The Gift of Music: Sister Rose Wildeman on Music, Prayer, and Benedictine Life

So when you think of music, like in our liturgies and things like that, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

Music is such a vital part of our prayer.

We chant the psalms, sing to the modes and to the different melodies.

It's such an essential part to all our prayer.

And I think that music enhances our prayer by the sound of the music.

If it's a sad song, the music goes along with that.

Or if it's a jubilant joy to the world kind of song.

You know, I think music really helps to express what we're saying or singing.

Many of those emotions can be expressed through the music.

So you've also composed music, correct? That's correct.

How do you go about composing a piece of music?

Most of the time, when I compose music, it's usually during retreat and it's during a quiet time of prayer and reflection.

I'm reflecting on scripture or just finding God in nature and just spending time with God.

And it's usually during that time that the words or the scripture or the beauty of the nature, whatever speaks to me in different ways.

And sometimes it's through a Psalm or through a, part of a gospel or something.

And sometimes it's just things that I make up.

I made up one time with just all the beauty that I saw on a vacation trip.

But it usually has to give me some time to let it percolate.

A lot of times I'll get the words and then I start humming around on different tunes and I'll get a start on it.

And then if I've got the scripture or the words, I can put those to melodies and go from there.

Sometimes if I have to write a short little response or a little antiphon or something like that, I can sit down and do that pretty quickly.

But the other songs that we've composed, I say we, it's Stillpoint, the group that I'm with.

A lot of us write music, and we've composed it, and we've also recorded it.

We help each other with the music, and it becomes the whole group's music.

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