Christmas is a season of blessing. So do not put away the carols (or the lights) until you have to.
Music
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
‘Silent Night’: a song invoked in both World Wars and sung to a dying president
“Silent Night” is a song that seems to inspire the imagination in so many ways.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
The history of a Christmas classic, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’
“O Come, All Ye Faithful” is a song almost everyone knows. But where did it come from, and why is it so popular?
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The new Gather hymnal is just good enough — and that’s perfect
You might call it the Walmart of hymnals. It doesn’t drill down into any one category. It doesn’t specialize. But it covers most of the bases that most parishes and parishioners would expect.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
This band wrote a song in honor of Dorothy Day. Now their album could help make her a saint.
Eric Krewson and the band he headlines, The Chairman Dances, wrote a song that celebrates the friendship of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. And that song will shortly be on its way to the Vatican.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Olivia Rodrigo’s Gen-Z Gospel
Olivia Rodrigo’s lyrics cover many of the same topics I discuss with my Catholic high school students. As a church that infamously struggles to reach and retain young people, we have something to learn from her.
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Get ready to hear Ed Sheeran’s new music at every wedding from now until his next album
No matter how far he has risen in fame, Ed Sheeran has stayed true to himself.
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Adele was the soundtrack to my coming of age. But she lost me in her glitzy ‘One Night Only’ special.
Whereas once Adele’s music exuded humility, “One Night Only” showed me someone who has become so embedded in the cultural exclusivity of Hollywood that she is no longer relatable.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Brandi Carlile is Pope Francis’ kind of songwriter: Tender
Brandi Carlile’s latest album shows the singer’s keen awareness of the radical nature of tenderness.
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Don’t dismiss Lil Nas X because of his controversial video. He has something to teach the church.
“Montero” can offer new perspectives into the realities of Black queerness; for some, including some Catholics, it might even give a voice to their own experiences.