Morning and Evening Prayer: An interview with Jerry Goebel

Recently, I have approached three well known figures in the liturgical music world and asked them to be part of a blog-interview. They have all been asked the same four questions – but as you will see – their responses are quite different and provide a fascinating insight as to how liturgical music is utilized in their experience of Morning and Evening Prayer.

This week I am presenting US liturgical musician and speaker Jerry Goebel [pictured]. Jerry has 6 music collections to his name and is an enthusiastic writer with 2 books under his belt too. His latest book is The Deepest Longing of Young People: Loved without Conditions and will be released next year through St Mary’s Press.

Jerry does sterling work in prison ministry and has created his own ministry outreach organization called ONEFamily Outreach.

Without further ado – here is Jerry….

Lucernarium: Do you, or have you, used music in celebrating Morning and Evening Prayer? What has been your experience of these ‘hinge’ hours of prayer? How has music enhanced these times for you and the gathered assembly?

Jerry: Most of my work is with the incarcerated nowadays. I do outreach concerts but also I have ongoing ministries with local juvenile detention centers, jails, and prisons. In the jail and prisons I do a great deal of morning and evening prayers with the men. We use the Psalms mostly and the inmates tend to be more attuned to contemporary music as my groups are ecumenical and often new to the Christian faith.

Lucernarium: What do you see as the challenges facing Morning and Evening Prayer in a parish setting? Are there other settings where it can be celebrated?

Jerry: Fortunately, I have a “captive audience.” People want to come early and they want to stay as late as they possibly can. Yet, they don’t have to come back on a regular basis. We started a 24/7 Christian community in a local jail almost a decade ago and it is very much like a monastic approach to life. We can only take 64 guys and we have a waiting list of well over 80 right now. Men want the order in their life. They respond to it and it changes them. Often times—after being there a few days and feeling the emotional and physical safety of their surroundings—they will spontaneously break into sobbing. They truly sound like newborn babies and everything stops while those around them pray and hold them (I have pictures of this on my web site—it is truly the movement of the Holy Spirit).

For people who have known nothing but chaos most of their life; this is a huge change.

With the kids we do something different. We work with them on gratitude lists that they read every morning and every night in their cells. I tell the kids that all dysfunctional behavior (including addictions) begins with a lack of gratitude and the words; “What about me?”

Their morning and evening prayers are to go over their lists and remember what they are grateful for. We also tell them that the world is wide open to the person who can express gratitude to others. They practice this daily and it changes lives incredibly.

That’s our morning and evening prayer.

Lucernarium: Is there a saturation of Eucharistic celebrations throughout the duration of any given week in a parish setting? Is there scope to balance the liturgical diet of the faithful by replacing weekday Masses with Lauds and Vespers? Comment.

Jerry: Not being in the parish setting I am not sure I am much help here. Also, I cannot be particularly denominational in our approach to worship and biblical study. However, we look at what Christ did at the Eucharist and the very essence of the word: Eucharisteo.

That term literally translates into good (meaning whole and holy) gifted or thankfulness. Christ takes the bread, breaks it and says something amazing; “Thank you (Eucahristeo).” “This is my body; it has been broken for you.”

It is stunning that Jesus would thank God for the privilege of being broken for us and… as Paul would say, “While we were yet sinners!”

Our emphasis with the guys is learning to become thankful anywhere and everywhere to God. I always ask them: “Are you a prisoner of the State or a prisoner of the Lord? Paul called himself a prisoner of the Lord and never a prisoner of Rome.”

Can we thank God for being broken for others on his behalf?

Lucernarium: The developments in scriptural and liturgical music since Vatican II have been quite remarkable. In your opinion, where will we be in 10-15 years time? What developments do you think will occur, given present liturgical understandings and practice?

I think the church faces a time of turmoil. Mother Theresa said something like: “The closer we are to the wounded body of Jesus; the closer we are to God.”

I deal largely in ecumenical and even secular circles most of the time; especially in my work with expelled, incarcerated, and recovering kids. The closer I am to them; the more I have to present a simple, relational gospel.

We tell them that the Hebraic tradition and the gospels are both personal AND communal. We want them to be change-agents for Jesus in their neighborhoods, schools, institutions, even their gangs. It is much like Jesus sending the man possessed by a Legion of demons back to his town or the woman at Jacob’s well running out to her city. With no ritual, background, or biblical study; they changed an entire culture. How? All they said was: “You know what I was; now look at who Jesus made me.” No one could argue with that.

We put it like this; “Don’t be Christian; be Christ.”

It seems that the further we get from the wounded body of Jesus; the more religious and ritualistic we become. I pray that we can find a way to reconcile the two into the type of church laid forth in the 10th Chapter of Matthew when Jesus says who will receive the prophet’s reward. 1) The Prophet (the one who pro(forward) claims his community for Christ; 2) The righteous (the one who makes what is wrong—right); 3) those who feed and house the prophetic and the righteous (providing the emotional, spiritual, and financial support for the prophetic and righteous to do their work; and 4) the one who goes way out of their way to go down to the well and get a fresh glass of living water for the least, little (micros in Greek) one.

It takes everyone…

Here ends the first of a three part interview series of blogs focusing on the role of music in Morning and Evening Prayer. Special thanks to Jerry Goebel for sharing his experiences. Next week I will be posting an interview with that wondrous guitar player from Cincinnati – Bobby Fisher!