In this Jubilee Year of Hope, 2025, we are asked to pray for an increase in the theological virtue that points us towards Heaven, our true home. In part, the practice of this virtue is to hope in the gifts and graces of a God who we do not see; and particularly in the liturgy to hope in Christ even when we are failed in sight, touch, and taste.
We often hear the phrase “there is great hope for the future” when we see fruit from a younger generation who can competently carry out a good work begun by others.
This is certainly true in the Archdiocese of Sydney in 2025.
The Jubilate Deo Programme is very proudly teaching a core repertoire of Gregorian Chant to 2,600 students across 11 Catholic schools. To our knowledge, this is the largest systemic program teaching chant to school-aged children anywhere in the world.
In the Jubilee Year of 1975, Pope Paul VI asked all Catholics of the Latin Rite to be able to sing together the parts of the Mass as found in the Missal, and a selection of various other common chants known and loved over the centuries (with some melodies tracing their roots to the Jewish Temple).
It is this core chant repertoire that we have taken up, 50 years on, and with the exact same aim: “This minimum repertoire of Gregorian chant has been prepared with this purpose in mind: to make it easier for Christians to achieve unity and spiritual harmony with their brothers and with the living traditions of the past.
Hence it is that those who are trying to improve the quality of congregational singing cannot refuse to Gregorian chant the place which is due to it. And this becomes all the more imperative as we approach the Holy Year of 1975, during which the faithful of different languages, nations and origins, will find themselves side by side for the common celebration of the Lord.” (Pope Paul VI, Voluntati Obsequens, 1974).
Over the course of 2025 it is our hope that many more students, young adults, parishioners, and clergy will come to a deeper love, appreciation, and practice of chant.
If we believe in the transformative power of beauty, then let us each, in our big or small way, bring to life the music of the church which “is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Second Vatican Council, 1963).
We are very grateful for the support and impetus of His Grace, Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, and to the ongoing confidence and vision of Anthony Cleary, Director of Mission and Identity, Sydney Catholic Schools.
Ronan Reilly is the Director of the Jubilate Deo Program.