Thought for the Month February 2026

Have you ever sung a hymn in church and realised afterwards that nothing, words or music, has made any impression? Yes, me too. I usually remain resolutely miserable whilst chanting “I’m h-a-p-p-y”, whereas the jaunty tune of “Oft in danger, oft in woe” can bring a smile into the darkest day.

This can happen on the larger scale too. I have sung in Elgar’s great oratorio “The Dream of Gerontius” three times now but was only occasionally touched by the music – most of the time was spent feverishly counting notes and rests and trying/pretending to follow the conductor.

This changed recently when I saw the film “The Choral” which came out in November, aptly about the time of Remembrance services. If you missed it then, I do urge you to look out for it when it’s next shown. It’s about a choral society in the north of England struggling at the start of the First World War to put on a performance – with many personnel going off to war, they were short of orchestral players, had no conductor, and felt they could not put on their usual Bach because he was irredeemably  – well, German. In desperation and despite misgivings they turned to the recently completed work by Elgar. And when their former leading tenor proved not up to it, they cast as Gerontius a young man who had come back wounded – an amputee, in fact – from the front. And he was terrific.

What was so moving was that Gerontius in the poem by Cardinal John Newman that Elgar set was conceived as an old man aware that his time was almost spent and preparing for imminent death.  But in the film, we were only too aware (as were the participants themselves) that all these young people too were facing this. While the first contingent of recruits might have believed they would be home by Christmas, as soon as the dread telegrams began to arrive, those following them knew the truth. And from the absolutely moving depiction of this in the film came the fellow feeling that we are all in the same position. We all face the prospect of death, which might be years in the future or might instead be waiting to bring in the new year for teenagers at some Swiss ski resort.

So the first part of the oratorio struck home in a way it has seldom done for me before. (And it will you – be prepared for tears). But what of the second? This depicts what happens to the soul after death. It is fair to say that the film rather plays this down. But I couldn’t. What strikes me about Newman’s vision of heaven and hell is how different it is from conventional views. So no Hieronymus Bosch images of Hell. Instead, we hear the demons hurling out their bile, envy and contempt. They try without cease to convince each other that they are right, but ever in vain. It reminds me very much of current social media. I am sure Hell will have the (dark) internet with infernal bloggers frustratedly churning out toxic abuse on obsolete computers riddled with viruses.

If Newman is suggesting that we already have hints of what Hell might be like in this life, the same is true about his view of Heaven. So his angels do not float seraphically past on clouds with harps practising the 23^rd Psalm for eternity: their song is a hymn we regularly sing in church, Praise to the holiest in the height, with its ritual memorial of Christ’s Passion and death. This is the mystery at the heart of our creation and redemption, the “wisest love” that is God’s “essence all-divine”. To be in heaven is to be at the heart of this mystery, this love. And when our soul is uplifted in this life, when we are taken out of ourselves by the transcendence of worship or music, when time stands still in the face of love or beauty, we have just the merest foretaste of what eternity might offer.

I’m tempted to stop there and I can’t help wondering if the Editor will want me to! But of course, both Newman and Elgar were Catholics and the oratorio has a third way… Purgatory. Purgatory, let’s face it, could do with better PR. The word is associated with pain, albeit temporary; the word “purge” unhelpfully with laxatives and Josef Stalin. Yet it does come originally from the idea of purification, of being cleansed from sin and made perfect to enter heaven. Now, I don’t know if Purgatory exists (nor do you), but I rather hope it does – for three reasons. Firstly, it provides a path for people of other faiths who live lives close to God with service and worship and love built into them to be accepted into paradise. I simply do not believe that, for example, Muslims who cannot convert to Christianity without risk to their lives are barred from heavenly bliss as a result. And many of us know Hindus and Jews whose devotion to their faith puts that of many Christians to shame.  Secondly, I like to think that our prayers for the departed might have some actual effect: if they are already marked down for heaven or hell, then such prayer becomes more about our needs than theirs. Finally, when I think of all the things I do and have done wrong in my life, and how hard I find our vicar’s regular injunction to worshippers to learn to forgive themselves, I rather like the idea of being able to face up to all my wrongdoings and atone for them all once and for all. And this idea of Purgatory, like Newman’s view of Heaven and Hell, has parallels in our present life: so, in showing respect for other faiths, in praying for those we love and those we don’t, in facing up to our shortcomings and trying to do something about them, we draw ourselves closer to God and He to us.

(Ed: other views of the afterlife are available!)

David