“If it helps people pray, I’m happy,” Father Jan Michael Joncas said as he reflected on how he feels about his sacred music being performed the world over. “I’m a church music composer, so it’s always (about) trying to support the community’s prayer.”
Father Joncas’ contributions as a liturgical composer are being recognized this month with his induction into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in New Ulm; Bonnie Ubl, the hall of fame’s executive director, credited Father Joncas’ hymn “On Eagle’s Wings” — based on Psalm 91 and performed at Masses, baptisms, weddings and funerals — as being an especially notable contribution to music.
Ubl, who has been in her current role for the past three years after joining the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame staff in 2010, said two main criteria must be met to be included in the hall of fame: the inductee was born and/or has lived in Minnesota and the inductee has contributed to the state’s music scene.
Anyone can submit a nomination form. The board of directors begins looking at those each year in late summer, then pares down the list of names “until we end up with five to six,” Ubl said. Selected inductees receive a 6-foot shelf in the museum that is filled with their bios, photos, music and memorabilia. A ceremony is held to recognize the inductees.
“I always say our induction Friday night is New Ulm’s Academy Awards,” Ubl said.
“It’s an honor,” said Father Joncas, 71, expressing his gratitude to be an inductee. He said the induction “kind of came out of the blue” for him. “I’m grateful; that’s a very nice thing.”
Father Joncas has composed more than 300 pieces of liturgical music and his academic, writing and speaking career spans decades. Yet he said, “I have always understood my primary calling to be a priest.” Throughout his ministry, music has served as an artistic expression of faith.
Growing up as the eldest of eight kids in Northeast Minneapolis with a father in technical theater and a mother who was a lyric soprano, music “was always part of my upbringing,” Father Joncas said.
In addition to taking piano lessons at St. Charles Borromeo, Father Joncas said his family lived next door to the principal horn for the Minnesota Orchestra (at the time, the Minneapolis Orchestra). “He let me haunt his library, so I did a lot of study of classical composition early on.”
Father Joncas entered the seminary at age 13 “when we still had Nazareth Hall Prep Seminary” in St. Paul. Coinciding with the Second Vatican Council, “there were all sorts of changes in worship, and we needed music that was now in the vernacular rather than just in Latin and Greek and Hebrew. So, I started writing.”
He graduated from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul in 1975. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1980, he ministered at Presentation of Mary in Maplewood, Newman Center and Chapel in Minneapolis, the University of St. Thomas, The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, St. Cecilia in St. Paul, and St. Thomas the Apostle in Minneapolis. He obtained liturgy degrees from the University of Notre Dame and The Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome.
He became a faculty member of the University of St. Thomas’ theology department and began teaching in 1991, later joining the Catholic Studies department. He was also an artist-in-residence at the university, which he called “a total gift to me from Father Dennis Dease, who was the president at that point.” Father Dease recognized Father Joncas’ dedication to teaching at the university: “He said that I had worked very hard … and so he wanted to give me a chance at the end of my academic career to have enough time for some of my own projects,” Father Joncas said.
Recently, Father Joncas’ projects have included writing hymns of the day for each Sunday of the three-year liturgical cycle. Having celebrated the Masses in the three-year cycle “multiple times,” Father Joncas said he is “now trying to take what I’ve been understanding of the Scriptures and put it into a poetic form that could be sung.”
Another project has been a four-volume set called “The Simple Psalter.” Meant for a capella or for vocalists with keyboard accompaniment, the volumes contain all the responsorial psalms in the three-year lectionary. One volume is dedicated to solemnities, feasts and other liturgical celebrations and the other three volumes are for years A, B and C. The four-volume set, which took Father Joncas about five years to work on, is being published by Liturgical Press in Collegeville, Minnesota.
Father Joncas described the process for the latter project as “writing to task,” which he enjoys – regularly carving out time to complete his compositions. He contrasted that with the process of “being overwhelmed by something emotionally and then writing out of that emotional experience. And I’ve done that too. But what I really try to do is balance the two of them.”
It’s why Father Joncas describes the process for writing his recent hymn “Shelter Me” as “very unlike what I would normally do.”
He recalled waking up at about 3 a.m. one morning early in 2020 “with just one line of music going through my head.” Eventually the words “ahead is dark and difficult to see” came to him. “Things like that don’t happen to me. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with a tune or a text or anything, but that (time I) did.”
He set to work writing the music and the accompanying text, which is based on Psalm 23. “Basically, I wrote the song between 3 in the morning and 10 in the morning; I didn’t go back to sleep and (I) just worked on it.” Released during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Father Joncas intended it “for comfort and courage.”
“Part of the joy of being a Christian is trusting that we’re being cared for by a loving God and no matter what the future is, even if we can’t see it, God will be present to us,” Father Joncas said.
Father Joncas himself turns to music for solace, mentioning German composer Richard Strauss’ “Four Last Songs” as providing him with “great comfort and great courage.” Liturgically, Father Joncas especially appreciates the Sanctus at Mass. “Here is kind of the central music we sing, and we sing it for God’s praise,” he said about its significance.
Although he retired from full-time ministry in 2022, Father Joncas continues to celebrate the Mass on an “on-call” basis. In fact, he declined attending the banquet and showcase to recognize the latest class of inductees April 14 and 15 at the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, due to a commitment he had already made to celebrate the Mass.
When he’s not celebrating the Mass, Father Joncas enjoys attending services at St. Cecilia. “I served as their pastor for a couple of years way back when I was starting to teach and so I’ve always had a real affection for that community. And considering that she (St. Cecilia) is the patron saint of music, I think that’s pretty personal,” he said.
A social hour, dinner and induction presentation to honor the latest class of Minnesota Music Hall of Fame inductees — jazz vocalist Gwen Matthews, bluegrass singer-songwriter and musician Becky Buller, “Old Tyme” band Jolly Huntsmen, rock band Del Counts and Father Joncas — are set for April 14 and a showcase is set for the following day.
Information about the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame can be found online at mnmusichalloffame.org.
