An Interview with Matt Maher
You're back in Australia 12 months later. What are your memories of World Youth Day and Melbourne last year?
It was a bit of a whirlwind! With Melbourne, it was really a great spirit of worship the night we were here (during Days in the Dioceses - 12 July 08). There was a great sense of community and I remember praying, ‘God, I hope that continues’.
Did you find that the Australian audiences were different to those in Canada or America?
Being around Australians made me feel like I was back in Newfoundland where I grew up because Australians are very similar in temperament to Newfoundlanders.
Has World Youth Day helped form or shape your faith?
I think if anything, what the witness of World Youth Day has done is it has made me realise that I'm part of a much larger family, a much larger body than just my local parish. I'm part of a Church that is just full of so many wonderful cultures and languages, and of art and dance and communicating the Gospel. So it's really an opportunity to focus people on that and get them together and that's exciting.
In what ways have you been challenged as a young Catholic musician?
I really haven't! In the Christian community, the only thing I've received is support.
What I’ve also realised about my faith is that, particularly in building relationships with other Christians, I need to respect the fact that sometimes we speak a completely different language. Out of respect I should at least try and learn the language that they use. Some people say, ‘Why should you have to? Why can't they? We've been around a lot longer.’
I haven't really received any criticism. I've received a lot of support and as I've gotten to build relationships with Christians of other faith denominations, questions come up. But because we have a friendship, we have a sense of trust and boundaries and I've been willing to speak about my relationship with Christ in a language they understand.
Many young people are drawn to the Hillsong type of worship. Do you think the Catholic Church can offer something similar without sacrificing traditional elements of Catholic worship?
Worship is a way of life and it sometimes involves singing. I think if you even spoke to the leadership at Hillsong they would say that to you. Dynamic worship is about serving the poor just as much as it is about singing the praises of God. That's something that we've always traditionally understood. That's something that we have to remember.
The liturgy, and the Holy Father has been very clear about this, the liturgy exists in such a fashion in that it models the Incarnation of Jesus. Here's the thing - the King of the universe, the King of glory whom we worship and I love writing songs about how great he is, he became a human being and lived in obscurity amongst us. They said he was a man of no reputation. And the liturgy celebrates that. And in a really sublime fashion. So it's not dependant on necessarily external movement as much as it is internal.
The Mass was designed to be this thing that anybody, regardless of economic background, regardless of intellect, regardless of social status, that we were all equal and we were all facing one direction. Part of that – the music – had to be constructed in such a way that it was really simple and really singable. That's why chant rose up and had such a place of prominence. It best suited the architecture of the Church at the time. We find ourselves now when there are all these new conventions in modern music. But we've been here before – in the 19th century with opera. Mass became a performance and that's not at the heart of what it's supposed to be about.
I do think there are opportunities for Catholics and Christians of all denominations to come and worship God. But I think what the Holy Father and the Magisterium is saying is that we shouldn't be trying to shoehorn it all into the liturgy. Out of respect I want to be obedient to that. It doesn't mean that the Church is saying ‘you can't sing those songs’ or ‘you can't worship that way’.
I know a lot of priest friends that love my music but their personal preference is they don't want to hear it sung at Mass. And I think that Catholics sometimes have a hard time with that, but then again, worship is not meant to be just one hour on a Sunday. It's meant to be a life that is lived and so if it was really important to us, maybe we would come together outside of that hour on Sunday when we go to Mass.
When I listen to your music, I feel like I'm praying. Do you get that reaction a lot?
Yeah, I do and it's humbling. It’s a gift because that's what is in my heart and my desire that people would be lead into worship that way.
In Melbourne, the month of July has been dubbed ‘A month of hope’. How do you find ‘hope’ in music, and what does it mean to be a ‘witness of hope’ for others?
I think it means to live in joy. Joy is not a passing emotion, it's something that is deeply rooted in you. Happiness fades, but joy is the realisation that we are loved by God and all the rest of this is temporary. When we experience the joy of the Lord, the love of God in our hearts, that's the place that our love of people and our desire to live this faith comes out of, and we would do it in such a way that it gives people the permission to hope, to dream of something better and to help people realise that maybe their desire for a better society, a better world, a better place for their children is that desire came from God. Pope John Paul II said ,'It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness'. So that desire for something more is a desire for Christ.
You have a new single and a new album coming out. Does the album have a theme?
It's called Alive Again. It comes out in September. The title track is really my story – my conversion story – based upon Late have I loved you, which is a chapter from (Saint) Augustine's Confessions. The heart of the record is to lead people through an encounter with Christ in the midst of the world. To try and paint a picture that God is massive, and yet we celebrate the fact that he became human and really became increasingly insignificant. He became the most vulnerable of all creatures, he lived in obscurity for 30 years, he did three years of public ministry and he died in between two thieves. The most seemingly insignificant thing of all is he took bread and wine and he put himself into it. Now, it doesn't even look like bread, it looks like Styrofoam or something. But it's not, it's the Real Presence. Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The goal of the record is to lead people on this journey that gets smaller and smaller and deeper into the person, because it's in the human person where Christ came to dwell and literally redeem. I’m really excited about it!
Is there a particular track we should look out for?
There's a song there called Communion (Remembrance), a song about the theology of what happens during the Eucharist. The chorus is, Lord we remember you and remembrance leads us to worship. As we worship you, our worship leads to communion. We respond to your invitation, we remember you. The song was written with Matt Redman, who's an Anglican. We were writing songs together and I shared a song that came out of Adoration. He looked at the verses and says in a British accent, ‘Well mate you managed to write a song about Communion that totally skirts all the doctrinal issues altogether’. So we finished it together and really it's a song that gets to the spiritual heart of what Eucharist is. And it's something that regardless of theology in terms of doctrine, I think all Christian denominations agree with the need for intimacy with God and with the Body of Christ. That's the heart of Eucharist, so that literally Christ could be Emmanuel, God with us. There are a lot of great songs, I'll let you listen.
Interviewed by Rebecca Comini, Kairos Catholic Journal