The theme of the Catholic Congress on Worship to be held in Atlanta on April 16-18 will be “Join Hands In Prayer,” and music will play an essential role in expressing this theme. Three principle liturgy celebrations will be held during the Congress, according to Hamilton Smith, director of music for the Cathedral of Christ the King Parish in Atlanta, and a wide variety of styles and idioms will be used to enhance them.

Thursday evening’s theme of RECONCILIATION AND PENANCE will be projected in a multi-media setting featuring the use of slides, recorded music, and musical settings by various folk groups from throughout the city. The combined use of these diverse audio and visual stimuli will emphasize the community of Christians in confessing their guilt and becoming reconciled with God and each other.

The BROTHERHOOD OF MAN as expressed through community action in worship will be celebrated in the choral style on Friday evening. A choir of some two hundred voices will lead the Congress participants in the Psalm settings of Fr. Lucien Deiss and hymns emphasizing the common bond of brotherhood which unites all men. The choir will further acclaim this theme in the anthems “Clap Your Hands All You Peoples” by John Diercks and “The Bread Is One” by Alexander Peloquin.

The music for Saturday morning’s celebration will be in the Key of Hope, emphasizing the hopefulness of the Christian striving toward God and his fellow man. Much of the music for this celebration has been composed by Paul Berny, a seminarian studying for the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Berny’s song “He Is Our Hope” and Father Jerry Hardy’s composition “Join Hands In Prayer” will vividly acclaim the hope of the Christian community joining their hands and voices for in prayer.

“Let the Whole Church Celebrate” is the topic of the keynote talk by Rev. J. Paul Byron.

Father Byron is the president of the Southeastern Congress on Worship, and a member of the board of directors of the National Liturgical Conference.

More than 4,000 people are expected to attend the Congress, which starts Thursday, April 16 at 2 p.m., with a professional session for architects and priests led by Robert Rambusch, internationally known architect and designer.

His topic will be “The Church Building as a Builder of Community,” and he will be assisted by a panel of reactors in the architectural field. On Saturday, April 18, Mr. Rambusch will lead a talk on The Environment in Which We Celebrate - a popular presentation on uses of the parish church.

Thursday evening at 8 p.m., the archbishop of Atlanta, Thomas A. Donnellan, will welcome the delegates. Then, Rev. J. Paul Byron will present the keynote talk, followed by a presentation by Bishop Frey of Savannah on the topic of community.

Father Byron, from the Diocese of Raleigh, is a pastor in Jacksonville, NC. He is on the advisory committee to the U.S. Bishops on Liturgy Adaptation and is chairman of the bishops’ committee on Music in the Liturgy.

Thursday evening will close with a multi-media presentation based on the theme of Reconciliation.

“Nothing is more evidently at the core of the Christian life than our public worship - our liturgy.” So said Rev. C. J. McNaspy, S.J., associate editor of America Magazine. The Jesuit scholar, who is renowned as an expert in the field of meaningful liturgy, will be a speaker at the Congress.

Rev. McNaspy will discuss the changes in the liturgy of the Catholic Church, and how these changes contribute to the elements of community in today’s life. He will be responding to a talk by the Rev. Eugene Kennedy, a priest-psychologist-professor from Loyola University in Chicago on Friday morning, April 17.