“Jesu! Jesu!” Thrilling a Crowd at Air and Space Museum

Around here, Deacon Greg Kandra is usually a sucker for flash mob videos — I’ve been over them for a while, because I have a very short attention span; this one, however, got to me.

It happened two days ago, at the National Air and Space Museum, where 120 members of the US Air Force Band, under the baton of Col. Larry H. Lang, flash-mobbed a mesmerized crowd:

I love this because amid moonrocks and spaceships and the Spirit of St. Louis, 21st Century people of various ages, interests, opinions and ideas were pulled together from the opening cello notes of an 18th century cantana:

Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,
Holy wisdom, love most bright;
Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring
Soar to uncreated light.

Word of God, our flesh that fashioned,
With the fire of life impassioned,
Striving still to truth unknown,
Soaring, dying round Thy throne.

What could be more fitting in that space, dedicated to our explorations of the heavens? And watch the people as they take it in — the music, the voices — the surprise lead-in to Joy to the World! Jesu! Jesu!

And Heaven and Nature Sing!

It’s six minutes of humanity brought together in wonder, and it is wonderful.

Our nation is a mess of warring factions and the perpetually distracted, and yet there was no warring, here; distractions were forgotten. But perhaps beauty can save us, after all.