Catholic recording artist, Matt Maher released a new album this past Tuesday, September 22.A man of deep prayer and musical talent, Matt puts the richness and depth of the Catholic faith into song. Matt explains the motivation for his work. “I feel like there have to be people who are willing to just stand in the gap between Christian thought, and society. We are supposed to be in the world but not of the world. My mandate as a Christian is not to retreat, but to be a light. In a post Christian society, everybody is called to be a missionary wherever we are. The mission field has changed. The mission field is everywhere.”
Father Chaminade, too, called each of us to be missionaries, that wherever our journey to Christ leads us, we are called to never cease to proclaim the truth of the Gospel message.
This is what Matt had to say about his album:
“Alive Again” is about waking up to the kingdom of God. It started with a moment driving north towards San Antonio. It was dark. Then it got light outside, but the Sun hadn’t broken the horizon. Yet I could see. It spoke to me of the pre-imminence of Christ - shining around us, helping us see “the light before we see the sunrise” (Colossians 1) - I think one of the main themes of the whole record, really - that He is at the head, and in Him, “all things are held together”.
St Augustine of Hippo was an amazing evangelist with a timely story for the church of today to reflect on. Here’s a guy who went in the world in search of God, but because He didn’t know God, he was led further away from God. I feel like this is a timely truth, because as God is drawing all souls towards Himself, we need to remember and proclaim that Christianity starts with a person and a relationship and moves outward.
See, God is relentless in His pursuit of me; and the more I realize it, the more I realize that my journey to Him looks more like His journey to me. That my "pursuit", is really just my waiting and letting Him in. So as you read this - if you feel far off from God, know that the distance between your perception of His nearness versus the reality of it, is strikingly different.
He is very near. Sometimes, He's so close it's hard to see clearly.
mattmahermusic.com
