We must beware of the naive idea that our music can “please” God as it would please a cultivated human hearer. That is like thinking, under the old law, that He really needed the blood of bulls and goats…

For all our offerings, whether of music or martyrdom, are like the intrinsically worthless present of a child, which a father values indeed, but values only for the intention.

from “On Church Music”

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Gender-neutral version:

We must beware of the naive idea that our music can “please” God as it would please a cultivated human hearer. That is like thinking, under the old law, that God really needed the blood of bulls and goats…

For all our offerings, whether of music or martyrdom, are like the intrinsically worthless present of a child, which a parent values indeed, but values only for the intention.

from “On Church Music”