by The Most Reverend Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham

The Institute is grateful to the Archbishop for his permission to publish the homily he delivered at concluding mass of the Institute’s study day on the 28th February, 2015, and for his continued patronage of the Institute.

As we begin the second week of Lent we are already well into our annual pilgrimage through this penitential season towards the joy of Easter.  Yet we are still in the early days of lent, perhaps prone to discouragement that there are still five demanding weeks ahead.  So the Church offers us undeniably encouraging readings with a message that God’s promised blessings will be showered on us too if we continue to trust his words as Abraham did.

The Book of Genesis shows the immediacy of God’s presence to Abraham, making his will known and drawing out of Abraham a response of utter trust in the midst of impending tragedy.  It also foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus himself – God the father’s generous gift of his own Son’s life, mirrored in the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his beloved Son Isaac.

This is my Son, the Beloved.  Listen to him.  St Mark’s Gospel echoes the events of the Baptism of Christ, at the outset of his public ministry.  Now, facing opposition and the threat of death, our Lord’s mission is confirmed by the heavenly Father through this moment of Transfiguration.  The outward appearance of Christ is changed and he is seen as if in heaven with Elijah and Moses, three of the descendants promised to Abraham:  I will make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore

Today you have been reflecting on the transfiguring effect of music in the liturgy, enhancing and drawing out the meaning of the scriptures and enriching the prayers that guide us through our celebration of the sacraments.  Your music leads you into a deeper appreciation of the things of faith and into a profounder experience of the Lord in your prayer during this season of Lent.

Music plays a major part in everybody’s life, yet its significance is not always understood.  It is a highly charged language, conveying many diverse messages in our public and private lives.

Church music is no exception. It speaks to us in many different ways and circumstances. Church music is not always well known or appreciated in its proper context.  Often enough we may hear it in the concert hall or even in church, yet not necessarily in the context in which it was intended to be used – as an integral part of the worship of God.  In these days when recorded music is so easily obtained, church music is sometimes seen as just one of many kinds available to the consumer.  Yet church music also speaks to us of a world beyond that in which we live, or where we work and rest.

Fr Guy Nicholls and Wilf Jones would probably remind us that one of the original purposes of chant was simply to enable the voice to carry across the challenging acoustics of churches and sanctuaries.  The Gospel and Scripture readings can still be chanted today, though they are usually amplified just like the spoken word through the public address system that serves every church building.  Before amplification was available liturgical spaces and places for proclaiming the Word of God had to be provided so that the human voice would carry and sometimes be projected by a tester overhead.  Chant enables the voice to carry further.

Music probably played a functional role in communicating texts audibly and with greater clarity to the congregation.  But it did much more than that.  Music also regulates the collective participation of many people in prayer.  It enables people to respond in chorus.  Within the Catholic tradition liturgical music has not been solely for the ordained minister, for the single or solo voice.  Some of the oldest liturgical texts take the form of a dialogue where the minister exclaims and the congregation responds.

Communal singing lies deep within the Christian experience and it gives musical expression to a theological reality that is otherwise difficult to express or to experience.  That reality is what St Paul calls koinonia and we translate as communion or fellowship.  Christians believe that we are baptised into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that we are thereby held in bonds of faith, hope and love with the Blessed Trinity and with all the other baptised.

When we sing together liturgically we believe that our voices are united to the voice of Christ and that we make our offering together with his to his Father and ours in heaven, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Since the introduction of the new translation of the Missal, the English-speaking Catholic Church is seeking to rediscover her musical heritage.  Plainsong or Gregorian chant is not just an artistic treasure, but it is an integral part of her liturgy.  It is ironic that, in recent years, plainchant has been heard more often in the concert hall than in churches, and in churches more often as background music than in the liturgy.

Now it is being revived and sung in the liturgy in many places and I am grateful to the Blessed John Henry Newman Institute for Liturgical Music for encouraging and facilitating this development.  Many people have a thirst for liturgical music that has stood the test of time – that does not belong exclusively to our own age or indeed to this world.

In this Mass we thank God for the gift of such music that transfigures our experience of this world and points us towards our true destiny, transcending the world and helping us, through his beloved Son our Saviour, to find God.

Bernard Longley is archbishop of Birmingham and took a leading role in organising the beatification ceremony of John Henry Newman. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and New College, Oxford and is a member of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation. He has been patron of the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music since its inception in his archdiocese in 2011.