Every year, universities and colleges nationwide recruit students for sports. University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, is doing the same — but for sacred music.
“It’s quite common to have students provide music for campus liturgies on various Catholic campuses,” Rebecca Raber, director of Cappella, the university’s chapel choir, said, “but as far as I’m aware, we are the only college or university that is providing generous scholarships for our students to do so.”
Courtesy of Beth Paulson Photography
Three years ago, in 2021, Cappella began at the university founded in the 20th century by the Benedictine Sisters of the Annunciation. Today, 30 students belong to the choir dedicated to praising God by praying through music.
“My eyes have been opened to seeing that sacred music is more than just sounds that are pleasing to the ear,” Brian Donaldson, a 19-year-old freshman from Rancho Cucamonga, California, studying psychology and Catholic studies, said of his experience in Cappella. “Rather, sacred music is intended to lift the human heart to God.”
Several students in Cappella, together with Raber, spoke with Our Sunday Visitor about the music that they perform nationally and internationally, as well as their latest initiative: the National Eucharistic Revival Project.
The new, two-year project contributes to the National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year initiative by the U.S. Catholic bishops, which seeks to renew the Catholic Church by enkindling a living relationship with Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist. The choir’s ambitious effort includes focusing on Eucharistic texts, performing internationally at the sites of Eucharistic miracles, commissioning renowned composers for Eucharistic motets, and creating a special album.
“[A]ll of these things are concrete things we’re doing,” Raber said, “but what’s more is just the elevated reverence and attention for the Eucharist that we’re trying to promote through our music.”
Raber, who also serves as an assistant professor of music, likened Cappella’s ministry to stained-glass windows through which God shines.
“The stained glass in our chapel becomes luminous when the light shines brightly through it,” she said, referring to Our Lady of the Annunciation Chapel. “We look to our Creator to shine through us and our music in the same way, sharing his light and beauty with others.”
Each student, Raber revealed, chooses a chapel window as “their window,” or a window that represents him or her in both beauty and flaws, Raber revealed. Regardless of flaws, she added, the light (or God), shines through all of them.
A choir inspired by Pope St. John Paul II
Raber described Cappella’s mission and ministry: Praising God through all that they do.
“We seek to make our song of worship an authentic prayer as we sing for vespers and Mass on our University of Mary campus as well as when we travel beyond to do the work of the university,” she said. “We evangelize through beauty and seek to touch hearts and draw them upward to Christ.”
The university chapel choir, she said, draws its inspiration from Pope St. John Paul II.
Courtesy of Mike McCleary, University of Mary
“Cappella has a particular mission and ministry, deep in the very heart of our Catholic liturgy,” Raber said. “We are inspired by our University Ministry patron, St. John Paul II, who, in his Letter to Artists, urged us to craft our music, beauty — as a gift to the world.”
Cappella, she added, not only praises God but also performs in service to God.
“We give thanks to our Creator for the gifts that he has given us and seek only to offer them back to him in humble praise,” she said. “We worship through our music, singing the musical treasures of the Church as well as also welcoming other styles of music that promote the good and beautiful.”
A one-of-a-kind chapel choir
Raber distinguished Cappella as unique, beginning with a rigorous recruitment process.
“[T]he students come from all around the country, because they have been awarded generous scholarships to sing sacred music, just like college athletes,” she said, adding that she travels the country seeking students with both musical skill and a devotion to sacred music.
She also called their repertoire during the academic year — around 75 pieces — “astonishing.”
“The amount of exposure that Cappella students get to sacred music as well as the theology that is packaged within the lyrics, offers a unique experience for spiritual and musical formation,” Raber said.
She pointed to their mission of using music as a form of prayer — prayer that they perform not only on campus but also abroad.
“What an incredible gift to spend so much time in pursuit of these musical treasures of the Church and to be immersed in wonderful texts of our Faith,” she said. “It is the good, the true, and the beautiful.”
A ‘Eucharistic Revival Project’
Beginning in 2023, Cappella began a two-year National Eucharistic Revival Project to foster devotion to the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
“When I heard about the Eucharistic Revival, I knew I wanted to do something from the perspective of liturgical music,” Raber revealed. “Music has the capacity to help us understand more fully and gratefully, the mystery and truth of our Faith.”
“Cappella is made for a project like this,” she added. “Each day, Cappella students use their musical gifts and the devotion within their hearts to create beauty in our community.”
With a focus on Eucharistic texts, Cappella is compiling recordings of their Eucharistic music for an album that will include Eucharistic fervorinos (short sermons) from university chaplain Father Dominic Bouck and University president Msgr. James Patrick Shea.
The album called “O Sacrum Convivium” (“O Sacred Banquet”), which is also the title of one of their commissioned pieces, will be available online and will add to Cappella’s music already posted online at their website.
As a part of the project, Cappella and University of Mary commissioned two well-known composers to write Eucharistic motets. Michael John Trotta wrote a setting of “Ave Verum Corpus,” while Philip Stopford wrote a setting of “O Sacrum Convivium.” Cappella has since performed these nationally and internationally.
In 2023, Raber said, they sang Eucharistic texts at the sites of Eucharistic miracles in Spain as well as at the tomb of St. Thomas Aquinas in Toulouse, France.
Courtesy of Mike McCleary, University of Mary
Raber addressed the impact of the project on students and listeners.
“If we practice our music rightly, if we spend the time to consider and take the lyrics to heart in addition to preparing all of the musical elements, a beautiful thing happens: our music becomes prayer, each of us praying through song together,” she said.
“In this way we accomplish something that not one of us could do on our own,” she added. “We surrender ourselves for the sake of the whole.”
Cappella students share enthusiasm
All of the students who spoke with Our Sunday Visitor agreed that belonging to Cappella deepened their faith. They also expressed excitement for the Eucharistic Revival Project.
“I hope that our music impacts listeners by providing an opportunity for a deeper encounter with Our Lord in the Eucharist,” 20-year-old Marshall Milless from Coon Rapids, Minnesota, a junior majoring in communications and minoring in Catholic studies, said.
Curstin Larson, a 21-year-old junior from Gilman, Minnesota, shared similar hopes.
“I hope that through Cappella’s Eucharistic Revival Project, we are able to reach souls in a way only beauty can,” Larson, who is majoring in sacred music while minoring in theology and philosophy, said. “Through the experience of beauty, I hope their hearts are open to love and knowledge of Christ.”
Leo Colling, from Jordan, Minnesota, a 20-year-old junior majoring in biomechanics with a pre-physical therapy emphasis, said that the project offers an invitation to both the singers and the listeners “to marvel at the mystery and glory of the Eucharist.”
“But crucially,” he concluded, “I hope that if there is any hardness in [a listener’s] heart it is pierced by his grace made manifest in our song and allows them to be filled with all the love he desires to give them through his body and blood.”
