Impressions from Sacred Music Colloquium 2018

N CATHOLIC CIRCLES we often joke that not even God Himself knows how much money the Jesuits really have, the truth of which I witnessed on parade at the beautiful Loyal University waterfront campus in Chicago, host for the CMAA’s 2018 Sacred Music Colloquium last week. I thought today I would share with readers some of my impressions of the wonderful events that took place.

Holiness and Friendship: Saints tend to come in batches, one friend encouraging another, which I found no less true for those I met at the Colloquium. Men and women, priests and religious from all backgrounds and walks of life (my roommate was a priest from Nigeria!), arrived in Chicago, but all were animated by the common goal of Heaven. All were striving for holiness, a witness so important for the world today. Pope Benedict once mentioned that Beauty, especially in the lives of the saints would convert the world, and I was both edified and encouraged by the desire for holiness I saw in so many at the colloquium. This naturally resulted in the deepening of old friendships and the creation of new, lasting friendships built on and in Christ—friendships that will endure.

Beauty and Transcendence: If the Holy Eucharist truly is the source and summit of our Catholic Faith and if all we do as Christians and as musicians comes from and returns to the God the Father, through Christ and in the Holy Spirit in the Sacred Liturgy, then our worship of almighty God is of primary and paramount importance, and so it follows that how we pray affects how we believe, and how we believe affects how we act. The beauty and solemnity in the way the priests celebrated the Holy Masses and the Divine Office spoke not only to a hermeneutic of continuity with all the Church has taught and professed throughout Her 2000 year history, but also spoke to what they themselves believed about God. I found this both inspiring and challenging.

As an aside, it always strikes me that the more we try to make the Mass understandable, the more we try to bring it down to the level of “common humanity,” the harder time I have remembering that Christ is all holy and all powerful and that He loves me with a love so  deep that He willingly endured His Passion and Death in order to open the gates of Heaven to me. The beauty and transcendence of the Sacred Liturgies at the Colloquium reminded me of just how all powerful Christ is and how much He must have loved mankind to willingly step down from His thrown, so to speak, and do what He did. When Christ is presented and worshipped as if He were a mix between Ralph Nader and Maya Angelou (I think these are Peter Kreeft’s words) prayer becomes difficult for me, but the Masses and Divine Office of the Colloquium truly flooded my soul with peace, and yet challenged me to confront my sinfulness and open myself to God’s healing and Almighty Hand.

Awe for the Workers in God’s Vineyard: I was truly edified by those who work so hard in the field of Sacred Music. I met men and women who chose to attend the Colloquium because they wanted to learn how to make this music in order to transform their parishes and they realized the task fell to them alone to make that happen. I was also surprised and edified by the number of young men and women who are entering the field of Sacred Music professionally and who desire to be supremely competent in their craft. As we know, there is often a false dichotomy presented in the Church today between the professional musician and the faithful disciple, and many participants I met were living proof that professional competency and discipleship are both possible and necessary.

Hope: I realize there is a lot of confusion in the Church today, most of it self-inflicted, and while it is easy to become discouraged, don’t despair. I see so many reasons to hope for the future. At the same time, the musicians I met realized that this hope must be grounded in a healthy acknowledgment that the survival and ultimate flourishing of the Faith in the western world is by no means assured, only possible if we continue to pray and work and spend our lives in the service of God’s Holy Will. There is a healthy dose of very potent leaven in the world today, but it is up to us to kneed the dough and and bring to fruition the bread that God desires. Of course, this is only possible if we are grounded deeply in prayer, especially in the prayer of the Sacred Liturgy.

Fun: I confess wholeheartedly to being a musical geek and that the most fun I had at the Colloquium was on the last day when a number of folks had already left and the choirs needed extra male singers to fill the choral ranks. Mass was celebrated in the Extraordinary Form for the Commemoration of St. Paul and the choirs sang Palestrina’s Missa Aeteran Christi munera. I had never sung this Mass before, which meant sight-singing with no chance of a “do-over.” Scott Turkington joined the choir to my left and Peter Carter of St. John the Baptist Latin Mass Community joined to my right and the sound was glorious! I could have done that all day.

If you have never been I strongly encourage you to do so—you won’t regret it.