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Views from the Choir Loft

Chant Behind Bars

Fr. David Friel · December 1, 2013

ACK IN 2008 AND 2009, I spent a lot of time in prison. I was not an inmate, but a visitor assisting the full-time chaplain. My visits were part of my seminary’s apostolate program, designed to give us pastoral experiences of all kinds. This was one of my favorite apostolate assignments, and it was one that gave me many memories and grand stories.

Prisons are not beautiful places. In this particular facility, the walls were uniformly painted with an unremarkable shade of off-white. Long corridors bled into more long corridors, without any flourish or attempt to break up the architectural monotony. The sparse windows were narrow and filthy. The pitiful library was stocked with dusty law codes and worn dime novels. The air was stale, and it perpetually smelled of abandoned laundry. None of the common categories of art & beauty were present in this jail: painting, architecture, fashion, literature.

Except for music. With daily religious services and choir practice three times a week, the prison chapel was often filled with the melodious praise of keyboard and voices. Only a few weeks into the apostolate, I had learned all the words to Blessed Assurance and It Is Well With My Soul—the house favorites. The hymns could be heard some distance down the hall, too, which seemed somewhat to irritate the guards. Was choir practice simply an excuse to get out of the cellblock for an hour? Maybe for some, but I don’t think that was the motivation for most of the choir members. They seemed genuinely to want to praise God.

It can be hard to keep faith in a space that it so adverse to the aesthetic, so devoid of decoration, so bereft of beauty. Despite the barrenness of the place, though, there was still beauty to behold in that correctional facility. As I like to say, I met many very good people in prison. The beauty was in the inmates.

There was a strong Catholic outreach to this prison. In addition to regular visits from a priest, the prison allowed weekly visits from a few laymen from the local parish. These men were members of the Militia Immaculata, and they would lead the rosary and a Bible study every Thursday morning.

The thought never occurred to me at the time, but would it be possible to form a chant schola in prison? There was no shortage of inmates ready to join the choir. I’ll bet they would respond to the invitation to try chant. Chant is basic. Chant is universal. Chant requires nothing but a human voice. It may be the perfect music for prisoners.

The experience of beauty is rehabilitating. I believe that the converse is also true: the privation of beauty is debilitating. Shouldn’t civil authorities, then, want to inject some beauty into the otherwise sterile prison environment? If the purpose of “correctional facilities” is truly rehabilitation, what could be more rehabilitating than beautiful music?

More and more sacred musicians are promoting chant at their home parishes and cathedrals. What if we also volunteered our time to lead a primitive schola in our local prison? Doing so could serve as a grassroots way to promote chant while improving the quality of life for those so often forgotten by the outside world.

Prisons are not beautiful places. Chant, however, is beautiful no matter where it is sung. And, as Prince Myshkin observes in Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, “Beauty will save the world.” Introducing chant to prisoners might not save the whole world, but might it not save a soul or two?

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Beauty, Gregorian Chant, Propers Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at Saint Anselm Church in Northeast Philly before earning a doctorate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America. He presently serves as Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and teaches liturgy at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

    “Glory To God” • (For Choir + Congregation)
    I wish to thank everyone for the nice comments I received vis-à-vis my Glory To God setting for Choir & Congregation. A gentleman with a musical doctorate from Indiana University wrote: “Love this setting so much. And I will pray, as you asked, for your return to composition more fully. You are very very good.” A female choir director wrote: “I love your harmonizations, your musicality, and the wonderful interplay you have with dissonance and consonance in your music. So fun to listen to, and great for intellect, heart, and soul!” A young woman from California wrote: “Thank you for releasing your new Glory To God in honor of Saint Noel Chabanel. I'm enjoying reading through the various parts and listening to your recordings.”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    William Byrd • “Mass for Five Voices”
    Our volunteer choir is learning the “Sanctus” from William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices. You can hear a short excerpt (recorded last Sunday) but please ignore the sound of babies crying: Mp3 recording. We still have work to do—but we’re on the right track. Once we have some of the tuning issues fixed, I desire to use it as an example proving volunteers can sing complicated polyphony. — One of our volunteer choirs also sang that SANCTUS on 24 September 2023, and you can listen to how that came out.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Baptism” • A Unique Hymn
    Father Christopher Phillips is the founding Pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church. One of his hymns is unique and (in my humble opinion) quite beautiful. His hymn is basically a prayer to the Holy Trinity but also speaks of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. It would be an ideal Communion hymn on Trinity Sunday or the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. You can hear live recording from last Sunday by clicking here.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

The Council of Trent taught: “In this divine sacrifice which takes place at Mass, the same Christ is present and is immolated in an unbloody manner, Who once on the Cross offered Himself in a bloody manner. For the victim is one and the same, now offering through the ministry of priests, Who then offered Himself on the Cross; only the manner of offering is different” (Session XXII, cap. 2, Denzinger, n. 940).

— Pope Pius XII (2 November 1954)

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