reasonable...

You don’t know what you don’t know until you finally know it. I’m on a quest to figure out what all I don’t know about the faith and, by God’s grace, to try to learn it. It’s been a fascinating journey so far, obviously one that I will never finish as there is a great deal I don’t know or will never know. But how exciting it is to learn something new everyday. Want to join me on this quest this Sunday and expand your horizons*?

The recipe used for Catholicism is the beautiful blending of faith and reason. Pope John Paul II states this in Fides et Ratio : ”Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves…”

According to Catholic teaching, we get our start in Faith at our baptism-- our bonus prize, part and parcel with the infilling of the Holy Spirit (as well as Hope and Love, the three theological virtues as well as a few other goodies). This “marks us” as God’s own. And as we grow and begin to practice our faith we can pray for an increase in all of the beautiful virtues as their end goal is to make us "like God" according to St. Gregory of Nyssa.

And the “reason” part… it's a bit different. Humans are born with the ability to reason, also by God’s grace, and we can choose to undertake the wonderful adventure of growing daily in the knowledge of God through study and formation. This hopefully is started for us by our parents in order to be “schooled” in the ways of God and the Church.

The mission of Something Greater Ministries is to share that which we stumble upon that we feel will be of benefit to those we know and love or anyone who might be curious to “come and see”. The blogs, books, teaching tools and events are offered in order to expose us to the vast goodness of God and to expand our minds, hearts and wills to Something Greater**...God Himself.

This Sunday we are pleased to host one of my professor from the Augustine Institute in Denver, Adam Bartlett. He will lead us in an English language Gregorian Chant workshop followed by a CHANT Mass at 6:00pm at St. Ann*.

You may say, “Out of all the things to showcase...why that?!”

Well I will tell you, Gregorian Chant is still the only category of music officially recognized by the Catholic Church that falls into the realm of the “Sacred”, and that my friends, is worthy of our attention.

“Chant is the one music that we inherit from the ancient Church fathers. It is not a ‘style’ but the music of the Mass itself. It is sung in unison, which makes it a perfect expression of unity. It illuminates and gives expressiveness to the sacred texts, but it does not alter them. It musically expresses the heart of the Church and thus exists across and outside time.”

With so much secularism in our world today, my gut feeling is that you are longing for the “real deal”, the “Other” as much as I am. This has been seen in Denver where the cool, hip thing to do is... go “CHANT” at a Sunday Mass. What we will learn and experience is taking the music that God Himself wrote through the Psalmists, and simply sing it back to Him in sacred tones. How pleasing it must be to Him to hear His songs sung by so many in unison across the globe. We get to be God’s “cover band.” :)

Come expand your world, your heart and your mind. Come join us to experience Something Greater--and invite a friend along to join you-- because learning something new about your faith is a very reasonable thing to do.

“Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, bless his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Tell his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his marvelous deeds. “ Psalms 96:1-3

Dear Lord,

I want to learn how to love and please You more. I want to learn something new...even if it is very old. I want to experience the Sacred--You. Open my mind and heart, flood my spirit with all that is You. Give me a taste of the True Reality, heaven, so that I may never be satisfied with anything less than the fullness of You and all You offer to try to connect with me.

I ask this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

** “O Lord, you are not only that than which nothing greater can be conceived (non solum es quo maius cogitari nequit), but you are greater than all that can be conceived (quiddam maius quam cogitari possit)... If you were not such, something greater than you could be thought, but this is impossible”. St. Anselm

*Join Something Greater Ministries for:

C H A N T !

English Language Gregorian Chant Workshop & Mass

Elevate your Mind, Heart and Soul to the Sacred Realm!

Lead by President & Co-Founder l Source and Summit Institute

President and Editor | Illuminare Publications- Professor Adam Bartlett

Sunday, October 28

St. Ann Catholic Church, 4001 Yuma St, NW DC

3:30-5:45 Workshop in the Undercroft

(enter through left sidewalk door at Tenley Circle)

6:00pm English Language Gregorian CHANT Mass

in Sanctuary

Free and Open to All- Rsvp HERE