Who said he who sings prays twice

The positive types mainly differed along two dimensions that can be interpreted as arousal and the social dimension Kaiser, , p. Psychological research on the effects of group singing, conducted primarily with amateur choir singers, was initiated only in the early s. The relevant studies have already been summarized in several review articles Clift et al. Intervention studies that compare either different measures before and after an intervention or different interventions in terms of efficacy suggest a broad range of benefits for physical, mental, and social wellbeing in not only healthy, but also ill, old, or socially excluded individuals.

As physiological mechanisms that mediate such effects, the respiratory, cardiovascular, and hormonal consequences of the physical activity of singing have also been discussed Tarr et al. However, the effects of group size Weinstein et al. Empirical evidence for spiritual effects is less straightforward.

In general, the psychology of religion is aware of the widespread role that music and singing play in group worship practices and as a common trigger of religious experiences Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle, There is also a rich body of qualitative research that links music both within and outside the context of religious rituals to religious experiences Maslow, ; Greeley, ; Rouget, ; Lowis, ; Gabrielsson, Quantitative studies or experiments, however, have only started to emerge.

While some of these studies examine the context of listening to religious music Lowis and Hughes, ; Atkins and Schubert, , a few others address religious experiences in the context of singing Hills and Argyle, ; Clift and Hancox, ; Miller and Strongman, Hills and Argyle , but also Clift and Hancox , found basic similarities between religious and musical experiences, with both including a social and spiritual factor.

The only study so far that has quantitatively addressed religious singing experiences in the context of a specific Christian denomination is that of Miller and Strongman They examined religious experiences during the musical part of a Pentecostal-charismatic church service in New Zealand. In the first part of their study, they report the results of a questionnaire that asked about beliefs and experiences regarding music in church. Social or dispositional experiences were not considered.

No quantitative studies could be found that address what is called here the dispositional effect in a religious context. There is, however, some research on the underlying question, i. For the liturgical context, research exploring emotional responses and research on motivational effects are both relevant. However, the existing study designs are incompatible and their results inconsistent: Stratton and Zalanowski and Sousou studied effects on mood states, i. The first of these found that song lyrics had a greater effect than melody.

However, the authors used only a single song as a stimulus, which, in addition, was characterized by a certain mismatch between the emotional content of the lyrics and the music. In a sense, the much larger body of research concerning emotional responses to listening to music is relevant here as well, particularly research investigating emotional contagion effects Juslin, Another approach was adopted by Galizio and Hendrick , who explored the effects of the musical accompaniment of a text on persuasion and found that when lyrics were combined with melodies, the resulting emotional state was more positive and acceptance for the conveyed message greater.

The applicability of these studies to a liturgical context, however, is limited: They only explore situations of listening, not singing, and only some cases compare text with and without music, rather than music with and without text Stratton and Zalanowski, ; Sousou, The musical repertoire that is sung is not controlled for or taken into account in the analyses; group sizes are small; and the empirical and experimental methods applied do not always meet the highest standards Dingle et al.

In addition, the potential influence of musical and social context factors on observed effects are typically not taken into consideration. A further goal of this study was to find person-related factors that have a moderating effect on such singing experiences. Study participation was voluntary and anonymous. Various methods of recruitment were used, including online via mailing lists and social networks and in print via German and Austrian church newspapers.

There was no monetary compensation provided for participation. With regard to congregational singing, the sample showed a very positive attitude. Participants were very much inclined toward music outside of church as well. Taken together, the sample consisted mostly of highly engaged, liturgically active Catholics with a strong affinity toward music.

This sample is therefore not representative of Catholics in general of which only 9. Starting from the abovementioned analysis of hypotheses underlying Church documents on the liturgy, we developed a scale based on 11 ad hoc formulated items that addressed social 5 and spiritual 6 experiences, the latter differentiated into anagogical experiences 4 , and the idea of singing as a form of prayer 2.

We did not include any items related to the dispositional effect, given the scarcity of acknowledgment or research on it so far. All items were formulated as a statement in the first person to which participants had to rate their agreement on a 5-point Likert scale from mostly not to mostly yes. In addition, we collected data on religious and musical behavior and attitudes, as well as socio-demographics, which we will describe in more detail below. These items were chosen for inclusion as moderators or potential confounds.

Again, there were no validated psychometric scales available for our purposes. Items were answered either via 5- or 7-point Likert scales that assessed degree of agreement, importance, or frequency, or by selecting one or more items from a list of response options. Fifteen items were used to inquire about the frequency of various types of religious behavior, i.

In addition, we asked if participants performed one or more of ten given liturgical offices. Based on a study by Rentsch , we assumed two basic understandings of the Mass, a traditional and a secular one.

Ten items were created to represent either the one or the other. As far as possible, the actual wording was at least in part directly derived from the IGMR. In addition, four items asked about the frequency of singing at home and with regard to religious and non-religious repertoire with a 3-point Likert scale. To assess whether participants had more of a negative or a positive attitude toward singing, five items were created that asked about their opinion regarding singing in Mass and in private.

Sociodemographic variables included gender, age, nationality, marital status, education level, state of residence, diocese, and size of domicile, and finally, size of domicile during childhood. Because of the exploratory nature of the study and the need to rely mostly on self-designed scales and measurements, we inspected the collected data thoroughly with regard to distribution, correlations, and underlying structure of items.

We also conducted several reliability checks. Thus, we sought to reduce the number of potential predictors by either excluding or combining individual items into scores and indices.

From the large number of items regarding religious and musical attitudes and behaviors we created composite scores and scales. Our criteria for combination and exclusion were face validity, reliability, and sufficient variance of the resulting scores. For each participant, a mean was computed in order to serve as index value. According to a comparison of the histogram of the resulting index with a normal probability curve, it was almost normally distributed see Table 1 for descriptive statistics.

Reports about performing one or more liturgical offices were recoded into a categorical variable which differentiated between no office, musical office, and other office.

The original items were designed with the intention to capture two distinct attitudes toward Mass a traditional and a secular one; Rentsch, For theoretical reasons, however, we decided to continue with both subscales. Again, a mean for each subscale and participant was computed. The resulting indices were strongly traditional and slightly secular left-skewed, but still showed a sufficiently broad variance see Table 1 for descriptive statistics.

The related items addressed various motivations for engaging in religious practices. Since we had no a priori assumption of their potential grouping, we conducted a principal component analysis with Varimax rotation to see if the items would group into distinct factors.

The first and second factors combined eight items that expressed either a motivation to be near to God or the hope that Mass or private prayer might be beneficial for the individual. Three items loaded onto both factors. For all three factors, a mean for each participant was computed. We created a scale for frequency of spiritual experiences independent of singing in Mass from four items that focused on the frequency of experiences of being in close contact or communication with God.

For each participant, a mean score from these four items was created. A principal component analysis with Varimax rotation revealed two underlying factors that explained From these, a mean score per factor and participant was computed. The relationships between the practice and attitude variables can be seen in the correlation matrix in Table 2. The most notable patterns are the moderate to strong associations between three of the religious practice variables i.

Inasmuch as the main aim of this study was to test whether congregational singing in Catholic worship contexts today could generally afford the social and spiritual experiences that the Church expects, we first examined the means and distributions of the related items see Table 3. Table 3. Item battery and descriptive statistics for effects of congregational singing in mass. The means of the 11 items with liturgy-relevant effects all lay above the neutral middle point of 3, ranging from 3.

In eight cases, the highest scale point was also the most frequently chosen value. Of all three, the social effect was experienced most frequently.

In a next step, we examined statistical relationships between our independent measures and the effects of congregational singing in Mass. First, three separate linear multiple regression models were fitted for each effect using SPSS Version 25 method: inclusion , which included one of the three predictor types—practices, attitudes, and sociodemographic variables—in order to gain an overview of their relative strengths. In the models with sociodemographic variables, the predictors we included were age, gender, level of education, and size of domicile during childhood and at present.

The models with practice variables included Frequency of attending Mass, Performing liturgical office musical and other , and Frequency of singing in Mass, as well as the indices for Frequency of worship, Musical practice in choirs or ensembles, and Singing at home.

The models with attitude variables consisted of the indices for Religious attitude, Religious motivation, Spiritual experiences, and Musical attitudes. Both practices and attitudes significantly predicted singing experiences in Mass to a sufficient degree; sociodemographic variables, however, did not see Table 4.

Nonetheless, not all of the variables included turned out to be significant predictors. In the models with practice variables, Musical liturgical office and Musical practice in choirs or ensembles did not significantly predict Spiritual experience, while Frequency of Mass attendance, Frequency of participation in public and private worship, Musical practice in choirs or ensembles, and Singing at home had no predictive value for Social experience. In the models with attitude variables, single items or indices that were not able to predict effects were Secular understanding of Mass for Spiritual experience and Singing as praying , Intrinsic religious motivation for Social experience , Extrinsic religious motivation all three models , and Spiritual experiences for Social experience.

To see how practice and attitude variables would behave if combined in one model, we fitted three further models with both types of predictors.

This time, we decided for stepwise inclusion as a method in order to identify the most relevant predictors. The results are presented in Tables 4 , 5. Table 5. Standardized beta coefficients of practice and attitude predictors for three effects of congregational singing in mass.

When practice and attitude variables were combined, but multicollinearity rigorously reduced, only two to four predictors survived, thus reducing the overall goodness of fit of the models somewhat compared to the models with attitude variables only.

In the models for Spiritual experience and Singing as praying, one musical practice predictor Singing at home and Musical office respectively complemented two to three attitude predictors, the two strongest of which appeared in both models i. The final model for Social experience included only two religious attitude predictors which were different from those in the other models.

Practice variables that appeared as significant predictors in the practices-only models but disappeared from the combined models were: Frequency of participation in public and private worship, Frequency of singing in Mass, and Performance of a non-musical liturgical office.

Except for the case of Performance of a non-musical liturgical office, it seemed quite clear that the two other practice variables were the behavioral consequences of related attitudes, which is why they no longer became significant on those models that included the attitudes underlying them.

In sum, religious and musico-religious attitudes were by far the strongest predictors of Mass-relevant experiences of congregational singing. While the models for Spiritual experience and Singing as praying shared their two strongest predictors and were also similar, inasmuch both contained a musical practice predictor, Social experience showed a distinct pattern being related to a secular understanding of Mass and a social motivation to attend it.

The Roman Catholic Church has always expected a lot from sacred music in its liturgy—as have other Christian denominations and many other religions. In the wake of the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council, chants and hymns sung by the congregation have been assigned the function of causing attendants to realize, feel, and experience individually what is performed and enacted in the liturgy.

In this study, we have for the first time provided quantitative data on this question from a large German-speaking sample. We have found that congregational singing is indeed very frequently experienced as having the unifying and uplifting effects on which the Church has based its liturgical practices regarding singing. We also found that the degree to which these effects are experienced largely depends on religious and musical attitudes.

Our study was conducted as an online survey, which featured an exhaustive questionnaire about three types of general singing experiences in Catholic Masses and a broad range of potentially relevant factors, including religious and musical practices and attitudes. We have found that congregational singing in Mass can indeed afford these effects to a large degree, whereby the social effect is even more pronounced than the other two—at least for a sample like ours, which was composed mostly of well-educated regular churchgoers with a strong affinity for music.

Thus, the theoretical assumptions, historical documents, and qualitative data from earlier studies of worshippers from various Christian denominations Slough, ; Adnams, ; Kaiser, have been corroborated by our quantitative data. Our results are also consistent with the existing body of qualitative and quantitative research on group singing as an instrument for social bonding Kreutz, ; Pearce et al. Although there exists very little quantitative research on the spiritual effects of music and group singing, the findings so far point in the same direction as ours and show that people do have spiritual experiences in conjunction with music Hills and Argyle, ; Clift and Hancox, ; Atkins and Schubert, ; Demmrich, Specifically, the studies by Hills and Argyle and Clift and Hancox have shown that group singing is associated with several experienced effects or benefits simultaneously, including social and spiritual ones.

We also looked into potential intraindividual predictors. Given that we could not formulate hypotheses based on earlier research, we tested sociodemographic variables, religious and musical practices, and religious and musical attitudes against each other. While practices and attitudes turned out to significantly predict the frequency of liturgical singing experiences, sociodemographic factors had almost no effect at all see Table 4.

Attitudes, however, had a much stronger predictive value than practices and overwrote most of the latter in those models that included both variable types. The most important attitude variables were a traditional understanding of Mass operationalized after Rentsch, and a positive attitude toward singing in Mass which both predicted Spiritual effects, and a social motivation to attend Mass which predicted the Social effect see Table 5.

They must therefore count as the most critical factors behind individual experiences of congregational singing in Catholic worship. In general, the models for Spiritual experience and Singing as praying showed many similarities, but were distinct from that for Social experience. While the latter was the only one for which a secular understanding of Mass played a significant role, the two other models comprised also musico-religious and musical predictors.

Taken together, the types and combinations of predictors found to be significant in our regression models have a high face validity and are also consistent with earlier research. In the case of religious attitudes, the role of religiosity for actual spiritual experiences with music already manifested in the studies by Lowis and Hughes for listening to music and by Clift and Hancox for group singing.

The relationship between attitudes, responses, and related behavior has been studied extensively. Attitudes are known to influence individual emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to objects and situations Ajzen, ; Ajzen and Fishbein, , which is what we have found for the case of congregational singing.

They also predict behavior Fishbein and Ajzen, , and do so even more the more frequently a related behavior is performed Davidson and Jaccard, ; Fazio, Since attitudes are known to be learned, i. Concretely, religious and musical practices, the experiences they generate, and the collective knowledge they convey can be expected to form attitudes that then in turn influence actual experiences. This leads to the conclusion that, clearly, music in general and communal singing in particular do not function as automatic mechanisms generating social, religious, or any other experiences in people solely due to their musical and performative properties.

This finding calls to mind research on music and trance. The trip had a very clear objective: to help young people born here, of Oaxacan fathers and mothers, fall in love with the rich musical traditions of that state.

We know from psychology that the stage of adolescence and youth is a period of search for identity that will mark them for the rest of their lives.

Through it there is satisfaction and internal stability. Music saves people from situations with extreme spiritual and economic needs, providing them with motivations to get ahead, and that is what we try to transmit to these young people, the secrets of music.

Thus, we can identify among them a good musician, writer or interpreter of our culture, and that perseverance and discipline are the necessary conditions to fulfill the objectives of this life.

Bishop Most Reverend David J. Walkowiak, J. He was appointed bishop by Pope Francis on April 18, He was ordained and installed on June 18, during Mass celebrated at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew. The diocese serves , Catholics, and has 80 parishes and 31 schools.

Ministries Diocesan ministries assist in furthering the mission of the Church in West Michigan and serve as a resource to parishes, individual Catholics and the broader community. These offices exist to foster Catholic identity, engage pastoral leadership, recognize and celebrate diversity, and promote evangelization and ecumenism.

Vocations Each of us is called by God to a life of holiness. Our vocation is the way we live out that call. Some are called to marriage, others to consecrated or religious life, and still others to holy orders which includes deacons and priests.

The Diocese of Grand Rapids is blessed with diocesan priests, 15 priests from religious communities, and eight priests from other dioceses, along with 33 deacons, 28 seminarians, and women religious from 10 orders. Parishes The Diocese of Grand Rapids includes 80 parishes located in cities and towns throughout our 11 counties.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. My life is a story of getting my heart smashed and the many times I have chosen to get up.

It is the getting-up-again stories that are best told. So you all can get-up-again and discover the truth that God truly is close to the broken-hearted as Psalm tells us. Or is Psalm more true because you are bravely living broken-hearted so God is close to you?

I have a free download for you that is a piece here and a piece there of my message…with a Star Trek reference I love. That truth became bearable when Captain Kirk taught me it back in Sign me up! Stresslaxing 0. I am Exhausted from Joy 0. Science shows singing is one of the best memorization tools known to man. Singing scripture will help deepen your Biblical knowledge.

Paul also makes mention of this in Colossians Studies also show that singing changes the brain.