Blessed John Henry Newman on Music

 Is it possible that that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound, which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? It is not so; it cannot be. No, they have escaped from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our Home; they are the voice of Angels, or the Magnificat of Saints, or the living laws of Divine Governance, or the Divine Attributes; something are they besides themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter,--though mortal man, and he perhaps not otherwise distinguished above his fellows, has the gift of eliciting them.

Oxford University Sermons, 1826-1843

I found this quote in The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet, by Thomas Dubay, S. M.. Fr. Dubay says that, "Melody and harmony lie at the border of the material and immaterial," which I was glad to read because I have always thought that music is the closest thing to spirit that we can experience with our senses.

AMDG