The texts fall short, as all words must. 

Sure-footed in the Inferno, eloquent in Purgatorio, even Dante stumbles often inarticulate through Paradiso.

Faure’s Requiem text, echoing the strains of the highest Christian hopes, can feel somehow unreal. But not so his music. Into a realm unimaginable Faure’ ventures, rising major harmonies, falling minor phrases. If not the music of the spheres itself, close enough to lift a human heart. No triumphal march, but the searing pure light of love sweeping swelling holding us close. Perfect. 

When we try to visualize heavenly realms whatever the religious tradition — whether with words or images — we are bound to fail. Like an Easter-egg-minded preacher whistling white-shoed past the graveyard, we gloss over, shellac, apply fine veneer to hide the worn cliches of a tired faith.

Better with Dante to lose our sight with every burst of infinite love than visually to prattle on or blast fake sun rays from fluffy white clouds.

Much better, with Faure’s “In Paradisum,” to admit our limitations, throw Google Translator out the window, forget our High School Latin and embrace the syllables purely sung without the detriment of our prejudices and jaundiced hopes, our word-screen to trap what remains wild, beyond our cognitive control. 

Dante’s beloved Beatrice warned the poet as he set foot in Paradise: “You dull your own perceptions with false imaginings and do not grasp what would be clear but for your own preconceptions.”