CV NEWS FEED // Liturgical music might be at a positive “turning point” for the Church in the United States, according to an expert Catholic musician who directed the choir for two of the Masses at the National Eucharistic Congress this July.
Adam Bartlett, founder and CEO of “Source & Summit,” wrote in an August 20 “What We Need Now” Substack article that the Congress placed “a distinct emphasis on the transcendent” to help rekindle Catholics’ devotion to Jesus Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist and to orient Catholics’ attention to the invitation to participate in the Divine life of Christ.
He shared that upon reflecting on the music, both liturgical and non-liturgical, at the Congress, he has “come to believe that it may serve as something of a turning point for liturgical music in the US….”
The Congress’ music was oriented toward the supernatural, which is a contrast to the approach to liturgical music in recent years, according to Bartlett.
“For several decades, however, Catholic music has had the tendency to reduce the supernatural to the natural, especially in the context of the liturgy,” Bartlett wrote:
In practice, this has meant the celebration and display of the diversity of worldly cultures, singing songs about ourselves rather than about God, salvation, and redemption, and the desacralization of music both in the liturgy and in whatever has remained of the devotional life.
The music at the Congress, wrote Bartlett, “took a decidedly different approach.”
The music at the Congress ranged depending on if it was for Adoration, devotional prayer, or Mass, Bartlett explained, noting that as the music became more closely related to the Mass, “its character became more elevated and sacred, leading us gradually up the mountainside from what is more familiar to the ineffable mystery that lies above in the liturgy of the heavenly Jerusalem.”
When Catholic music was played and sung during a non-liturgical part of the Congress, such as the evening Revival Sessions, Bartlett pointed out that there was a variety of styles and languages used, including chant, contemporary music, and hymns. The same three traditional songs were sung at Exposition and Benediction every evening, providing an opportunity for everyone to sing together.
There were several takeaways from the music at the Congress, one of them being that at parishes, the Mass should be sung, Bartlett wrote. Another is that liturgical music “should be distinctly set apart from” non-liturgical Catholic music that is used, for example, for evangelization or other purposes.
Bartlett noted that the Congress was part of the U.S. Bishops’ response to address the lack of belief in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and declining Mass attendance, among other issues, “[a]nd the techniques being employed in this strategy represent a clear and necessary break with the status quo.”
Emphasizing the importance of Catholic music being oriented towards the supernatural, he later wrote, “An encounter with the transcendent mystery of God should be the ultimate goal toward which all Catholic music should direct us.”
Bartlett has previously served as an adjunct faculty member for the Augustine Institute and faculty member for the Liturgical Institute and Mundelein Seminary of the University of St. Mary of the Lake.
