BODIJA JOURNAL | A Philosophico-Theologal Journal

The late twentieth century marked a new age for the history of Christianity in Africa as Church leadership passed from the hands of foreign missionaries to indigenous African clergymen and women. This development required that the Church reappraises her evangelising mission so as to maintain and exceed the successes attained by the missionaries and redefine its orientations and goals. This appraisal was necessary especially in the area of the introduction of certain elements of African culture into the Christian faith. It is in this regard that this paper raised questions around the inculturation of Catholic liturgical music. It studied the fundamental place of inculturation in relation to the use of African languages in Catholic liturgical music. To achieve this, it defined inculturation as a theological concept and traced its foundation to the Trinity, the incarnation, creation, paschal mystery, Pentecost and revelation and grace with its imperatives in Church history and Sacred Scripture. For the purpose of a connect, it also studied liturgical music, with reference to its characteristics and functions within the liturgy. The reasons for inculturating liturgical music is based on the understanding of language as the structure of reality and as an instrument for revelation. It submitted that only inculturation, including of liturgical music, would lead to an intensively Christianised community that would witness transformation of the different levels of its life in the light of the gospel message. For the purpose of this study, the qualitative phenomenological research design method of investigation, exploratory approach, semistructured interview and purposeful sampling technic were employed.

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