Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: So, as many of you know and could see, I enjoy singing in the Knox choir on occasion. I especially love Knox's choir director.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: I think she's pretty awesome.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: But I'll tell you a secret. And I speak not only as one who has sung in this and other church choirs, but also as one who's been in pastoral leadership for decades.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Church choirs can pose immense challenges.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: No, it's true, they can. And I'm not just referring to the fact that they can be a most unruly bunch. And I'm of course referring to the base section in particular.
It is miraculous that we tenors so graciously and patiently put up with the bases and their shenanigans, but we do.
But there are a host of other problems that church choirs can pose.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Let me give you just one example.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: The year was 1879, and the Sisters of Loretto in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had a problem. And the problem was with, yes, the choir.
These nuns were running a school called the Loretto Academy for Girls, shown here. And things had been going so well for that school. Just the year before, 1870, 1878, a beautiful new chapel had been built on the school's campus. The chapel was designed by a pair of French architects, Antoine and Proyectos Muli, with the son Proyectus Mulli taking the lead. The younger Mouly was inspired for his design by this building, the San Japelle in Paris.
That Gothic cathedral was built back in the 13th century. Seven centuries later, Mouly went with a Gothic Revival style to bring a sense of the Zan Chapelle to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Here's the chapel Muhli design that still stands to this day in Santa Fe. It was officially consecrated in 1878, and it was built right next to the school so students and faculty alike could go right next door to worship.
Here's a drawing of the academy, and next to it, the chapel. And next to that, the housing for the Sisters of Loretto who taught at the school.
But a year later, 1879, a glaring omission in the building's construction still needed to be addressed.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: And the problem was seating area for the choir.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Now, today and for much of the last century, if you're going to build a sanctuary with a special area for the choir to sit, you'll often have them seated up front. Front or up front, over to the left where our choir is sitting this evening. This sanctuary was designed by an architect named Culver Heaton. He completed the work. This building was constructed and you know, the first time it was ever entered.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: For worship was on Christmas Eve 1961.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: He had it designed so the choir would be up front to the left and just a little bit elevated so.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: You could see and hear them.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Well, back in the late 19th century, it was popular to have the choir seating area not up front or up front to the left, but rather in the back, high up in a loft. It was placed in the back of the sanctuary, like this one in the Chapel of Carmel of St. Teresa of.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Lissois in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: And here is a choir singing from such a rear loft during a worship service at St Patrick's Cathedral in New City. That cathedral was built around the same time as the one in Loreto. The thought was if you had the choir placed high up and in back, worshipers would hear these angelic voices, especially those of the tenor section coming down from on high. And the fact that you couldn't see them, but they seem to be coming down from above, it might call to your mind a choir of angels like.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Those that greeted the shepherds announcing the birth Jesus.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: But here's the problem that faced the nuns of Loretto, New Mexico, back in 1879. In that beautiful chapel completed just one year earlier, there was a choir loft in the back of the sanctuary. It was more than 20ft above the ground floor, but there was no staircase allowing the choir to get to or from that loft.
In the chapel in Loretto, Pennsylvania, there is this staircase allowing choir members to reach the loft. But in 1879, no such staircase existed in the chapel in Loreto, New Mexico.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: And these nuns were surely thinking, lord.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Have mercy, if we ask the choir to ascend and descend a ladder, a 20 foot ladder, each time we worship, they would complain to no end. And I know the base section would be leading the complaints.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: There had to be some solution, the nuns thought.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: And so they did what Christians through.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: History have often done when they placed a vexing problem.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: After seeking out builders and having the builders come to take a look at the space, these builders would tell them time after time, you know, you can't build a staircase in this sanctuary without having to remove a whole host of pews, otherwise you won't have a large enough base. And that removal of so many pews.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: It would just ruin the chapel. So the nuns decided to pray.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: For nine days they prayed, and they would tell this story that on the ninth day.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: A construction person, a builder, a carpenter, mysteriously appeared.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: He came with the most simple of tools, a hammer and a carpenter's square. And he seemed to have wood with him that came from some far off place. He refused payment and he set to work.
And when he was finished, he left without ever giving his name.
And then, when the nuns entered the.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Sanctuary for the first time, they beheld a marvel.
A marvel.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: The staircase had two complete 360 degree turns, but no central pole nor any structural support on the sides. The entire weight of the staircase rested on the bottom stair.
It looked as if the supports were invisible or as if the staircase were held up by heaven itself.
It was built from a rare wood not native to the American Southwest.
It had precisely 33 steps, which the nuns say one step for every year.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: In the Savior's life.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: It was built without nails, just simple wooden pegs. And it rises more than 20ft into the air.
Well, originally there were no banisters, but those were added some 10 years later, probably because choir members complained about safety concerns.
In this choir, you'll note there are no male voices, but had there been, I'm sure the bass section would have been leading that chorus of complainers.
So banisters were added.
Today, carpenters visit the Loretto Chapel and they tell of how mind boggling it is to think of a staircase like this, constructed with crude hand tools and no electricity, simply working out the arithmetic of the two turn spiral resting on a single bottom stair with no side supports originally is a marvel.
Visitors from all over the world today will travel to visit this chapel in Santa Fe and see firsthand the miraculous staircase.
It's been featured in television shows like Unsolved Mysteries and the Unexplained.
The sisters later referred to that mysterious.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Builder who constructed the staircase as Joseph.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: After all, Mary's husband Joseph was a.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Carpenter whom God did something wondrous.
A staircase between the earth and the heavens.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: A staircase that seemed to arrive by mystery miracle. A staircase that brought the stuff of heaven and earth together. It calls to mind another even more wondrous story.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Doesn't recalls the story of this night.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Each Christmas Eve we gather in this sanctuary and by candlelight we contemplate a mystery and miracle. We recall how the barrier between heaven and earth, the boundary between God and humanity, was mysteriously and wondrously broke by.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: A child born in Bethlehem.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: In Genesis, we read of how Jacob once dreamed of a ladder between earth and heaven on which angels ascended and descended. That dream of Jacob became a reality.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: When Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Now, I'll be honest.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: There are some days, some years, like.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: 2025, when I wish this ladder, this staircase brought to us by our Lord's birth I wish it offered us some.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Way up and out of the travails of our time.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: This last year in particular, I often.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Wished God would send a miraculous staircase I could ascend up and out of the loss, the heartbreak, the grief following events like the Eton and Palisades fire.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: How often I wished God might send such a staircase, not just to me, but to others who might have lost a home, business or a loved one, to those struck by some debilitating disease, or who lost a job, or who live in an area ravaged by war, or whose community has suffered from gun violence, or those racks by demons of mental illness, or those who just feel the travails of this life are too much.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: But that's not the miraculous staircase about which the angels sang.
Some pathway up to heaven, up and out of the trials of life.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Now such an ascent is promised one day, to be sure. It's a promise sealed in our Lord's resurrection, a promise of new birth, a promise of a dwelling place Jesus has prepared, prepared for those he loves.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: But in the meantime, in our time, the miraculous staircase we cling to tonight.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: The ladder linking earth and heaven, is this in Christ. The glories of heaven came down to.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Be with us here, right here on the ground floor of earth.
The love of the God of the.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Heavens came down here to be with us in our trials and travails, our.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Joys and our loves.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: In the Gospel of Matthew, this miraculous staircase is summed up in a single word.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Emmanuel, God with us.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: In Luke's Gospel, this miraculous staircase was announced by an angelic choir to some shepherds, keeping watch over their flock by night. To you is born this day in the city of David.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: In John's Gospel, this staircase is evoked with phrases like this.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: The word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
In Mark's Gospel, the staircase is brought.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: To our imagination in the very first sentence.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: This is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Long lay the world in sin and error, pining till he appeared.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: That miraculous staircase appeared in our world.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: And who should descend but the very Son of the living God and the soul felt its worth.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.
