What the Music of the Eucharistic Congress Means

Credit: Casey Johnson / National Eucharistic Congress

A little over two weeks ago I returned from Indianapolis after directing the choir for two of the four main Masses of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress—the first of its kind in the United States in 83 years. As the centerpiece of the National Eucharistic Revival, the Congress has been heralded as a visible turning point in the life of the US Catholic Church. And from the reports already received, it seems that it may just live up to its promise. As I have reflected on the music used both inside and outside of the liturgy at the Congress—ably directed and coordinated by Dave and Lauren Moore of the Catholic Music Initiative—I have come to believe that it may serve as something of a turning point for liturgical music in the US as well.

Predicated Upon the Supernatural

One of the most notable aspects of the Congress as a whole, including its music, was a distinct emphasis on the transcendent in the face of an immanent problem. Bishop Barron, in his reflection on the Congress, made a similar observation, saying  “what made the Congress successful is that it was predicated upon the supernatural. It exuded the spirit of the supernatural. It ordered us toward the infinitely fascinating world that we cannot see, the world of the angels and saints and the Creator God.”

This observation places the Eucharistic Congress in somewhat stark contrast with several other large scale Catholic conferences that the US has seen in past decades, and especially the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, among others. In his reflection, which should be read in whole, Bishop Barron does not mince words when he says that “liberal Catholicism could never have pulled off what happened in Indianapolis.” His rationale is that when we attempt to reduce the supernatural to the natural “the faith becomes, at best, a faint echo of what can be heard in the secular culture, and when that happens, people very quickly lose interest.”

And that is precisely the problem the National Eucharistic Revival and Eucharistic Congress were designed to address—namely that the majority of US Catholics have lost interest in the faith, no longer attend Mass regularly, and do not believe in Christ’s real and supernatural presence in the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Congress was aimed at beginning to reverse this trend by helping the church in the US return its gaze to the heights, to see Jesus transfigured before us there upon the mountain summit, and to invite us to participate more deeply in the Divine Life that he desires to share with us all.  

For several decades, however, Catholic music has had the tendency to reduce the supernatural to the natural, especially in the context of the liturgy. In practice, this has meant the celebration and display of the diversity of worldly cultures, singing songs about ourselves rather than about God, salvation, and redemption, and about the desacralization of music both in the liturgy and in whatever has remained of the devotional life.

But the music of the Eucharistic Congress took a decidedly different approach. The music sung in the main Congress sessions and the Masses celebrated in Lucas Oil Stadium was notably ordered to the transcendent and the supernatural, even while often beginning from a more natural and familiar starting point. And as it progressed from music intended to evangelize to music for devotional prayer, to music during Eucharistic Adoration, and finally to music for the Mass, its character became more elevated and sacred, leading us gradually up the mountainside from what is more familiar to the ineffable mystery that lies above in the liturgy of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

I think that the vast majority of Congress attendees welcomed this dynamic, and I believe it was overwhelmingly successful. It can also serve as a model for us as we look to the future of Catholic music in the US and our approach to music in the liturgy.

Music Used Outside of the Mass

Each evening of the National Eucharistic Congress featured a non-liturgical “Revival Session” that was led by a team of MCs with a series of talks interspersed from different speakers, followed by an extended period of Eucharistic Adoration with musical support. Music on the first evening was led by Dave and Lauren Moore and members of the Catholic Music Initiative. The evening began with the conclusion of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage as the Pange Lingua Gloriosi chant was sung during the entry of the monstrance into the stadium. A mix of chant and prayerful contemporary music followed during Adoration and Benediction. On the second evening, musical prayer during Adoration was led by the four male voices of Floriani, clad in black cassocks, who sang unaccompanied chants, hymns, and polyphony in their characteristic Eastern-inspired choral style. The third night began with a lively musical offering from the Eucharistic Congress Collective which, in addition to the Moores, included Josh Blakesly, The Vigil Project, and others. Most of the music sung the Collective was in a contemporary worship genre and was meticulously executed, and more subdued during Adoration than elsewhere. The fourth evening was led by Matt Maher, beginning with a short concert and then moving into Adoration with the vocal collaboration of Sarah Kroger. On each evening, the same traditional chants and hymns for Exposition and Benediction were solemnly sung by all: the O Salutaris (in Latin), the Tantum Ergo (in Latin), and Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.

Each Revival Session offered beautifully and prayerfully executed devotional music in a variety of styles that helped people pray and enter into adoration of Christ in the Eucharist, and common music from our devotional tradition united everyone at the beginning and end each time. It was a model of prayerful unity that is oriented to the supernatural and that made appropriate use of the variety and flexibility afforded to us in the devotional realm, and it is a model worth emulating.

Music Used Within the Mass

The four main conference Masses, which the majority of 55,000+ participants attended, were held in Lucas Oil Stadium. These main Congress Masses were celebrated in English primarily, but with a fair amount of music in Latin, some Spanish, and even a bit of Tagalog. One of the main liturgies was a Holy Qurbana in the Syro-Malabar Rite that was celebrated ad orientem following the directives given in an exhortation from Pope Francis in March of 2022, and that was sung using traditional Syro-Malabar tones and melodies.

The music used in the three Roman Rite Masses, while having some stylistic diversity, was distinctly set apart from the music used outside of the Mass during the Congress. Each of the Masses was led by a small group of cantors and an instrumental ensemble of strings, brass, woodwinds, and piano with the support of an SATB choir and organ accompaniment. The concluding Mass also featured the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and, aside from tympani, drums or other percussion instruments were not used throughout.

While they were the most well attended, these weren’t the only Masses celebrated at the Congress. Among the seventeen official Congress Masses were additional celebrations in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese, two Masses in Latin according to the 1962 Missal, two Byzantine celebrations of the Divine Liturgy, and three Masses for youth. Reports suggest these additional Masses held in the Convention Center and elsewhere generally drew around 1000 participants each, while most conference registrants attended the main Congress Masses in Lucas Oil Stadium.

A Breakdown of the Music Sung in the Main Congress Masses

The instrumentation and musical array used in the main Congress Masses wasn’t the only thing that set them apart from the rest of the music used during the Congress. What was actually sung was also distinct, representing the significant shift currently happening in parish music across the country. Here is a summary analysis of the music sung in the three main Roman Rite Masses:

1. The Proper Antiphons were Sung. The Entrance, Offertory, and Communion Antiphons were sung at each of the main Masses, in addition to the proper Responsorial Psalms and Alleluias. Here is a video of the the Communion Antiphon as sung during the National Eucharistic Congress, Mass Day 2, taken from the Source & Summit Gradual collection on the Source & Summit Digital Platform.
   
   Sung Proper Texts: 28% (of all music sung)
   Sung Liturgical Texts: 56% (of all music sung)
   
   

2. Languages Used. While the main Masses were celebrated primarily in English, here are the percentages of the languages used in the music that was sung:
   
   English: 61%
   Latin: 22%
   Spanish-English (bilingual): 17%
   
   

3. Types of Music Sung. Of the kinds of music used, priority was given to chant based music and traditional hymnody:
   
   Chant Based Music: 35%
   Metrical Service Music: 30%
   Traditional Hymnody: 20%
   Contemporary Songs: 9%
   Sacred Choral Music: 6%
   
   

4. Music by Source. The music sung came from a number of sources, including a considerable amount of content from our Catholic heritage found in the Common Domain:
   
   In Source & Summit Digital Library: 74%
   In Catholic Music Initiative Library: 52%
   Copyrighted Music Used: 59%
   Public Domain Music Used: 41%
   OCP / GIA Copyrighted Music Used: 0.3%
   
   

5. Mass Settings Used. The main Masses of the Eucharistic Congress featured the Mass of Peace by Dave and Lauren Moore, but gave priority to the chant tradition:
   
   Missa Primitiva (Roman Missal): 33%
   Mass of Peace (Moore): 67%

How the Music of the Eucharistic Congress Can Be a Model for Parishes

The National Eucharistic Congress was a significant part of an effort undertaken by the US Bishops to help remedy a dire and dramatic situation in our parishes—that most US Catholics do not believe in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, not to mention the continued decline in Mass attendance in general and the mass exodus of younger generations from the practice of the faith. And the techniques being employed in this strategy represent a clear and necessary break with the status quo.

A first takeaway from the music used during the Eucharistic Congress is that the music we use in evangelization, devotion, and in the liturgy should be ordered to the supernatural. When it is not, as Bishop Barron has said, people will continue to lose interest just as they have over the past few decades. Much of the Catholic music that we have encountered in the past 50 or more years is predominantly horizontal, attempting to reduce the supernatural to the natural, and pointing to the world around us rather than the supernatural world above. An encounter with the transcendent mystery of God should be the ultimate goal that any and all Catholic music should direct us toward.

A second takeaway is that music for the Mass should be distinctly set apart from other kinds of Catholic music that are intended for different purposes, and especially for music meant to evangelize, catechize, or to aid devotional prayer. Confusion about the meaning and purpose of the liturgy has been great in recent decades, and much of the liturgical music we have sung has helped foster this confusion. While the music itself may be good for the purposes of evangelization or devotion, when it displaces the essential purpose of the liturgy we are bound to have problems. And the model given by the Eucharistic Congress to help remedy these problems is achievable at least in some way in virtually any parish.

A third takeaway is that, in ordinary parish experience, the Mass itself should be sung, especially the proper antiphons of the Mass that the Church and our tradition have given us to sing. Singing the antiphons is different from singing anything else that we might choose to bring into the liturgy from the outside. The antiphons are proper to the liturgy itself, they are taken from scripture and they form an essential part of the mystery that invites us into the compelling love of Christ and sets us on fire for mission. Parishes that want to get serious about Eucharistic Revival and about being on the forefront of the renewal of the church in the United States should begin singing the proper antiphons of the Mass.

Above all, our experience of the Eucharistic Congress and its music shows us that all of our efforts should begin with and be directed back to Jesus Christ, the head of his Mystical Body which is the Church. May the time of Eucharistic mission that has now begun bear great fruit for the glory of God, the sanctification of the Church, and the transfiguration of the world with the Light of Christ.

CORRECTION: The article originally indicated that OCP / GIA copyrighted music used in the main Eucharistic Congress Liturgies was 0%. We have since been informed that, in actuality, it was not 0% but 0.3%. The article has been updated to correct this discrepancy.