Alumnus Monk Talks Chant on Catholic Podcast

“What you’re looking for, for a long-term work like a Benedictine life, is something beautiful, something … that is worthy and can sustain your devotion for several decades,” says Rev. Mark Bachmann, O.S.B. (’82). “That requires a certain amount of investment.”

The subprior of Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey in Hulbert, Oklahoma, where 10 Thomas Aquinas College alumni are brothers, Fr. Bachmann recently appeared as a guest on The Catholic Man podcast. Over the course of the one-hour interview, he spoke of the importance of Gregorian chant, both to his Benedictine community and to the Church as a whole. Chanting the Divine Office requires a certain amount of “investment” in terms of education and work, he explains, but its beauty and richness give meaning — and bear witness to — the prayerful life of a monk.

“One would ask, ‘Why would you bother to do something as strange as pray in Latin and pray in chant, which is music that’s characteristic of the 2nd to 12th century?’” Fr. Bachmann continues.  “Largely, we don’t feel as deeply and as naturally the Faith as our fathers did, and so we’re going back and by praying with the chant and praying the office in Latin. We’re getting in tune, we’re meeting up with the way the Church has prayed for centuries and centuries.”

The full podcast is available via the player below: