Diocesan music workshop focuses on liturgy
DRAPER — Music and song played second fiddle as more than 50 pastoral musicians from all over the Diocese of Salt Lake City gathered on Oct. 19 for a music workshop at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Draper.
Instead, the workshop offered “a reflection on how liturgical music inspires and teaches,” according to its title.
Almost 10 years ago, the Office of Worship, with the diocesan Liturgical Music Committee, decided to present workshops and training for diocesan musicians.
“This year we took a different approach: We are focusing more on the hands-on part – how to stand, how we sing, how we breathe, … how important the liturgy is,” said Ruth Dillon, director of the Office of Worship, at the beginning of the workshop.
“Part of our job as musicians is to always keep the flow of the liturgy,” she added.
The workshop itself was presented by Christopher Huntzinger, the director of music and liturgy at St. Ambrose Parish. He also teaches music at J.E. Cosgriff Memorial Catholic School.
Huntzinger started his presentation talking about the liturgy.
“Before we can discuss how music forms us in our Church’s liturgy, we have to lay out what liturgy is and what it is supposed to do,” he explained.
“Liturgy is like grammar and like the banks of a river that guides our spiritual worship and connection to God directly to heaven,” he added.
He asked the participants to recite the first part of the Apostle’s Creed, and emphasized the word “invisible.”
“Lots of things are invisible – radio signals, TV signals … but you don’t have the signal unless you have a tool (to receive it). … From the beginning of time, humans have always channeled the divine. We know it, we sense it, we long for it,” he said.
The tool to receive the divine, to know Jesus, is the liturgy, he said.
“We try to know the one that made us. … He has told us everything we need to know. He makes himself present through the Eucharist,” Huntzinger said.
His presentation also included an explanation of salvation history, Creation, the Fall, the formation of Israel, the coming of the Messiah and the Church.
“Who are we and why we are here? To know God, to love God and to serve God and live with Him forever in heaven,” he said, quoting the Baltimore Catechism.
Musicians have the duty to tell the Church’s story, “the one and only story: that Jesus came to save us,” Huntzinger said.
He continued with the Church’s definition of love, attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas: “To will the good of the other.”
Love is sacrificial, free from all self-reference and “rooted in a desire that any and all good is bestowed upon the other,” Huntzinger said.
With that, Huntzinger explained that music is part of the liturgy and that every word that is sung matters.
“Words matter,” he said. “Words have the power to change reality. … Try and select hymns that the Church is calling for,” he said telling the musicians that they are instruments and, when they are in front of a congregation, they are modeling what the congregation is supposed to do.
“The songs are prayers,” Huntzinger said.
During the workshop, participants also had time to share their feelings and perspectives about the music and hymns that they use during Masses, and how what Huntzinger said connected with them.
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