I would like to share to you a part of an entry from Godzdogz about the significance of music in preaching, with a title “Preaching through the Beauty of Music“. I really love this part that I am going to quote since it is so, so true. Read on, I know you’ll agree with me.
In that gospel of Matthew which our holy father Dominic loved and carried with him, we read that after the Last Supper, Jesus and his apostles sang a hymn and then went to the Mount of Olives. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that when Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Philippi, they prayed and sang hymns to God, and the prisoners listened to them. In Colossians 3:16, St Paul instructs the Christian community to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God”. Hence Joseph Ratzinger has said that: “Right from the beginning liturgy and music have been closely related [for] wherever people praise God, words alone do not suffice.” St Augustine said that “only he who loves can sing” and the Christian is one who loves the God who has first loved us. Therefore because music expresses our Christian joy in salvation and hope of eternal life, it is right that it plays such a central role in our lives and worship. Moreover, as Timothy Radcliffe OP has said, “Music overcomes the darkness and speaks a hope for what we cannot imagine”. Music is thus a powerful form of preaching.
Finally, Pope John Paul II leaves us with food for thought, something to inspire us to cultivate and to draw from the treasury of sacred music and hopefully, to pray and contemplate with music. He said: “As a manifestation of the human spirit, music performs a function which is noble, unique and irreplaceable. When it is truly beautiful and inspired, its speaks to us more than all the other arts of goodness, virtue, peace, of matters holy and divine.”
(For the complete entry, go to the Godzdogz site – click on my Dominican Links.)
Personally, God has given me the wonderful love for music and singing which lately has been a great help for my prayer life. And as my prayer life deepens, so does my love for music. If in the past, I sing to feel good about myself, to show off my talent, or just to win contests, I now have realized that these reason do not match to THE ultimate reason why I can sing. My voice, like my life, has been given to me for a Divine purpose and whenever I sing for the glory of God, I don’t just sing, I praise. And in most effective ways, I don’t just praise: I preach.
