The concept of the musical Oratorio originated in the tradition of musical presentations that accompanied daily preaching in the 16th-century Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Rome.
Such musical presentations might have included the singing of spiritual songs or unstaged musical dramatizations of sacred scripture. These music-dramas gave rise to the musical form known as the "oratorio," of which Handel's Messiah is perhaps the most famous example.
It is in the spirit of the Oratorio that we gather for musical offerings outside of the liturgy with the purpose of deeping our faith and sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with others.