The Jubilate Deo Programme is teaching a core repertoire of Gregorian chant to 2600 students in 11 Catholic schools in the Sydney Archdiocese, writes Ronan Reilly. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
In this Jubilee Year of Hope, 2025, we are asked to pray for an increase in the theological virtue that points us towards Heaven, our true home.
In part, the practice of this virtue is to hope in the gifts and graces of a God who we do not see; and particularly in the liturgy to hope in Christ even when we are failed in sight, touch, and taste.
We often hear the phrase “there is great hope for the future” when we see fruit from a younger generation who can competently carry out a good work begun by others.
This is certainly true in the Archdiocese of Sydney in 2025.
The Jubilate Deo Programme is teaching a core repertoire of Gregorian chant to 2600 students across 11 Catholic schools. To our knowledge, this is the largest systemic program teaching chant to school-aged children anywhere in the world.
In the Jubilee Year of 1975, Pope Paul VI asked all Catholics of the Latin Rite to be able to sing together the parts of the Mass as found in the Missal, and a selection of various other common chants known and loved over the centuries (with some melodies tracing their roots to the Jewish Temple).
It is this core chant repertoire that we have taken up, 50 years on, and with the exact same aim: “This minimum repertoire of Gregorian chant has been prepared with this purpose in mind: to make it easier for Christians to achieve unity and spiritual harmony with their brothers and with the living traditions of the past.
Over the course of 2025 it is our hope that many more students, young adults, parishioners, and clergy will come to a deeper love, appreciation, and practice of chant.
Ronan Reilly is the director of the Jubilate Deo Programme.
FULL STORY
Gregorian chant program thrives in schools (By Ronan Reilly, The Catholic Weekly)
