In worship, artistic music is not a diversion, but a necessity

The Very Rev. John Shepherd, Anglican dean of Perth, Australia writes in the Times:

Music of quality, in the context of worship, does not entertain or divert. It reveals. [...]

Any work of art, be it sculpture, painting, literature, poetry or music, whose implications are immediately obvious and can instantly be grasped can never enlist our imagination, and so cannot equip us for mystery; and what cannot equip us for mystery cannot equip us for God.

This is why the Church should have no truck with banality. Yet, sadly, this is not universally the case.

Wisdom: let us be attentive! See the rest.