Choir, Choir

I am singing in a church choir this year, in a different parish than the one where we have spent many happy years. We decided to try a new church for a variety of reasons. I had been feeling a restlessness in my soul, a sense that I was being asked to "go out into the deep", where I might find new opportunities for service. (I am after all the spiritual daughter of Saint John Paul II.) When we visited this new church we found wonderful priests, friendly parishioners, and the music, well, now that was a whole story unto itself. The music director there is a gifted pianist, and he supports a devoted set of volunteer musicians. I have rarely encountered such a high level musician so willing to teach whomever walks into rehearsals. My husband and I became drawn more and more to this parish, and when it came time to decide, I spoke the only truth I have ever known about myself and church, which is that whereever we attend mass, I have to be involved. And I knew I could join this choir!

 I have been a part of many parishes, going back to my protestant youth, where joining a choir would be considered an automatic "of course!" Because many, if not most churches are always looking for singers. But there is a price to pay. The level of music offered is often frustratingly dull, and the style...well, let's just say that it is not always music conducive to meditative prayer. At the other end of the spectrum , especially around here in Dallas you can find beautiful church music, but it is being offered by a number of paid musicians supporting the volunteers. And, to be honest, while the music is lovely in these settings, I do not feel correspondingly more deeply drawn into mass when I am there listening.

 Dang, that's a hard thing to admit. Because I love serious choral music. I love it! I have been singing church music in one form or another since I was old enough to accompany my dad to choir rehearsal at the churches he pastored. I remember sitting in the front row of the choir stalls in a tiny church in Irvine, Pennsylvania, and being handed the Presbyterian Hymnbook. I held it up, and did a passable job reading the notes, as I was studying piano at the time. But to be honest, I already knew the hymns from memory, as my Dad had chosen them, and we sang them often at home, as well as on Sunday mornings. "When Morning Gilds the Skies" was probably my number one favorite at the time, with its soaring , ascending phrases.

 Later, when I arrived at Northfield School for Girls, in Massachusetts, I auditioned for choir during the first week or so of Freshman year, and the Director, a lovely man named Mr. Raymond, asked me to pick my favorite hymn to sing. I chose "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent," a hymn I love to this day. Mr Raymond introduced many wonderful pieces of choral repertoire to his choirs during the four years I was there. And that enjoyment of sacred music strengthened during subsequent college years

. Now if you ask me to describe the choral music I love, I will tell you that I enjoy a spectrum from gregorian chant to Bach, and Handel, to Beibl, Lauridsen, Part, Rachmaninoff, and that's just a small sample.

 But in choir on Sunday mornings I sing hymns and psalms with a lovely group of people who have sung together for years, it seems, and who understand that we are aiding the worship and prayer of all the people at mass. And it satisfies my soul. It is prayerful and moving. It's the same experience I had  the very first time we attended mass at a Catholic church and we knelt during various prayers. We all knelt, people from diverse backgrounds, and we didn't know one another, but we had in mind the one object of praying in humble adoration. Kneeling together, singing together, these acts have a purpose that is God directed, and at the same time, are  uniifying. If we can sing hymns together, we are bound in a way that is beautiful to experience.

 Maybe it’s like standing during the seventh inning stretch and singing "Take Me Out To The Ball game." Except that it's not just excitement generated from a ball game, it's prayer called from us by God. And we all are invited to join in.

 I listen to sacred music when I'm at home working on jigsaw puzzles; I find those two pursuits go well together. I sing hymns and psalms with whomever is willing to stand and sing them with me at Mass. 

 Deo, dicamus gratias.