Sacred music can “bring us closer to God” and deepen people’s experience of prayer, the administrator of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, has said.
Fr Barry Matthews was speaking after the Charles Wood Singers took part in Sung Mass at the Cathedral as part of this year’s Charles Wood Festival and Summer School, which has particular significance as Armagh marks the centenary of the composer’s death.
Fr Matthews described the Mass as “really, really beautiful” and said the festival had been especially important this year.
“It really transports people to new realities,” he said of sacred music. “It really brings us closer to God and just to speaking to the senses and through that real sense of the sacred.”
He said that was particularly evident during Sunday’s Mass. “There was a real sense of God’s presence just through the sacred music,” he said. “It was a powerful expression of faith and just unity. As the voices were joined together, so too were our prayers joined with them.”