Jesuits and Music

This past semester the overarching theme of this class was the Year of the City and the Loyola community’s connection to the city. Throughout the semester we connected the Jesuit mission with the works we read, events we attended and places we have visited. Last Thursday evening Father T. Frank Kennedy, a former Loyola Jesuit, came from Boston College to speak about Jesuits and music. Father Kennedy was the founder of the music department at Boston College and specialized in Baroque music. He showed clips of operas he has directed and movies; he explained how music mission is similar to the Jesuits mission. Father Kennedy’s speech brilliantly showed that like the Jesuits, music aim is to bridge gaps between cultures and connect all communities.

Kennedy spoke of Carol Robinson, a professor at University of Maryland who wrote about the artistic expression of humankind. Robinson states that music is a place where we find out who we are and what we do. She concluded that music is the commonality that links all people together. It disallows literal interpretation and bridges gaps between different nations. When the Jesuits were reborn in 1773, they wished to accomplish a contract between themselves and the cities; they hoped to establish the same purpose as music (forming commonalities amongst people).

Nevertheless songs are the only place you can see connections, movies give perfect examples of how music and instruments can bond two culturally different people. He began his lecture with a clip from the twentieth century movie “The Mission.” In the clip the indigenous people of Paraguay come upon a Jesuit man playing a flute in the middle of the rainforest. Kennedy explained that the clip shows how music can bring people together; he also mentioned that Jesuits believe that the best way to learn is through others. During the clip the transference of teaching occurs when the Indian takes the man’s hand and guides him out of the rainforest.

Father Kennedy then explained the definition of a mission statement. Mission statement means propagation of the faith but by the Middle Ages the definition changed to relations internal to the holy trinity. The Jesuits followed the former definition and believed their mission was to preach good news like the apostles. Like apostles their vocation was to travel but not to foreign countries, they wished to travel around the home front.

Operas were a way to spread the good news using the universal language, music. Father Kennedy concluded with a few clips of operas that he directed at Boston College. Operas began in Rome in the year 1622 and were usually written for Holy Week. Kennedy stated that instruments, colors and the chorus were the driving force behind what made the opera flow smoothly. When Kennedy ran operas in Boston College the students didn’t just learn meter, Latin and poetry in an exciting way the learned the story of Jesus. This shows that music and the Jesuits work hand in hand to strength bonds between people forming harmonious communities.