Fr. Michael Joncas Receives Pax Christi Award May 9, 2017 By Collegeville Institute Leave a Comment Fr. Michael Joncas (image source). On June 25, Saint John’s Abbey and University will bestow its highest award, the Pax Christi Award, upon well-known liturgical composer Fr. Michael Joncas, co-facilitator of the 2015 Words for Worship workshop at the Collegeville Institute. Fr. Joncas, along with fellow award recipients David Haas and Marty Haugen, has made major, distinctive contributions to the music that is sung by church choirs and congregations around the world. Fr. Joncas is a supremely gifted choral composer and is best known for songs such as “On Eagle’s Wings” and “I Have Loved You.” In their letter to honorees of the Pax Christi Award, Abbot John Klassen, OSB, and University President Michael Hemesath, noted: “You have generously offered your musical talents and contributed greatly to the ‘full, conscious, and active participation’ of the people of God in the liturgy as called for by the Second Vatican Council. Your compositions are sung by congregations and choirs and ensembles around the world, across a wide variety of Christian traditions. In your writing, speaking, and presenting, you have evocatively connected liturgical music with the work of the churches for peace and justice. Your commitment to sung liturgy exemplifies the Benedictine spirit, as shown in the first scholae cantorum founded by Benedictines in the 7th century to teach sacred music to youth, through the work for liturgical reform by our Fr. Virgil Michel and other leaders of the Liturgical Movement.” Like this post? Subscribe to have new posts sent to you by email the same day they are posted.
