SONG AND CHANT

GUINE CHRISTIAN

During my senior year in high school, I faced a difficult question: whether to study music or theology in college. Pursuing a music career seemed self-evident from early childhood when, as a toddler, I would hold court on the arm of the living room sofa and make my extended family sing with me. One of the defining moments of my decision process was a retreat where Sister Ann Shields prayed with me about this choice. She said, “You may not think this is a real answer, the Lord says you will sing for Him”. Little did I know her words would gain such great depth in the years to come.

I did study catechetics and theology in college, and have spent more than ten years in ministry of one kind or another, but now serve mainly in the area of music, as most Resurrection parishioners know. In 2018, I was given the opportunity to deepen my understanding of the Church’s musical heritage by attending a five-day chant workshop at St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. Until that point, I’d thought of chant as mostly outdated, elitist, even torturingly boring – but now I see it as timeless, singular, and rich with meaning. My experience deepened both my desire to see chant take “pride of place” in liturgy (as the Second Vatican Council called for) and my determination not to pit it against other forms of music. Like so many things, Catholics can approach different kinds of music with a “both/and” mentality, and it is my tremendous privilege as a church musician to belong to a parish which encourages this.

I’d thought of chant as mostly outdated, elitist, even torturingly boring – but now I see it as timeless, singular, and rich with meaning.

When I returned from “chant camp” (as the workshop is affectionately called) I was inspired to start a chant podcast. "Take a Chants on Me" drops weekly episodes averaging fifteen minutes in length; each episode considers one chant, “proper” to either an upcoming Sunday Mass or upcoming feast day. You hear a recording of the chant, a translation of the Latin, learn a bitesize amount about the music, reflect on applying that text to one’s faith life or an idea for deepening our ‘liturgical living’ at home. It always closes with a segment called ‘The Sunday Playlist’, featuring music spanning a variety of genres, whose themes or lyrics match the given chant’s scriptural foundation.

More than ever, the Lord has called me to labor in his vineyard as a musician: to “sing for Him” and to build musical bridges within the Church. Brothers and sisters, let us never lose the ideal of music that is true, good, and beautiful - whatever the genre.

Are you nterested in Take a Chants on Me? You can listen now at soundcloud. com/chantpodcast or for updates visit facebook. com/chantpodcast.