Amongst the reasons I have been blogging infrequently this year (work,travel etc) is that I have been busy doing the GCTS(Liturgy) at ACU. It is a four unit course (I only did three as I had already done the Sacraments unit) that aims to give a firm basis in liturgy and then look for applications in celebrations, sacraments and music. It is an online course, although the music component was done as an intensive this year, which meant your correspondent briefly had to be a full time student for the first time in thirty years and that was a challenge.
A new cohort is to start in 2014 if there is sufficient numbers. I would be horrified if the course does not continue. It is run by Dr Clare Johnson who is the only person in Australian Catholic academia with the necessary expertise in both Liturgy and music to run such a course (correct me if I’m wrong) and considering the patchy assistance given to parishes and schools in this very important area of our church life, this course is vital. Having spoken the APREs and teachers doing the course the need is great in school liturgies and I’m hard pressed to see how a school’s music and liturgy budget would not include sponsoring likely candidates to become involved.
For parishes too, there is a need for this input to develop our parishes towards more beautiful and formative liturgy and encouraging education in this area is a necessary part of a parish’s commitment to health of their church.
I would certainly recommend the course to anyone working with school or parish liturgies.