Christmas is a time of celebration, rich spiritual tradition, and family. With release of their new CD O Night Divine Catholic music group Cousins in Christ combines these three elements, creating a masterpiece your family will treasure for years to come. These talented young singers, ages fourteen through nineteen, are actually “double cousins” sharing same two sets of grandparents. John Paul Rudolph(19), Rebecca Meyer (18), Matthew Rudolph (17), Katie Meyer (16), David Rudolph (15), and Stephenie Meyer (14) now perform together combining their love of song and their strong Catholic faith formation.

O Night Divine includes twelve timeless performances of traditional Christmas carols, blending a myriad of styles and featured solos and spiritual narratives by each of Cousins. Cousins in Christ recently completed several days of filming accompanying music videos for CDs. These captivating videos will be featured in two EWTN Christmas specials during December. Fr. Mitch Pacwa will spotlight Cousins in Christ and their music in his Christmas special, to be aired on Wednesday December 15th at 7:00 pm and midnight and again on Thursday December 16th at 8:00 am.

The music of O Night Divine will be performed during Cousins in Christ Christmas Special, to be aired on EWTN on Wednesday, December 22 at 7:00 pm and midnight and again on Thursday, December 23rd at 8:00 am.

John Paul Rudolph of Cousins in Christ recently spoke with Register correspondent Lisa Hendey on experience of performing as a young Catholic musician.

Q: How did Cousins in Christ get started singing together and can you tell us about some of your earlier projects? A: The Cousins in Christ are actually double cousins since they share same two sets of grandparents. Steve Rudolph married Rose Marie Meyer. Then Bob Meyer (brother of Rose) married Carol Rudolph (sister of Steve). Rose Marie has been a singer and performer since she was a small child. In 1997, she was preparing to record a country album when her son Kevin suffered a ruptured appendix and was hospitalized as his five year old body was stricken with infection. After a successful surgery, Rose Marie prayed in hospital chapel in thanksgiving. It was there that she felt God’s calling to promote belief of True Presence in Eucharist. Within a few months, she produced our first CD, Bread of Life, Bread of Heaven - The Story of Eucharist for Children.

At time, Cousins ranged in age from newborn to 11. Two vanloads of 10 children traveled 400 miles roundtrip to Chicago for recording sessions. Our parents were impressed by our good behavior, never complaining about long recording sessions, meals on go, and having to keep quiet in studio. We discovered that while each of us was individually talented, blend of our voices was even more beautiful.

Both Rudolph and Meyer families now have six children each – with oldest 3 Rudolph boys and 3 Meyer girls as primary performers under direction of Rose Marie Rudolph.

Q: How does your Catholic faith impact music you record?

A: Our Catholic faith provides foundation and core of our music for we began first and foremost as a music ministry to bring souls to Christ. Our hope is to respond to call of Pope John Paul II to evangelize through media and use our talents for God. We generally record one or more original songs for each CD – ranging from honor of Our Blessed Mother to pro-life, pro-child themes and even one ambitious attempt to incorporate Familias Consortio and Humanae Vitae into song! Q: What is it like to be a teenager or young adult involved in Music industry?

A: It is very exciting. We are fortunate to have this experience at such a young age. However, being involved in this ever-changing industry has challenges in itself. To an extent, we have become role models for our peers, and have to act accordingly. We find that trying to mix school, work, family obligations and social time while practicing for performances and planning for future CDs is sometimes overwhelming! We’ve learned quickly that responding to God’s call requires maturity and sacrifice. And God has provided graces for us to grow spiritually and artistically. John Paul and Rebecca have both been awarded college scholarships for vocal performance and younger Cousins will hopefully follow in their footsteps.

This question has been asked throughout ages without any definitive answer. Thus, it behooves us to first take a look at some previous attempts and understand where they fail. Previous attempts take a look at any number of possible causes individually; one at a time. There are six primary commonly proffered causes which are: economic, 'the chosen people', scapegoating, deicide, being outsiders, and racial inferiority. Authors will typically try and focus on one cause at a time and find some time in history when it was absent and anti-Semitism persisted and thus disprove it as a cause. The flaw in any such analysis is result of perceiving anti-Semitism as a single-cause effect.

Like so many things in world, anti-Semitism is a multi-causal effect. That is, you can't remove any one cause and remove effect of anti-Semitism. Human height is determined similarly, as a multi-causal (polygenic) trait. There are many genes (units of inheritance) that determine human height, all of which interact with one another. Thus simply turning off one gene for human height has complicated effects on overall resulting height of any given person. This multi-causal type analysis must be applied to anti-Semitism in order to yield any meaningful results.

Anti-Semitism should be conceived as a tree of causes and effects. At root of that tree is a societal need for an underdog. What started tree growing was one of proffered causes: 'the Chosen People'. I'm reminded of story my father tells from his youth. He went around neighbourhood proudly announcing that he was Superman. One of older boys decided to challenge his claim and threw him straight over a fence saying: "If you're Superman, let's see you fly!" My father landed face first in dirt laying his claim to rest.

Like older boy was to my father, Roman Empire was challenger to Jewish empire's claims of being chosen people of God. The Roman Empire conquered many peoples throughout its existence, but none with 'pomp and circumstance' embodied in 'Judea Capta' coin, coined to celebrate victory of Roman Empire over 'Chosen People'. (http://www.bible-history.com/sketches/ancient/judea-capta-medal.html)

The defeat of Jews at hands of Romans set off a host of effects which themselves, historically, also became causes of anti-Semitism. As a dispersed people we were outsiders in many countries of Diaspora. Persecution of outsiders and using such people as scapegoats is a side effect of predatory instinct. The 'proud' lion of animal kingdom doesn't attack leader of pack wildebeest but instead attacks weakest of herd. Likewise in human relations, we tend to pick on people with least chances of mounting an effective reprisal. Thus we see that chosen people quickly became people of choice when it came to choosing a scapegoat.