University of Mary student choir celebrates Eucharistic Revival
Cappella sings “O Sacrum Convivium” at the University of Mary on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Rebecca Raber CNA Staff, Apr 7, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A group of 28 choral students left the University of Mary (UMary) in Bismarck, North Dakota, in May of last year to embark on a world tour as part of a two-year Eucharistic Revival project, culminating this year in a choral album.
As part of their Eucharistic Revival project, the students and their director, Rebecca Raber, have been performing and recording music at sites of Eucharistic miracles.
The ultimate goal is to record enough choral songs to create an album focused on Eucharistic hymns.
“When I heard about the Eucharistic Revival, I knew I wanted to do something from the perspective of liturgical music,” Raber told CNA in an email.
The choir, known as “Cappella,” has been recording a collection of music focused on the Eucharist that includes a wide variety of styles of music such as chant, antiphons, hymns, and polyphony.
The choir has even commissioned two accomplished composers, Michael John Trotta and Philip Stopford, to compose music on Eucharistic texts.
“Cappella is made for a project like this,” Raber said.
What is Cappella?
Cappella, named for the Latin word for choir, is made up of students from around the country who were “scholarshipped like college athletes” to sing sacred music at UMary, Raber explained.
The project was envisioned by Monsignor James Shea three years ago. Shea, the president of UMary, will be speaking at the National Eucharistic Congress this summer.
Raber says Cappella is a “one-of-a-kind opportunity” for the students. They rehearse four days a week for 85 minutes, as well as sing at weekday and Sunday Masses, and lead sung solemn vespers weekly.
Because of the “generous amount” of rehearsal time, Raber said, “we are able to sing an astonishing amount of repertoire, treasures of the Church.”
But the music also benefits the students’ “spiritual formation,” Raber explained.
When asked about how Cappella has affected his faith, one student, junior Marshall Milless, a communications major from Minnesota, said that singing in Capella has “completely transformed” his faith.
“It elevates my prayer in a way beyond my understanding,” he explained. “I’ve read and heard the Scriptures and prayers in our music, but when singing them, it provides a completely transformative experience, where the Scriptures and prayers become so much more tangible and real.”
‘I am the one who needed the Eucharistic Revival’
Cappella’s Eucharistic project is part of a larger Newman Task Force for Eucharistic Education, a group that is promoting Eucharistic Revival projects in schools and universities across the country.
The National Eucharistic Revival is a three-year initiative by the U.S. bishops that aims to inspire, educate, and unite the faithful in a more intimate relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist. The revival culminates this year in four national pilgrimages followed by the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis this summer.
Curstin Larson, a UMary junior studying sacred music, said that at first, she thought the Eucharistic Revival was “exactly what the Church needs.”
“When I first heard about the Eucharistic Revival, I was very excited,” she said. “All of the people who don’t believe in the True Presence, all of the ‘nones,’ all of the lukewarm Catholics — this is the answer to their conversion!”
“Looking back, I am embarrassed by those thoughts,” she continued. “Through Cappella’s work with the Eucharistic Revival … I’ve come to see that I had it all wrong. I am the one who needed the Eucharistic Revival. I am the one who needed to love the Eucharist more, to receive him more attentively, to adore him more fervently.”
Larson said she believes Cappella has “an irreplaceable role” in the Eucharistic Revival.
“Being in Cappella is so much more than singing pretty music; it’s a ministry,” Milless noted.
“There’s a lot of hard work and sacrifice that goes into being a choir like this, but all the hard work pays off whenever I catch a glimpse of somebody moved by the beauty of our music,” Milless said. “My heart becomes filled with joy, and sometimes I can’t hold the tears back!”
Milless recalled “countless times” where people have approached him to say that Cappella’s music helped them pray.
“They’ve told me how the music consoled them in a time when they were feeling lost and unsure,” he said. “This music has helped give me a great sense of hope in my personal prayer life when I’ve felt lost and uncertain about my faith.”
Dominic Plummer, a junior from Georgia studying business administration/banking and finance at University of Mary, noted that he has “a unique opportunity” to glorify God during Mass because of Cappella.
The choir, he said, is “eager” to participate in the project intended to “cultivate a revived atmosphere of adoration” of the Eucharist in the community and the Church as a whole.
“The Eucharist is at the heart of this opportunity and is the foundation of our mission,” he said.
Emily Storick, a sophomore studying music performance, said that singing Eucharistic pieces for the revival has been “a great source of reflection.”
“I hope when we sing these beautiful Eucharistic pieces, those who hear them are drawn deeper into the mystery of the Mass, and even more so as they receive the body of Christ,” she said.
During the spring tour to Spain and France, Cappella students sang ancient Eucharistic hymns at sites of the Eucharistic miracles, such as Montserrat and Zaragoza, Spain.
The pieces, some of which were recorded at sites of Eucharistic miracles, will be compiled into a digital album available on Soundcloud and Spotify.
Raber said she hopes that through these recordings, “the beauty of sacred music” will “draw hearts to Christ in the Eucharist.”
She said that while the listeners are often affected by the music, she notices more so “from the conductor’s podium is that my Cappella members themselves are deeply affected by the sacred music they sing.”
“Singing sacred music with Cappella is one of the most moving things I have experienced,” said Robert Bushee, a freshman at UMary studying philosophy.
“When we sing, it is a prayer that so completely fills the self with grace that it cannot help but to overflow, and in so doing, create so profoundly united a prayer that it may move each member of the congregation to a greater experience of the Mass and of God himself, which is the great aim of our ministry,” he said.
Jacob Ganzer, a junior studying mechanical engineering, said that the opportunity to pray through sacred music is “a blessing.”
“I think it is very difficult to be in Cappella and not have it affect your faith,” he added.
