life gets. Trust me.
But back to the Quiet Beatle. What got me thinking about this was the Gradual at Mass yesterday, the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. I use DivinumOfficium.com quite a lot, and their English Douay-Rheims translations of the Latin are beautiful. Especially this:
Convértere, Dómine, aliquántulum, et deprecáre super servos tuos.
Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on Your servants!
Psalm 89: 13
Perhaps the Chiffons weren’t the only “unconscious inspiration” for “My Sweet Lord”. Who knows? The Mass goes DEEP into children. Take your children to Mass.
Here is a version of “My Sweet Lord” that a very kind Christian person has clipped so that none of the Hindu stuff comes in. Sing along, and enjoy. This is, certainly paraphrased, what my moments after receiving Sacramental Communion are similar to. Simple? Yeah. But love is, ultimately, simple. At a certain point, what is there to say? It gets simpler and simpler, and better and better, as you go.
Pray for the repose of the soul of George Harrison, a lapsed Catholic.
My sweet LORD
Mm, my LORD
Mm, my LORD
I really want to see You
Really want to be with You
Really want to see You, LORD
But it takes so long, my LORD
My sweet LORD
Mm, my LORD
Mm, my LORD
I really want to know You
I really want to go with You
Really want to show You, LORD
That it won’t take long, my LORD
(Alleluia)
My sweet Lord
(Alleluia)
My LORD
(Alleluia)
My sweet LORD
(Alleluia)
I really wanna see You
I really wanna see You
I really wanna see You, LORD
I really wanna see You, LORD
But it takes so long, my LORD
(Alleluia)
My sweet LORD
(Alleluia)
Mm, my LORD
(Alleluia)
My my my LORD
(Alleluia)
I really wanna know You
(Alleluia)
I really wanna go with You
(Alleluia)
I really wanna show You, LORD
That it won’t take long, my LORD
(Alleluia)
Mmm
(Alleluia)
My sweet LORD
(Alleluia)
My my LORD
(Alleluia)………..