WYD Concert Places the Gospel on Center Stage

As musicians, "we are in the vocational service of beauty. What greater beauty to be presenting to people than that of God? It's so humbling and spiritually rewarding to be able to give the gifts he gave us back to him."

SYDNEY, Australia (Zenit) - The Gospel is potent when it is presented in song, say the composers of the official World Youth Day anthem.

ZENIT spoke with Guy Sebastian, Gary Pinto and Paulini Curuenavuli today before they joined other musicians to participate in a festival of song presented to pilgrims after World Youth Day's opening Mass.

Sebastian and Pinto said it is an honor to witness the strength of the Gospel when presented in music.

Sebastian, a winner of Australian Idol, said he hopes that the youth day anthem "will further help to cement the message of this amazing event into people's hearts."

"Through singing 'Alleluia, receive the power,' the youth will know that it is not through our own talents that we do this, but by the power of God," he said. "Nothing is impossible to his Holy Spirit."

Pinto offered encouragement to all young Catholic musicians and artists, consistent with the call of Pope John Paul II in his 1999 Letter to Artists. He said that as musicians, "we are in the vocational service of beauty. What greater beauty to be presenting to people than that of God? It's so humbling and spiritually rewarding to be able to give the gifts he gave us back to him."

The World Youth Day theme song performers were joined in the festival by acts including artists such as Tap Dogs, Fire Dancers and the Australian Girls Choir.

The festival ended with a spectacular display of fireworks shimmering off the harbor.

Conveying the message

Youth day organizers insist that contemporary music with a Catholic flavor is playing a key role in conveying the messages they aim to present.

Tongan-Australian singer, Paulini, who performed with her band, identified why this is the case.

"Music is something that everyone loves and it brings them together," she told us.

Another group, the Emmanuel Worship band, from Brisbane, Queensland, performed their pieces in a special Queensland gathering today.

The troupe has been involved in spreading the World Youth Day message around Australia, via a series of events with the cross and icon journey.

Patrick Keady, keyboardist and composer in the Emmanuel Worship group, told ZENIT: "In music ministry, what we are trying to do is communicate an age-old message, which has seemed dead, but it's not; it is fresh, alive and vibrant.

"Music is a universal language that everyone gets. When you speak this language, it helps the transition from an old generation to a new generation who needs to rise up and take their place in history. And it does it in a way that they understand."

Christian bands seek to take advantage of particular styles of music to help others experience the Gospel.

"The beginning point definitely has to be a personal relationship with Jesus," said 23-year-old Bernard Drumm, guitarist from another performance group -- Mass Revival.

These two Christian bands, as Catholics, also try to help people see another face of Catholicism.

"A lot of young Catholics have been brought up with many misconceptions about the Church and its teachings," said Drumm, a seminarian. "They think that it's something from yesterday that doesn't relate to today."

"As Catholics," he continued, "we seem to spend a lot of time defending our beliefs and trying to explain ourselves into oblivion [...] rather than just allowing the joy we find in [the faith] to inspire the core of the hearts of others so they may begin their own search for that truth, which is the source of our joy."

The drummer for the Mass Revival band, Michael Campbell, feels that "the sense of sharing that music provides is representative of what's here at World Youth Day when you have so many people from different cultures and languages coming together, singing and dancing in the Lord."

Lead singer Daniel Foster added: "World Youth Day shows you are part of a huge Church and that this is an event showing that we are one Church holding an event for our young people in Australia, and even non-Catholics will see that this is really something.

"So as each of us musicians and artists use our gifts in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, in God's name and for his sake, we pray that he use us to assist in refreshing and reviving our Church here in this great southland and across the world."