Music Fit for a King

Composer and conductor Paul Jernberg currently resides in Lander, Wyoming, where he is Music Director at Wyoming Catholic College, and heads up the Magnificat Institute of Sacred Music, an organization dedicated to the renewal of liturgical music in the Catholic Church.

Mr Jernberg shares one of his latest projects: a Mass in Honor of Blessed Karl (von Habsburg) of Austria, premiering in Washington, D.C. this month.

CWR: Can you tell us about your musical journey? How and when did you begin to compose sacred music?

Paul Jernberg: My first musical career was primarily as a pianist, in which I began studies as a young child in Chicago (in the 1950s) and continued through college, then performing as a soloist and accompanist for almost two decades. Pursuing the opportunity to live and work in Sweden (1983-1993), this career blossomed and expanded to include composition and some choral directing.

Looking back, I am deeply grateful for the great breadth and depth of musical knowledge and skills, which I garnered from all these studies and experiences. However, my final years in Sweden opened a new chapter in which two encounters were to bring a deeper and clearer focus to my life and work.

First, I spent the better part of two years living near a Franciscan friary outside of Gothenburg, where I was able to join the friars regularly in their daily Mass, Divine Office, and community life. This allowed me to discover the priceless treasure of the Catholic Faith, and of the sacred chant traditions which have been such an integral and grace-filled part of the practice of this Faith.

Second, I began to visit the l’Arche community in Trosly-Breuil, France, which brought together people with intellectual disabilities, their helpers, and friends from all walks of life. Here again, Christ was clearly at the center, the Catholic faith was lived and taught with fidelity and depth, and the hidden gifts of the handicapped revealed the beauty of the Beatitudes in an extraordinary way. I was called upon to help with liturgical music for Masses, and for a pilgrimage of Faith and Light (an international affiliate of l’Arche) to Lourdes.

I was received into the Catholic Church in February 1992. When my wife (whom I had met at l’Arche) and I moved back to Chicago in 1993, we seriously considered a number of different career possibilities which I might pursue. But when I was offered a position as parish music director and teacher in Chicago’s inner city, we had a strong sense of this being a providential opportunity, and gladly accepted it. Since then I have continued in this “double vocation” as a Catholic church musician and educator, with gratitude and joy. One vital dimension of this vocation has been to constantly cultivate the Church’s great tradition of sacred music—that “treasure of inestimable value.”

But another has been to compose new settings for the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours—aspiring to fulfill the noble goal articulated in Musicam Sacram: “…To continue that tradition which has furnished the Church, in her divine worship, with a truly abundant heritage… so that ‘new forms may in some way grow organically from forms that already exist,’¹ and the new work will form a new part in the musical heritage of the Church, not unworthy of its past.”²

CWR: You are now the music director at Wyoming Catholic College. What does that involve?

Paul Jernberg: On the one hand, it involves being the director of our College Choir and Choral Scholars. We normally rehearse twice a week and sing for at least one Mass per week. We also typically perform in concert, in Advent (as part of a community concert) and in the spring (performing a full concert of our own.) We are now preparing quite a full repertoire for our performances in Washington, DC in October. This includes not only the new Ordinary and Propers for the Mass in Honor of Blessed Charles, but also a concert featuring F.J. Haydn’s Te Deum and other great works, a Saturday evening Vespers service, a fully sung Sunday Mass, and a fully sung Byzantine Divine Liturgy.

But my work as college music director also includes other major projects: One of these is the creation of a new course for all incoming Freshman, entitled “Music Literacy and Culture.” In this class, all students are taught the fundamentals of vocal music sight-reading and technique, while learning a broad repertoire of sacred music and engaging folk music. Those students who are already skilled singers/musicians are able to develop their skills to new levels of competence and confidence, and all are equipped with the tools to teach others the rich content of this course.

Another project I will be leading this year is a “Sacred Music Seminar” which will be held once a week, and made available not only to our college students but also to those who wish to participate through its availability as a Zoom meeting (subscribe here to receive more info on joining the Seminar when it starts). In this seminar, I will be presenting a year-long course on the renewal of Catholic sacred music in all its essential dimensions. While the pursuit of such a renewal is not a panacea to remedy all our ecclesial ills, it can be a significant point of departure which also imparts inspiration and courage to wisely meet the many other challenges that we face.

CWR: Tell us about the upcoming premiere and conference this month. What inspired it, and what will it involve?

Paul Jernberg: The idea for this new composition, and for this conference, began with my “chance” meeting with the great-grandson of Blessed Karl (the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and King of Hungary) a couple of years ago. The more I read about him and his wife Zita, the more I was inspired by their radiant model of great leadership – characterized not by the desire for power, but by the pursuit of wisdom and a faithful, self-sacrificial love for his people.

In meeting several other people with a great devotion to Bl. Karl, the inspiration to compose a Mass in his honor seemed to fall into my lap. As performances of this music could very possibly involve congregations in Europe, as well as the US, I began by composing settings for the Proper texts in Latin, which we share as the traditional liturgical language of the Church in the West. Subsequently, I also composed settings for these texts in German, French, Hungarian, and finally, in English!

Inherent in the composition and performance of this Mass were the ideas of 1.) giving due honor to this saintly leader, in such a way as to share his radiant life and legacy with many others, and 2.) praying together, in the “most perfect prayer” of the Mass, that God would inspire us and many others to imitate Karl’s model of faith-filled leadership.

While this sung Mass would be able to “stand on its own” as a meaningful and fruitful event, the idea of putting it in the context of a Conference grew from conversations with members of the Gebetsliga (the Emperor Karl League of Prayer) and other friends and colleagues. Such a Conference would allow us to enter more fully into a prayerful reflection on his life and legacy, through talks, panel discussions, Liturgies, and other musical performances. Responding to a gracious invitation from Suzanne Pearson, the Gebetsliga delegate to North America, we decided to hold this Conference in Washington, DC, October 18-20; the premiere of my Mass in Honor of Blessed Karl will be at St. Mary Mother of God Parish (the location of the city’s shrine in his honor) on Saturday, October 19 at 10:30am.

We have been able to gather a splendid group of speakers for the Conference, including Princess Maria Anna Galitzine (Bl. Karl’s granddaughter), Charles Coulombe (historian, author, and biographer of Bl. Karl), Phil Lawler (editor emeritus of Catholic World Report and founding editor of Catholic World News), Fr. Benedict Kiely (founding director of Nasarean.org and friend of the Habsburg family), to name just a few. Our musical contributors include the Washington Chamber Orchestra, our WCC Choir, and the Cor Unum Artists (a professional choir recently formed in DC for this event.) Lots more information about the conference can be found here.

CWR: When you compose for a particular saint, what makes it for them as opposed to a more generic purpose?

Paul Jernberg: The primary purpose of every Mass, and of the sacred music which clothes its liturgical texts, is the worthy worship of the Triune God. But in the traditional Christian Liturgy—both East and West—this worship is, by its nature, always in communion with all the other members of the Church, living and deceased, throughout time and space. And to fully enter into this communion, the Church calls us to remember, honor, give thanks for, and ask for the intercession of those saints who have gone before us—most especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, but also the multitude of other saints throughout history who by the grace of God have lived faithfully and heroically. Composing a Mass “of” or “in honor of” a particular saint—with its Proper texts and special hymns—is meant to help everyone to enter more fully into this dimension of awareness, communion, gratitude, and intercession in their regard.

On an experiential note, one can see how a Mass such as thi—as well as the entire Conference in honor of Blessed Karl—can also inspire us to follow in the footsteps of the saints, so as to grow ever closer to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”³, especially in the leadership roles which we are called to exercise. I have recently come across a quote which seems to capture well this aspect of honoring the saints, through the Liturgy and through sacred music: “Leaders habitually contemplate that which is good and great and noble in the life of heroes, for the vision of the beautiful, as Plato says, causes the soul to sprout wings.”⁴

• To find out more, visit: pauljernberg.com (for more information, films, and links to recordings), magnificatinstitute.org, wyomingcatholic.edu, and emperorcharles.org.

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