I am beyond pumped for season 2 of St. Brigid Lifeteen this year! I’ve missed singing with everyone. If you want to get a head start on some new songs (along with jamming to some old classics) check out the playlist:
See y’all soon!
Catholic Musician and Speaker
I am beyond pumped for season 2 of St. Brigid Lifeteen this year! I’ve missed singing with everyone. If you want to get a head start on some new songs (along with jamming to some old classics) check out the playlist:
See y’all soon!
A wise priest I know once told me that all stories find their basis in the Greatest Story Ever told found in the Bible. He pointed out how every story, regardless of the plot line, has certain elements that overlap with Scripture. This is fairly basic in that we are saying that even if the only similarity there is between the story in question and The Story is that it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, that’s still a connection to the Bible.
Case in point, something like the story in the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkein would easily have deep connections with the Story of Salvation. We could see that the hero of the story, Frodo, is sent by the Wise Wizard, Gandalf, to go beyond his comfort zone on a great mission to defeat evil. This is similar to Jesus being sent by the Wise Father to come to earth, reach great levels of discomfort and destroy evil.
This is more purposeful on the author’s part, but we can find similar connections really with any story. One of my favorites would be the Superhero genre movies. However, it was the movie version of the play, Les Miserable, starring Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway that drew me into prayer right in the middle of the movie theatre.
More than stories, I see the beauty, composition, math and complexity of music also finding its basis in something Godly. It is a little more difficult to pin down and name, like a story does in pointing to the Story, but it still rings clear. To me, even modern songs can find overlap with with the true, good, and beautiful, which point us to God.
I think it was because of this that allowed me to connect deeply with God while playing one secular song in particular, but it has happened with others as well. A few years ago I helped out with an ambitious program put on by a local church which they called Epic.The plan of the events, as their were multiple nights that we put them on throughout the year, was to teach the kids a message using popular music, speakers, and stories.
I helped with the music along with some other amazing musicians. We practiced once a week in the office at the drummer’s car detailing garage. Such great memories of that!
We would open the night with more popular well known songs like 21 Pilots’s Stressed Out and Ride, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, Shawn Mendes’s Stitches, and Bastilles’s Pompeii. Then, there would be a talk, a skit, or some other way of delivering that night’s message. We would then close everything off with some Praise and Worship songs. These would include Oceans by Hillsong, Love is Here by 10th Avenue North, Fierce by Jesus Culture, and King of my Heart by John Mark McMillan. It was a lot of fun!
On top of practicing with the band once a week, I would practice by myself when I could too. Obviously, when I was playing the Praise songs I would pray to God, but I was surprised when I entered prayer practicing a song that wasn’t a part of the Praise set. I found myself noticing the beauty and rhythm of the music and the simple message of the lyrics and started to thank God for the incredible gift of music.
The song was Pompeii, which is really about the burial of the ancient city after the eruption of a volcano, but it just sounds so cool and the ideas of unexpected death and the underlaid warning for one to protect the soul is powerful. Mysteriously, I could recognize God’s presence to me through playing that song and I went to Him in my heart.
It was a great moment. Funny enough, at the next practice, our drummer told me that the same thing happened to him on the same song! I think it just shows us how there are traces of God in everything but sin. Anything good, true, and beautiful points to Him and so we can be lead by even the smallest trace of it.
It is in this way that we can say that everything is grace. It is in this way that we can seek to view the world as St. Paul recommends in Philippians 4:8 when he says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable —i f anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things and the God of peace will be with you”. Finally, it is in this way that we can remind ourselves of God’s pPresence in our lives whether we live in good times or bad.
Music has had a powerful impact on my life. From my toddler years to today , I have always had a certain style I was into that has changed over the years. I’ve liked it all from The Beatles “Help” to Disco to Pop Punk to Drake’s “God’s Plan”, but no music has had a greater effect on me than Praise and Worship.
Praise and Worship is more than just a bunch of people singing a song together in a room with their hands in the air. It’s not simply a genre of music. It’s a way to pray to God and a way to grow closer to Him.
The lyrics are usually simple, reflective, and repeated. Successful songs have lyrics that speak what many people feel or know in their relationship with God using themes of Surrender, Exultation, Offering, Hope, God’s Love, Salvation and more. They are words that many relate to and make their own in their conversation with God.
I can’t tell how many times the words of a P&W song I have prayed have allowed me to communicate exactly what I want to say to God or have uplifted me in a certain situation. Some songs in which I have recently experienced this, that I would recommend, are “Lord, I Need You” by Matt Maher, “Do It Again” by Elevation Worship, and “No Longer Slaves” by Bethel.
The lyrics of each of these songs have tremendous weight to them, and could be beautiful prayers on their own. However, they have the added bonus of being a prayer that is put to catchy, uplifting, and memorable music. And music has a way to move the human person in ways that have lasting effects on us.
We hear a song sometimes and it takes us right to another time and place when we heard that song in the past. I hear “I don’t want to miss a thing” by Aerosmith and I am taken right to the 7th grade at a dance in the cafeteria of my middle school. I was really sweaty and mouthing words I did not understand.
Music can improve our moods. “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley will always cheer me up. Music can feel good. Try listening to the James Egbert EDM Remix of Chance the Rappers’s Blessings. It’s incredible.
Mixed with the prayer of the lyrics in praise and worship, music can do even more great things. It accompanies our words to allow us to sing to God in a special way. If “Prayer is the surge of the heart”, as St. Therese says, then the music of P&W can help move the heart to Him in a quick and beautiful way.
One can technically say this about all Christian music as it all usually has this same goal of leading others to love God more. I’m not trying to split hairs or define the genre of P&W. Really, I am talking about any song that you can pray with to honor God and build your relationship with Him. I’ll let others categorize which songs should meet this standard, as I think it could be a fruitful task, while I would rather go further on to why I think P&W is an important way to pray and grow closer to God.
First, it allows one to make an act of Faith, Hope, or Love in a deeper way than speaking the words. It seems to me that there is a difference in saying I Love You and singing it with more emotion behind the words. I think this allows us to communicate to God, others, and ourselves our Faith and Hope in God and our Love for Him.
Saying the words is fine, I think singing is better. It puts more action behind the words. It shows God we mean or want to mean what we say, especially when we put our hearts into it.
This is important with our relationship with God because He will never force us to do or receive anything. Through this act of Faith proclaimed in P&W we give Him permission to work in our lives. We say yes to Him.
Next, Praise and Worship makes it easier to pray. We can still have deep profound moments of prayer without P&W, and these can be very beautiful. However, a catchy song can be really fun to sing. So with the prayerful words backed by a good melody we can put ourselves before the throne of God in a more enjoyable way. This can be especially helpful for those who are beginning their faith journeys and learning how to pray.
Furthermore, P&W awakens the Davidic tradition of invoking the spectrum of emotions while praying. We see in the Psalms, which were either written by David the harpist and king or in imitation of him, a vast array of emotions such as gratitude for God’s Goodness, sadness from loss, or trust in the Lord, Our Shepherd. Interestingly enough, the Psalms are songs that were sung in the Temple Liturgies before the time of Christ, but also are beautiful songs that have profound, prayerful lyrics. We can see then a Biblical model for P&W. In fact, many great Worship songs are based on the Psalms.
While He is not restricted to it, the Holy Spirit works through music. Powerful moments of prayer can come about for those involved. I think it is a beautiful way to express one’s Faith and Love for God and it is a good time for the Church to promote it more in today’s world.
A couple weeks ago I had the profound joy of joining 250 middle school campers at Lifeteen’s Camp Hidden Lake. What an awesome time. First, I was blown away by the staff’s goodness and generosity and total willingness to serve. Then, I was really blown away by watching these kids put there hearts into praising God through song.
From the very first song of the first night they were singing. We sang Good Good Father, a bonafide classic now if you ask anyone who played Christian music in 2016. GGF was on constant repeat. But I still love it. The message is so true and needs repeating. God is a Good Father who would never give me a snake when I asked for a fish or a stone when I asked for Bread. It’s Who He… You know.
Ok, we sang all week and I loved every second of it. The moments of adoration were the best as they usually are. I love praising God in the Eucharist, but when other people do it with me, it makes me even happier.
The adoration on Friday will not leave my mind. It was so incredible. God was most definitely moving in these kids. We played three songs throughout the whole 30 something minutes. O Come to the Altar by Elevation, Tremble by Mosaic MSC, and Reckless Love by Cory Asbury.
I watched as Fr. Adam walked around with Jesus in the monstrance allowing each person to have a really close up face to face encounter with Jesus as we sang Tremble, which we played for so long because God had some things he wanted me to pray while I strummed the chords.
I said something along the lines of:
“Jesus you are real. you are truly before us. You are the same Jesus who walked the earth so long ago. You looked up at the same stars, saw the same moon and Sun, you taught, you laughed, you chose 12 disciples, ordinary men, to learn from you.
You had a mission Lord. You Taught all who would listen and you healed the people that came to you. You made the deaf hear, the mute speak, and the blind see. You cured diseases and helped those could not walk, walk again.
And you did what you did on the Cross and rose again. You spent more time with your apostles and before you left, you made sure your 12 apostles knew what to do. Because you wanted them to continue your mission, your work.
You wanted to continue to teach us, to love us, and to heal us Lord through your Church. You want to Heal us today Lord. Even now you want to heal us.
And we are broken. We have darkness in our lives Lord. We want to love like you love. We want to know you more, but we are broken, we are hurting, we have anxieties, we have fear, Jesus. We have Darkness.
But you, Jesus, you make the darkness tremble.”
I went on and said more about this theme of the pains and burdens we face each day and Jesus’s great desire to help us carry our loads and how His Love helps us bear life’s sufferings. And His great desire to bring us healing. This was a great lead into the song Tremble, which if you haven’t heard or played before, I would suggest you do.
It was sooo cool! Watching the kids stretch their arms out toward the Host before us. Hearing them sing! Amazing.
I love hearing those I lead in worship sing. Sometimes I pull back from the mic and listen to them. To me, it makes my job much more enjoyable. And I am not saying that it’s all about me. I guess I am just saying that they are the lead singers and I love having my front row seat.
Thanks again to everyone who was there that week. The kids, the Youth ministers, core members, Missionaries, and Lifeteen Hidden Lake Staff. I loved it and hope to have a chance to do it again.
Originally published on Integrated Catholic Life. Throughout the 2,000 year history of Christianity, many arguments have come about surrounding the content of the Christian faith. A number of these are of doctrinal issue and others are on the entirety of the faith as a whole stemming from an outright rejection of the Christian God. We see this total repudiation of the Faith increasingly brought up in many discussions today, but could those who take this stance be mistaken due to their incorrect approach to finding God?
I have seen those of the atheistic mind give numerous reasons for taking this step of rejecting the faith. In my teen years, I found these reasons more valid than those given by theists. One of the main themes of the atheistic argument is the lack of scientific evidence for God. Many atheists stake that because we cannot materially study God, or any part of Him, it is not possible for Him to exist.
We see through this conclusion, therefore, that science has become the highest arbiter of our human reality for modern society. And through this lens, all things immaterial, things that cannot be known or explained by this modern notion of science, like the soul, angels, or God, are thrown out to the roadside as mankind marches on in our progress toward deeper pseudo-enlightenment and technological utopia.
We must admit to ourselves that this understanding of Science is more and more taking over the role that God and Faith once had in society. Throughout the human era, mankind has made great strides in understanding the world, inventing amazing technologies to produce, develop, and transport ourselves, all while keeping in mind that all of this was under the watchful eye of God. However, it seems that these accomplishments have gone to our heads and we now worship the tools that we used to accomplish these things instead of the One who gave us the tools. Mankind now worships science and has given it the throne that belongs to God.
In this way it is easy to understand why more and more souls are losing their Faith in God. We can see the sun sending its rays upon the Earth and study the effects this light has upon the growth of plants, but we cannot see and study the invisible One who set the Sun and Earth in space, establishing the processes of growth caused by the relationship between them, the One Who sustains it all by merely thinking about it. Truthfully, in a way, we have reverted back to the pre-monotheistic days when the pagans worshipped nature instead of the One Who made nature.
However, it is not the forcefulness of the truth that sends the mind away, but the prideful desire for something other than this truth that causes the mind to leave it. Furthermore, it is a lack of faith in the spiritual world that causes one to only know the material world. It is this misunderstanding of reality that causes this misuse of Science. However, it is even within this broken understanding of science that we can prove God’s existence, but it must be understood that God is not real because the science affirms Him, the science affirms Him because He is real.
Truly we could make this case for everything that exists. It exists not because science says so, but science affirms it to be true because it exists. For instance. I am sure that not many people would have believed in the existence of the flying squirrel before it was first discovered. However, once discovered we would say that it exists not because science created it, but that it had always existed and science has affirmed its existence.
Now, God has been discovered by many. Although, others have searched for God and come up short. They point to the sky and say, “I see no God there!” and then to the evils of the world and say, “No true God could allow that!” as if they have fully grasped all of reality with the highest wisdom and understanding to know what are the correct actions and behavior for an Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent Being. And of these observations, we ask, “what is missing from the eyes of those who cannot see God?”
Something similar happens if two friends are talking on the street about the moons of Jupiter. All day long the one friend can tell the other about the 53 moons that orbit the largest planet, but the friend would not be able to prove it without the proper tools, such as a telescope or satellite images. Additionally, if using a telescope, the two friends would need to be in a good location with the right conditions to properly see the moons. Though, if the friend disbelieved the one proclaiming the truth about the moons and refused to use the correct tools to discover the truth, it would be an erroneous conclusion for the friend to say that the moons are not there.
Furthermore, we see many theories brought up in the scientific world that would be most difficult to prove without the proper materials and procedures that bring about the desired effect. So too do we see the Christian Faith in need of proper materials and procedures in order for the Truth and Light to be discovered. I personally see that by following in the footsteps of thousands of Saints before us, thousands of men and women who had very real and personal relationships with God, and imitating their procedures and using their materials, we can all prove that God exists.
If this is the case, that there are certain procedures and materials needed for us to discover the Eternal Living God, then it would be good to know them. While God is Who He Is and can make Himself known by any way and at any time He likes, if we are truly about the work of seeking Him, very simply, we must have the following in order to do so.
1. Humility – First, We must have humility. Only with humility can we arrive at the knowledge of the One True God. Not because we think less of ourselves, but because we think of ourselves less, as C.S. Lewis would put it. Without humility, we run into the danger of thinking we make reality what it is. This would then cause difficulties for us to accept God for who He is if He does not fit into the restricted definition that we might force upon Him. We should truly set God free to be who He is on His own and recognize as St. Catherine of Sienna did that He is who is and we are not.
2. Prayer – Secondly, we must make an effort to converse with God through prayer. In a way this allows us to show God we are seeking Him. Furthermore, through prayer, we reach out to God spiritually and in the way that is best to discover anyone, by speaking to them. And Jesus promises, “Seek and you will find”. Finally, if you do not know how to pray, follow the advice of St. Josemaria Escriva who says, “Put yourself in the presence of God, and once you have said, ‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray!’ rest assured that you have begun to do so.”
3. Patience – Another tool that is necessary is patience. In today’s world of instant gratification, this one might prove to be difficult, however, it is most important as God is not merely a genie that grants our wishes. He is a living Being that freely chooses when and how He will act. Moreover, He knows our inner most self and is cognizant of everything that is best for us. He would never act too soon or too late. He would never give us too much or too little. Maybe this tool could also be called trust, but if we are seeking proof for God, we need to patiently understand that He will not just simply appear at our beck and call. At least not all of the time.
These are but a few qualities that are needed for one to discover God. He is known to work around them, but I am sure one who utilizes these in their search would not be disappointed. God is real and wants us to know Him. Therefore, He will help us to gain these tools so that we can be successful in this endeavor. However, if we do not seek Him with these, it most likely means that we are mistreating God or have impure intentions, and we should not be surprised if we find only ourselves and bitterness.