(2 minutes, 19 seconds)

I first heard classical music in Music Appreciation 101 at UW-La Crosse. From the first mesmerizing notes of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, I was smitten and decided that whenever Prince Charming came along and we got married, I had to walk down the aisle to it on my wedding day! (I did!)

I don’t know how a person can reach 18 years old without being exposed to the wonders of Mozart, Bach, or Handel, but I did. Thankfully, during my first year in college, the windows to my soul were opened to the marvel and thrill of classical music.

I love how God bridges centuries through music. Earlier this year, he bridged over 230 years between Mozart’s final gift of words in his Requiem in 1791 and my heart in the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in 2025.

I had to look up what a requiem is. It’s a Roman Catholic mass for the dead.

As a Catholic, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have attended many requiems—church services for the peaceful repose of the dead. This traditional funeral rite asks an all-powerful God to accept a human soul into heaven. The Requiem in D minor was Mozart’s final work. He died at the age of 35 before completing it.

After Mozart’s death on December 5, 1791, his widow, Constanze, claimed that throughout Mozart’s last painful days, he believed he was writing the Requiem for his own funeral. Eventually, this extraordinary piece of music had to be completed by his close friend and fellow composer, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who was Mozart’s student and had assisted him in the final months of his life.

My two friends sitting next to me at the Mozart concert were moved to tears at the onset of the stunning performance. Thankfully, though it was being sung in Latin, the words were translated into English in our programs. I followed along, smitten by the sound but wooed by the words through all eleven sections of this phenomenal piece.

As a dying man in his last days, Mozart poured his heart and the finality of his gift for music and words onto staff paper. He must have known this was his last work. These were to be his final written words.

Moved more deeply as the concert continued, I inhaled the beauty of sight and sound. At several junctures, I found myself holding my breath, not wanting to exhale as I lingered over the richness and depth of the meaning unfolding before me. This Requiem—these words from the pen of a music master about to meet his Master—was drenched in reverence, worship, and a recalling of God’s faithfulness and works for mankind.

Minutes before the composition would end, the final two phrases of the entire piece are where the weight of this glorious opus rests. Mozart’s conclusion to his Requiem—the only answer to “why” anyone can ask an all-powerful God to accept a human soul into heaven—was recorded there 230 years ago.

The very reason Mozart and you and I can make our appeals to God, the reason we can approach God and His throne of endless glory in the first place? The answer is the last thing Mozart wrote in this song, before he penned “Amen, Alleluia”. It was this:

“because You are merciful”

Now it was my turn to cry.

I’m not sure if that falls on you the same way it does me. I’ve recently been meditating a great deal on the mercy of God. My husband and I have been making some bold and persistent requests at the feet of Jesus lately—appeals to the Almighty, the One who is merciful. We’ve been doing the laborious work of interceding on behalf of those we love most. Why do we do this consistently? Even more specifically, why do we have confident hope that He hears and that His perfect will will be done?

Because He is merciful.

Exodus 34:6 has become tremendously dear to me, where God is so kind to tell us this about Himself:

“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”