Outward and Visible Signs

2011: At Sandwiches on Sunday children help to feed the hungry.

We've posted before about our hunch--perhaps it's wishful thinking--that church attendance has bottomed out.

But the feeling is based on more than self-absorbed Baby Boomers becoming conscious of their own mortality.

I've seen people coming back--or coming for the first time--because churches, independent of theology,

introduce their children to moral perspectives not found at school;

have already built a structure for helping the poor in the local community;

don't twist their arms for donations of money and time (some places do, but twistees can leave);

provide near-instantaneous feedback about volunteer efforts;

furnish a place where they can see beautiful art and architecture and listen to beautiful music once a week.

Speaking of the latter, composers are writing Christian classical music again:

Early Christian worship, following Jewish practice, emphasized the chanting of psalms by the priest or the choir. Protestant Reformers likewise emphasized the chanting of psalms and congregational singing. For several reasons, by the middle of the 20th century the practice had dwindled in the American church. But a renewed interest in liturgical worship is spurring new compositions. The Theopolis Institute is producing a Psalter with new chant settings of all 150 psalms. Expressly written for untrained singers—i.e., most of us—this new psalter is intended to renew the chanting of psalms as a central element of Reformed worship.

Another fascinating example emerges in recent works of composer Frank La Rocca of the Benedict XVI Institute. Mr. La Rocca’s “Mass of the Americas” draws on distinctly American Catholic religious themes. The work is a tribute to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the U.S., and Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of all the Americas. Musically, the “Mass of the Americas” incorporates Mexican folk hymns into the fabric of contemporary high-church sacred music, while showing due respect for its sources. It also includes possibly the first Ave Maria ever set in Nahuatl, the Aztec language in which Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke to San Juan Diego.

Below is an excerpt from the Mass of the Americas:



Related: The Surprising Surge of Faith Among Young People