During the season of Lent, FaithND will provide meditations on this season of preparation through musical offerings from the many Notre Dame choirs and sacred music ensembles. Songs will be featured on Ash Wednesday, each Tuesday and Saturday of Lent, and every day of Holy Week through the Octave of Easter.

Notre Dame Liturgical Choir – The University of Notre Dame Liturgical Choir is composed of approximately 70 undergraduate and graduate student singers and normally sings at the 10 A.M. Sunday Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart (changes in liturgical music are currently in place due to the pandemic).

As we begin this sacred season of Lent, this song reminds us of both the origin of our Lenten journey and its final destination: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This reminds us that we are only able to walk in the footsteps of our Lord because he became human like us. And, in this time of preparation, we look ahead to his death and resurrection as the source of our everlasting life. We prepare ourselves to celebrate this Paschal mystery by committing ourselves to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

As we came from the dust of the earth, so we shall return. But Christ became human so that we could share in eternal life with God. Our first step on that journey, today, is to repent and believe in the Gospel.

(Lyrics)
God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whoso believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world
to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved.

Copyright: “God so Loved the World” by John Stainer, 1887. Public Domain

For more songs, please visit Songs of Notre Dame: A Lenten Offering