Today on Ministry Monday we speak to Paul Radkowski, Director of Music at the Church of St. Edward the Confessor in Granville, Ohio. Paul discusses the ways that pastoral musicians can support couples as they prepare for the Sacrament of Marriage: how can they best plan their ceremony music? what if a loved one wants to sing in the wedding? What if the couple wants to include secular music in the wedding? Paul addresses these questions and more.

Today we are happy to share an episode of "Meet Father Rivers" on the podcast today. Author and musician Emily Strand examines the life, legacy and her own brief, personal encounter with a little-known but essential figure in American Catholic history: Black liturgist and composer Fr. Clarence Joseph Rivers.

In this episode of “Meet Father Rivers”, podcast host Emily Strand tells the story of Fr. Rivers’ early career and the efforts toward liturgical inculturation that eventually brought him fame. She talks to Dr. Jessie Thomas who was a child at St. Joseph school in Cincinnati when Fr. Rivers was a young priest in the late 1950s. Emily recounts an early incident of liturgical disobedience by Fr. Rivers, effectively protesting the exclusion of Black forms of music in Catholic worship.

We’d like to thank Emily for allowing us to replay this episode, and hope you will subscribe to Meet Father Rivers as well. Without further ado, let’s begin!

Today’s episode of Ministry Monday is sponsored by the 2022 Winter Colloquium, taking place February 14-16 in Nashville, Tennessee. NPM Presents Open Hearts and Minds: Intercultural Mystagogia for Pastoral Leaders, a 3-day event focusing on looking through the lens of interculturalism. How can we best celebrate our differences to create unity in diversity through the experience of community of prayer?

Learn more about the Winter Colloquium at npm.org.

You voted and we listened! The most listened-to and voted-for episode was "A Historical Intervention on the Basis of Chant" with Fr. John Glasenapp. Brother John’s viewpoint on chant in the Church is deeply rooted in a full historical context, which is what we’re to discuss today. Why can chant be challenging to today’s pastoral musicians? What are the roots from which chant was created? What are the roots of chant in the Catholic Church? How did we get here?

Brother John joins me from the Archabbey in Saint Meinrad, Indiana.