The Jubilee of Choirs

In the Roman Liturgy, one of the Lenten Prefaces ends with the exhortation:

Through him the Angels praise your majesty,
Dominions adore and Powers tremble before you.
Heaven and the Virtues of heaven and the blessed Seraphim
worship together with exultation.
May our voices, we pray, join with theirs
in humble praise, as we acclaim: 

The Easter Prefaces end:

Therefore, overcome with paschal joy,
every land, every people exults in your praise
and even the heavenly Powers, with the angelic hosts, 
sing together the unending hymn of your glory
as they acclaim:

And the text of the Sanctus that these words introduce takes us to the words of the six winged Seraphim before the throne of God in the vision of Isaiah (Is. 6):

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.

As the Church celebrates the Jubilee of Choirs in the days 22nd-23rd November 2025, the Liturgy suggests to us that the voices raised in praise of God here on earth, voices which express praise on behalf of the whole cosmos, are one with those of the heavenly liturgy. It is interesting to consider the extent to which, as we attend Mass, we let ourselves become explicitly conscious of the heavenly character of our worship.

In his chapter on "Music and Liturgy" in the book The Spirit of the Liturgy, Joseph Ratzinger offers the following reflection:

In the Eucharist a communion takes place that corresponds to the union of man and woman in marriage. Just as they become "one flesh", so in Communion we all become "one spirit", one person, with Christ. The spousal mystery , announced in the Old Testament, of the intimate union of God and man takes place in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, precisely through his Passion and in a very real way. The singing of the Church comes ultimately out of love. It is the utter depth of love that produces the singing. "Cantare amantis est", says St Augustine, singing is a lover's thing.

For those who sing in more secular contexts, their singing can perhaps be seen as one of those "seeds of the Gospel" of which the Jubilee Prayer speaks:

May your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the powers of Evil vanquished, your glory will shine eternally.