PROCLAIM Conference launches Listen as Plenary Council song

THE Hundreds of people that gathered in Brisbane in July for the 2018 PROCLAIM Conference witnessed the first screening of a new music video for the Plenary Council 2020.

PROCLAIM, the biennial national evangelisation conference, this year has a particular focus on the Plenary Council process and how it can help renew the Catholic Church in Australia.

The song, Listen, was composed and performed by Brisbane singer/songwriter Peter Pellicaan. He said the song draws on many of the key themes of the Plenary Council.

“The song was composed as a call to the Church in Australia to listen to what the Spirit is saying as we prepare for the first Plenary Council since 1937,” Mr Pellicaan said.

“The song invites people to listen to God, but also to reflect and ponder on what it would mean for the Church to look like Jesus.”

Australian heritage

Mr Pellicaan said the song contains a number of pointers to the Catholic Church’s heritage in Australia, including the use of the didgeridoo and bagpipes to reference local and international roots for the Church.

Plenary Council facilitator Lana Turvey-Collins said the song, which also draws on an inspirational homily from Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, has great meaning, but also fits in comfortably with modern popular and Christian music.

“When we think back to World Youth Day in Sydney, the song that was written for that occasion became synonymous with that remarkable event,” she said.

“Peter’s song might, in a similar way, become a musical message that helps people engage with the Plenary Council in another way. Like the World Youth Day song, Listen captures the essence of an event, namely that we are being called to ‘Listen to what the Spirit is saying’ to the people of God in Australia.”

Ms Turvey-Collins said she has heard that other people are thinking about how the power of music and song can form part of their input into the Plenary Council.

“Different people express their faith in different ways and, for many, song is a medium through which they can speak to the Church and to the world,” she said.

Mr Pellicaan said Listen wasn’t written specifically for use within the liturgy, but rather as a preface to the Council’s Listening and Dialogue sessions as “a call to imagine, to reflect and to listen”.

Access the lyrics and music at: http://plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au/song/

Find out more at the Plenary Council at www.plenarycouncil.catholic.org.au