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While not as properly referred to as Christmas carols and Christmas music, music throughout the liturgical season of Lent performs a key function, a priest and musician advised Fox News Digital.
“Music plays a threefold role for us during the Lenten season,” mentioned Fr. Simon Teller, O.P.
Teller is an affiliate chaplain at Providence College in Rhode Island. He is a Catholic priest, Dominican friar and fiddle participant for the Americana/folks band, The Hillbilly Thomists.
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“Lenten hymns help get us in the mindset of the season,” mentioned Teller.
Just as songs like “Silent Night” put folks into the Christmas spirit, “a similar thing happens to me when I hear the first verse of Lenten hymns like ‘Attende Domine,’ or ‘Forty Days and Forty Nights.’'”
The music throughout Lent is “half of the ‘smells and bells’ of Catholicism,” mentioned Teller. “In order to be drawn closer to God, we surround ourselves with things we can taste, touch, smell and hear —symbols that bring us closer to the deeper spiritual mysteries we celebrate.”
In addition to his chaplain duties at Providence College, Teller — entrance row, far proper — performs the fiddle in The Hillbilly Thomists, a bluegrass band. The group reached No. 3 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts with its 2017 debut album. (Courtesy Fr. Simon Teller)
The chants and hymns related to Lent serve to “take us one step closer to Jesus as he fasts for 40 days in the desert,” he mentioned.
Additionally, music can help with the expression of contrition, mentioned Teller.
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“Lent is a time of lamentation; a time when we confront our sinfulness, our weaknesses and our past mistakes; and a time when we raise our hearts to God to express sorrow and remorse for the ways in which we have offended Him,” he mentioned.
“Music gives us a medium through which we can express this contrition to God.”
“Lenten songs like the Parce Domine give shape to our Lenten lamentation.”
Examples of music as a approach to provide lament to God will be present in Psalms, famous Teller.
“Lenten songs like the Parce Domine give shape to our Lenten lamentation,” he mentioned.
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“The traditional hymns of Lent give us words through which we can express our contrition, and haunting melodies that intensify this cry of the heart that we raise to Christ as we prepare to celebrate the mysteries of His passion during Holy Week.”
Music throughout Lent, mentioned Fr. Teller, helps categorical lamentation to God, in addition to create the right temper for the season. (Courtesy Fr. Simon Teller/iStock)
As Lent continues, the quantity of music throughout Catholic liturgies begins to wane.
This, too, is purposeful, mentioned Teller.
“The absence of music plays an important role during this penitential season,” mentioned Teller.
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“Lent gradually decrescendos into the silence of Holy Saturday — the day when we remember that Christ descended into the grave.”
Following Christ’s dying on Good Friday, church buildings historically fall silent till the celebration of the resurrection on the Easter Vigil, mentioned Teller. (iStock)
The coronary heart of Christianity, he mentioned, “is the mystery that Jesus, the eternal Word of the Father, fell into the silence of death out of love for us.”
He added, “Traditionally, churches all over the world fall silent from the celebration of Christ’s death on Good Friday until the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday evening.”
During this era, “Christians put away their hymnals, lock the organ case and murmur their prayers in a hushed voice to commemorate the silence of Jesus’ tomb.”
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“In this way, the very absence of music heightens our awareness of the death of Christ,” mentioned Teller.
“His death frees us from sin and opens up for us the way to eternal life.”
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