Fourth Sunday of Advent – Year A Homilists and music ministers will constantly have to fight the human urge to think sequentially and impose a historical lens upon the liturgical year, treating the seasons as a diary of Jesus’s life. … Read More
Third Sunday of Advent – Year A “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” (Mt 11:3). If John the Baptist had doubts about Jesus, what hope is there for us to believe? For … Read More
Second Sunday of Advent – Year A The lectionary’s first reading and gospel pairing usually works, but not today. Isaiah’s radical “peaceable kingdom” has been so romanticized in our religious imagination that its eschatological meaning, in light of John the … Read More
First Sunday of Advent – Year A In addition to being a time to prepare for Christmas, Advent begins a new liturgical year, inviting us to reflect on the entire Christian journey of faith to its end goal. On the … Read More
Thanksgiving Day It’s fitting we close this basic instruction manual for liturgical music ministry on the day we give thanks as a nation, for giving thanks is the core of what we do as Christians. It is what celebrating the … Read More
Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe We’ve explored some basic liturgical music skills, and with consistent attention, you will master these elements. But there’s one skill that will always challenge you. That is to lead as Jesus led … Read More
33rd Sunday Ordinary Time – C One significant element in both music and liturgy is silence. In musical performance and in ritual prayer, silence is more than the absence of sound or a passive pause in action. It is the … Read More
32nd Sunday Ordinary Time – C My piano teacher taught me that getting the notes right wasn’t enough to make music. I had to keep in mind the musical “line.” Every piece typically begins with a theme, builds it to … Read More
All Saints/All Souls The Litany of Saints is not a once-a-year text, but we sometimes think it is because we encounter it most often only at the Easter Vigil. But the Litany of Saints has a rich tradition of being … Read More
31st Sunday Ordinary Time – C One way the church highlights the preeminence of the Easter season in the liturgical year is by prescribing two special sung texts called sequences to bookend the season on Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday. … Read More