It happened yesterday, on Delta flight #3938 to Richmond, Virginia. And I suspect that it will happen to you, too, sometime in the next few days. And its happening has been increasing in amplitude little by little over the years, such that now it has become a strong yet disturbing majority.
Here is what happened: my wife and I were stepping off the plane. And the flight attendant, a younger man who had been quite entertaining throughout the flight, stood by the cockpit door as the travelers left. "Happy Holidays," he said.
I looked him straight in the eye, and responded differently. "Merry Christmas," said I. And in that quick moment, I saw in the face of this attendant an awkwardness that summed up the whole of our American society. There was the slightest hesitation, a bewilderment at this seemingly blatant spiritual greeting. And then, there appeared a look in his eyes that said to me, "I wish I could greet you the same way."
Quickly he looked away, ready to bestow the same, innocuous, completely politically correct and inoffensive - and therefore utterly meaningless - benediction on the next passenger.
"Merry Christmas" is a rather enchanting greeting, when you stop and think about it. First of all, it is a wish for joy - and that is something we don't often hear in normal discourse. (How often do you greet a person, or leave their company, simply wishing them joy?)
And equally marvelous: this wish for joy is intimately linked with a feast day! But so much more than a feast; it is the feast of Love come down to earth, out of the heavens, undeserved, unexpected, and so utterly humble that nowadays we still try to recreate it in crèches, pageants, and stories. All this, in two simple words.
Our society is making a quiet but disturbing shift over the years. We are assuming that spiritual greetings are politically incorrect, that they don't belong in common parlance. In short, we are taking away from ourselves permission to be spiritual. And yesterday, that dynamic played itself out as we departed an airplane.
But there have been delightful exceptions to this shift, and if this commentary is to be fair (and, I hope, optimistic), this should also be noted. Last year, while traveling across the Pacific ocean on Alaska Airlines, we were served little lunches with accompanying cards on our trays. The cards had little verses from the Book of Psalms! And that day, as I left the plane, I told the flight attendant how impressed I was that their company did such a thing. And she responded "You'd be surprised how many people tell me that!"
Yes, Virginia, there is a Jesus. And it's ok to talk about him. Better yet, it's just fine to bestow a good wish in his name, especially at this time of year.
Merry Christmas! What a wonderful thing to say, and to receive.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Gaudete: Why we're pretty in pink
This awesome Sunday is, as we all know, one of just two times in the year when we break out our rose colored vestments and accoutrements and dust them off. Our song changes, and our spirits have the chance to be transformed as well.
We need this respite from violet, every now and again, to remember the why of our penitence: that, even while we lower our heads and occasionally beat out breasts, God intends us not to be sorrowful, but joy-filled witnesses. We are meant to lift our eyes higher – "to the mountains," as Psalm 121 exhorts us. Ultimately, we are meant to eventually shake off our purple: we are meant to look pretty in pink.
I've heard a lot of talk over these past few months, talk about what brings people to mass, what keeps them coming back, how the new edition of the Missal factors into the whole process. And there are just a few things that I keep coming back to.
First, I don't think people want to go to a celebration of the Eucharist which is not, in fact, celebratory. Do you go to mass because you're compelled by guilt? I think not. I truly believe that it is not obedience or guilt or even tradition that will ensure the regular participation of the faithful. They attend because there is something joyful to witness. They'll go because, at the dismissal rite, they have something to carry with them out the door. And I'm not talking about palm branches here (though we do carry them, once a year). They carry with them an inexhaustible spirit, a joyful countenance, an inner strength, fed by both word and song and Holy Body and Blood.
And secondly, I believe that this Church of ours, if it truly is constituted of holy Joy, has a transformative power that we simply have not dared to experience much over the years. Music that dares to lift, homilies that are bold and engaging and dare to challenge, assemblies that risk unabashed raising of voices – even challenging the strength of a full choir – when have you witnessed such a thing? It is what I strive for, week after week. It is, as our venerable leaders compelled us to dream of two generations ago, a model based on "full, conscious, and active" participation. Full – not half-empty; conscious – not daydreaming; and active – not passive. Three exhortations... just so there was no doubt about what we might try to cook up on our own, with our own agenda.
So as we take pause in the midst of our Advent waiting, let's all keep an eye on our wardrobe. We are a Gaudete people. We are meant to bring joy back to our Creator. We are meant to share that joy with those we meet. We are, indeed, meant to look pretty in pink.
And that is cause for great rejoicing.
We need this respite from violet, every now and again, to remember the why of our penitence: that, even while we lower our heads and occasionally beat out breasts, God intends us not to be sorrowful, but joy-filled witnesses. We are meant to lift our eyes higher – "to the mountains," as Psalm 121 exhorts us. Ultimately, we are meant to eventually shake off our purple: we are meant to look pretty in pink.
I've heard a lot of talk over these past few months, talk about what brings people to mass, what keeps them coming back, how the new edition of the Missal factors into the whole process. And there are just a few things that I keep coming back to.
First, I don't think people want to go to a celebration of the Eucharist which is not, in fact, celebratory. Do you go to mass because you're compelled by guilt? I think not. I truly believe that it is not obedience or guilt or even tradition that will ensure the regular participation of the faithful. They attend because there is something joyful to witness. They'll go because, at the dismissal rite, they have something to carry with them out the door. And I'm not talking about palm branches here (though we do carry them, once a year). They carry with them an inexhaustible spirit, a joyful countenance, an inner strength, fed by both word and song and Holy Body and Blood.
And secondly, I believe that this Church of ours, if it truly is constituted of holy Joy, has a transformative power that we simply have not dared to experience much over the years. Music that dares to lift, homilies that are bold and engaging and dare to challenge, assemblies that risk unabashed raising of voices – even challenging the strength of a full choir – when have you witnessed such a thing? It is what I strive for, week after week. It is, as our venerable leaders compelled us to dream of two generations ago, a model based on "full, conscious, and active" participation. Full – not half-empty; conscious – not daydreaming; and active – not passive. Three exhortations... just so there was no doubt about what we might try to cook up on our own, with our own agenda.
So as we take pause in the midst of our Advent waiting, let's all keep an eye on our wardrobe. We are a Gaudete people. We are meant to bring joy back to our Creator. We are meant to share that joy with those we meet. We are, indeed, meant to look pretty in pink.
And that is cause for great rejoicing.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
"I think I could make a career out of this..."
A colleague of mine, who happens to be a liturgy professor here at Notre Dame, once remarked "the liturgy of the church is a continuous thing – it simply never stops." And it is true, evidenced so clearly by a campus which, while preparing for final exams and papers, is also in the midst of Advent, a transition into a new Roman Missal, a celebration of seasonal Lessons and Carols, and a huge mass on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe next Monday afternoon.
So it was, in the midst of all this Advent busy-ness, that I found myself requested to provide music for a memorial mass last Saturday. The liturgy had its own challenges, for it was bringing together congregants from the four corners of our country, and here we were in the middle of a pretty big transition, with new prayers, new dialogs, and new songs.
We had a few stumbling moments, but for the most part, the assembly that gathered in the Basilica Crypt to honor the departed did a really wonderful job of keeping with the new responses. They also sang the Mass for Our Lady – and were superb in their singing.
I played this memorial mass with two great seniors in the Folk Choir: Katie Klee, who cantored, is the current president of the ensemble. And Catherine Hackbarth has been a dedicated librarian who just so happens to play a phenomenal violin!
At the end of the liturgy, Catherine and I were walking back over to the Basilica with all the gear – the guitar, the music, the folders, the amp (half our lives, I swear, is about being your own roadie with the stuff you need to schlep from place to place). And out of her mouth slips this statement: "You know, Steve, I could make a career out of this."
Catherine might not comprehend this, but that kind of statement really defines the work of a minister and choral director. When someone steps up to the plate and says: "I think I want to do what you do!" – it says a lot about the joy you've tried to impart among your young collaborators.
Much of what we do in ministry is about walking along a path. Years ago in Campus Ministry, we were lucky to simply hold the walk together, week to week and season by season. But now, because of the support of wonderful benefactors and more than a generation of experience, we've had the grace and the stability to show and share this work with an ever-expanding group of students. And many of them are beginning to share this path as well.
It is a unique path, this career in sacred music. But for some of us, it is a path worthy of our time, attention and passion. For every time we sing, we tug at the veil that separates earth from heaven. And that is a very noble vocation.
So it was, in the midst of all this Advent busy-ness, that I found myself requested to provide music for a memorial mass last Saturday. The liturgy had its own challenges, for it was bringing together congregants from the four corners of our country, and here we were in the middle of a pretty big transition, with new prayers, new dialogs, and new songs.
We had a few stumbling moments, but for the most part, the assembly that gathered in the Basilica Crypt to honor the departed did a really wonderful job of keeping with the new responses. They also sang the Mass for Our Lady – and were superb in their singing.
I played this memorial mass with two great seniors in the Folk Choir: Katie Klee, who cantored, is the current president of the ensemble. And Catherine Hackbarth has been a dedicated librarian who just so happens to play a phenomenal violin!
At the end of the liturgy, Catherine and I were walking back over to the Basilica with all the gear – the guitar, the music, the folders, the amp (half our lives, I swear, is about being your own roadie with the stuff you need to schlep from place to place). And out of her mouth slips this statement: "You know, Steve, I could make a career out of this."
Catherine might not comprehend this, but that kind of statement really defines the work of a minister and choral director. When someone steps up to the plate and says: "I think I want to do what you do!" – it says a lot about the joy you've tried to impart among your young collaborators.
Much of what we do in ministry is about walking along a path. Years ago in Campus Ministry, we were lucky to simply hold the walk together, week to week and season by season. But now, because of the support of wonderful benefactors and more than a generation of experience, we've had the grace and the stability to show and share this work with an ever-expanding group of students. And many of them are beginning to share this path as well.
It is a unique path, this career in sacred music. But for some of us, it is a path worthy of our time, attention and passion. For every time we sing, we tug at the veil that separates earth from heaven. And that is a very noble vocation.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Intentions and the Stuff of Healthy Spirits
Today, as we were learning all the new responses for the liturgy, I was struck by how much we at Notre Dame have done by way of preparing for this transition.
This is not to toot our own horn. But at the end of the roster of this weekend's Vigil and Sunday liturgies, I had to look back and say, "that went off, really, without a hitch."
Truthfully, good part of the reason for this was beyond my own doing. All of us in the pews were all wired for this change, and anticipation was high. And we had a great presider strongly guiding us through the whole first-time experience (my colleague, Fr. Peter Rocca, the rector of the Basilica).
But now comes the tough part: the day-to-day, the working with priest presiders who aren't as comfortable in the sanctuary or as knowledgeable as Fr. Peter, the looking into all the residence hall nooks and crannies to find out who's not keeping up. At the Basilica, things have gone well. But there's a lot more to the liturgical landscape, as those who know Our Lady's campus well, than what happens in the Big House on the weekend.
I am, though, immensely proud of what this campus has done in getting ready for these changes. My administrative colleagues have not just encouraged the devotion of a lot of time, planning, passion and resources to these changes; they have mandated them. This is, in my opinion, Holy Cross spirituality, and Holy Cross educational philosophy, at its best.
And here's why: Liturgy is relational. And like all relations, if we put nothing into it, we get nothing out of it. It's as simple as that. When I am told of, or witness, parishes or prayer communities that are on the rocks, it's seldom because they have devoted too much attention to their spiritual expression. Rather, it is because they simply took it for granted.
The confreres I have worked with for some thirty-plus years recognize this. And while we flub up every once in a while, I do think that liturgy is taken very, very seriously around here. We do not take liturgy, or liturgical expression, for granted. And you can point to this, simply by the people involved in celebration week to week.
"Full, conscious, active..." These three precious attributes were given to us through the wisdom of the Spirit, in the first official document of the Second Vatican Council. These principles are still the prevailing law of the land, and they continue to challenge and cajole us into a never-ending, healthy, dynamic pursuit of our Maker. And we need to make sure that our resources: financial, creative, human resources as well – that all are nourished and allowed to thrive.
Over the weekend, friends and family who work in liturgy were calling in, all with stories to share. Every so often, a story would come to light, where the parish was completely shell-shocked by the events and expressions of the weekend. This happened because no preparation, no catechesis had taken place. In other words: no resources were committed to the relationship.
If there's one thing we humans know, it's that everything we do is about relationship. If we put nothing in, we'll get nothing out.
But to be intentional: to fully, consciously, actively articulate our joy and our sorrow each and every week – this is the stuff of the healthy spirit.
This is not to toot our own horn. But at the end of the roster of this weekend's Vigil and Sunday liturgies, I had to look back and say, "that went off, really, without a hitch."
Truthfully, good part of the reason for this was beyond my own doing. All of us in the pews were all wired for this change, and anticipation was high. And we had a great presider strongly guiding us through the whole first-time experience (my colleague, Fr. Peter Rocca, the rector of the Basilica).
But now comes the tough part: the day-to-day, the working with priest presiders who aren't as comfortable in the sanctuary or as knowledgeable as Fr. Peter, the looking into all the residence hall nooks and crannies to find out who's not keeping up. At the Basilica, things have gone well. But there's a lot more to the liturgical landscape, as those who know Our Lady's campus well, than what happens in the Big House on the weekend.
I am, though, immensely proud of what this campus has done in getting ready for these changes. My administrative colleagues have not just encouraged the devotion of a lot of time, planning, passion and resources to these changes; they have mandated them. This is, in my opinion, Holy Cross spirituality, and Holy Cross educational philosophy, at its best.
And here's why: Liturgy is relational. And like all relations, if we put nothing into it, we get nothing out of it. It's as simple as that. When I am told of, or witness, parishes or prayer communities that are on the rocks, it's seldom because they have devoted too much attention to their spiritual expression. Rather, it is because they simply took it for granted.
The confreres I have worked with for some thirty-plus years recognize this. And while we flub up every once in a while, I do think that liturgy is taken very, very seriously around here. We do not take liturgy, or liturgical expression, for granted. And you can point to this, simply by the people involved in celebration week to week.
"Full, conscious, active..." These three precious attributes were given to us through the wisdom of the Spirit, in the first official document of the Second Vatican Council. These principles are still the prevailing law of the land, and they continue to challenge and cajole us into a never-ending, healthy, dynamic pursuit of our Maker. And we need to make sure that our resources: financial, creative, human resources as well – that all are nourished and allowed to thrive.
Over the weekend, friends and family who work in liturgy were calling in, all with stories to share. Every so often, a story would come to light, where the parish was completely shell-shocked by the events and expressions of the weekend. This happened because no preparation, no catechesis had taken place. In other words: no resources were committed to the relationship.
If there's one thing we humans know, it's that everything we do is about relationship. If we put nothing in, we'll get nothing out.
But to be intentional: to fully, consciously, actively articulate our joy and our sorrow each and every week – this is the stuff of the healthy spirit.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The Folk Choir Unplugged: Raising the Curtain
With just a couple of days left to go before Thanksgiving, I got THE phone call today from our editors at World Library Publications:
"From Gethsemani to Galway: The Notre Dame Folk Choir in Concert" has arrived at our distributors warehouse in Chicago, and it can now be ordered and shipped! If you're interested in doing this over the phone, you can call (800) 566-6150 and speak with the customer service reps. But the phones have been swamped for the last month (good news – but also reason to be patient!). You can, however, order online. Click here for a link to the online ordering site at WLP.
I still remember when this project was born: Jerry Galipeau, Keith Kalemba, my wife Michele and I were at a lovely restaurant in the Greektown neighborhood of downtown Chicago, about a year ago. We knew the NPM convention was coming up, and we knew there would be many, many people there. And we also knew the legacy of a live concert with our ensemble.
Could we capture it? Could we get everything right on the first take? Could we trust to bringing together hundreds of assembly singers, making sure they were an integral part of the performance? (As it was, it ended up being well over a thousand voices that became a part of the recording).
Keith and Jerry were nothing but confident. And I was sure that we could gather together that faithful family of ND Folk Choir singers, past and present, no matter what kind of combination it turned to be. So from the start, we knew we had a great idea, a solid repertoire, and a title (which was my contribution to the effort) that spanned our creative story of the last thirty years.
Our producers, John McCortney and Keith Kalemba, worked their customary magic by taking an extraordinary night of song and translating it into something inspiring and cohesive in digital media. It's hard to describe how resounding is the singing of the assembly: somehow, John McCortney was able to line up both the "small choir" of the ND singers, and the "huge choir" of the assembly, making it sound both voluminous in that grand old church, yet also precise in its performance.
And listening to the takes, over and over again, I was once again inspired by the keyboard skills of my dear friend and colleague, Karen Kirner. Putting on headphones and hearing her creative cascades (listen to "Bless the Corners of This House" and you'll know what I mean) made me realize, as I do often, what an exceptional blessing she is to Our Lady's campus.
And to my fellow singers in the choir, both alums and current students, I can only say: you have once again enfleshed that mystery that always astounds me! In 36 hours, you brought your hearts and voices together as only a family of faith can do, and in this short amount of time created a group of choristers that sounded like they'd been singing together for years.
Yet in a way, we always have been. Time, distance, and diverse roads all melt away, once we open our hearts to sing – and we realize that the family is together, once more. It is the song that binds us. And this recording is a testament to that mystery.
May all of you have a blessed Thanksgiving!
"From Gethsemani to Galway: The Notre Dame Folk Choir in Concert" has arrived at our distributors warehouse in Chicago, and it can now be ordered and shipped! If you're interested in doing this over the phone, you can call (800) 566-6150 and speak with the customer service reps. But the phones have been swamped for the last month (good news – but also reason to be patient!). You can, however, order online. Click here for a link to the online ordering site at WLP.
I still remember when this project was born: Jerry Galipeau, Keith Kalemba, my wife Michele and I were at a lovely restaurant in the Greektown neighborhood of downtown Chicago, about a year ago. We knew the NPM convention was coming up, and we knew there would be many, many people there. And we also knew the legacy of a live concert with our ensemble.
Could we capture it? Could we get everything right on the first take? Could we trust to bringing together hundreds of assembly singers, making sure they were an integral part of the performance? (As it was, it ended up being well over a thousand voices that became a part of the recording).
Keith and Jerry were nothing but confident. And I was sure that we could gather together that faithful family of ND Folk Choir singers, past and present, no matter what kind of combination it turned to be. So from the start, we knew we had a great idea, a solid repertoire, and a title (which was my contribution to the effort) that spanned our creative story of the last thirty years.
Our producers, John McCortney and Keith Kalemba, worked their customary magic by taking an extraordinary night of song and translating it into something inspiring and cohesive in digital media. It's hard to describe how resounding is the singing of the assembly: somehow, John McCortney was able to line up both the "small choir" of the ND singers, and the "huge choir" of the assembly, making it sound both voluminous in that grand old church, yet also precise in its performance.
And listening to the takes, over and over again, I was once again inspired by the keyboard skills of my dear friend and colleague, Karen Kirner. Putting on headphones and hearing her creative cascades (listen to "Bless the Corners of This House" and you'll know what I mean) made me realize, as I do often, what an exceptional blessing she is to Our Lady's campus.
And to my fellow singers in the choir, both alums and current students, I can only say: you have once again enfleshed that mystery that always astounds me! In 36 hours, you brought your hearts and voices together as only a family of faith can do, and in this short amount of time created a group of choristers that sounded like they'd been singing together for years.
Yet in a way, we always have been. Time, distance, and diverse roads all melt away, once we open our hearts to sing – and we realize that the family is together, once more. It is the song that binds us. And this recording is a testament to that mystery.
May all of you have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Liturgy and Kermit: It's not easy being green
And what did you sing for your Gloria on the Feast of Christ the King?
For all of us in the Folk Choir, we had a powerful yet wistful moment, belting out David Haas' Mass of Light Gloria for the very last time on Sunday morning. A few others will be retired, too (like our own African Glory to God), but it was very clear to us, as we sang this much-loved setting, that we were on the doorstep to a new era in church music, sacred language, and hence the whole lexicon of spiritual expression in our gatherings.
This Sunday, the transition begins, and as Kermit so wisely sang, "It's not easy being green!" Not the color of the famous Amphibian's skin of course: rather, green in the sense of inexperienced and uncomfortable. We're all gonna go through it. Even if Advent 1 goes well, we are now entering the domain of I-can't-just-answer-without-thinking. Those days are now behind us.
Yet with all this, as I spoke with our students yesterday, there was a sense of "bring it on!" that was really quite encouraging. Twenty-five years of the same mass settings can usher in another sense of green: that is, of penicillin growing around the edges of the music scores. It was high time for some changes, a chance to shake up the mix, a chance for creativity to be let loose, a chance to let the Spirit which guides our community put a playful hand to the rudder of the Church and see where we might go.
It's not easy being green. But it can be fun, too, and Kermit knew a bunch about that as well. (His greatest quote: "Time's fun when you're having flies!) And if we're going to survive this transition, I would venture that we'll be all the better off, for keeping a bit of his infectious humor at the ready.
Thanksgiving blessings to all of you! May you have a great holiday, safe travels, long naps, and a chance to cherish all the great things that celebrate the sacred in our lives.
For all of us in the Folk Choir, we had a powerful yet wistful moment, belting out David Haas' Mass of Light Gloria for the very last time on Sunday morning. A few others will be retired, too (like our own African Glory to God), but it was very clear to us, as we sang this much-loved setting, that we were on the doorstep to a new era in church music, sacred language, and hence the whole lexicon of spiritual expression in our gatherings.
Yet with all this, as I spoke with our students yesterday, there was a sense of "bring it on!" that was really quite encouraging. Twenty-five years of the same mass settings can usher in another sense of green: that is, of penicillin growing around the edges of the music scores. It was high time for some changes, a chance to shake up the mix, a chance for creativity to be let loose, a chance to let the Spirit which guides our community put a playful hand to the rudder of the Church and see where we might go.
It's not easy being green. But it can be fun, too, and Kermit knew a bunch about that as well. (His greatest quote: "Time's fun when you're having flies!) And if we're going to survive this transition, I would venture that we'll be all the better off, for keeping a bit of his infectious humor at the ready.
Thanksgiving blessings to all of you! May you have a great holiday, safe travels, long naps, and a chance to cherish all the great things that celebrate the sacred in our lives.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Folk Choir Unplugged: Story of an album, part 2
Editor's Note: One of our great alums, Kristen Sullivan Lynch, penned this reflection on the choir's work in Louisville. The photos below were taken by Notre Dame's superb photographer, Matt Cashore, who came down to chronicle the event. Enjoy!
It is always a joyous occasion to get a phone call from Steve. It is always something exciting and if I'm lucky, it means I get to do some great singing and praying and life is good! National NPM conferences are always fun because all the musicians gather with the same thing in mind - hearing great music and refreshing their spirits for the coming year! This year with the Notre Dame Folk Choir, something was different. This was a very special year. For the 30th Anniversary of the ND Folk Choir, "Folkheads" from many different years were gathering by plane, by car, by train, and we had 1 rehearsal concert, one rehearsal, and then the big NPM concert and recording. There was no time to be anything but focused. Everyone felt the honor and responsibility of being a part of this wonderful project and we wanted to do the very best for our fearless and wonderful leader, Steve. Over the years we have all come to know and love Karen and of course we wanted to do our very best for her as well.
The Louisville concert was charged with electricity, the venue was packed, standing room only. Our amazing sound recording artists were ready to "make the magic happen" and Steve still managed to gather us all in the Sanctuary to pray before the concert. The concert went off without a hitch and it was amazing to be surrounded by all the voices of the audience singing along with us - that is really when you feel God's love and presence all around you.
There is something about getting together with Folkheads that is unlike any other gathering. The second we begin to make music together, and Steve is directing us, we are all a strong part of God's presence and we are in love. That is the only way I can express the impact of being a part of the ND Folk Choir. No matter how many years it has been since a person has sung with the group, or if they are currently a part of it, once you open your mouth to sing, or begin playing your instrument, you are a part of the loving presence of God and it changes you forever.
It is always a joyous occasion to get a phone call from Steve. It is always something exciting and if I'm lucky, it means I get to do some great singing and praying and life is good! National NPM conferences are always fun because all the musicians gather with the same thing in mind - hearing great music and refreshing their spirits for the coming year! This year with the Notre Dame Folk Choir, something was different. This was a very special year. For the 30th Anniversary of the ND Folk Choir, "Folkheads" from many different years were gathering by plane, by car, by train, and we had 1 rehearsal concert, one rehearsal, and then the big NPM concert and recording. There was no time to be anything but focused. Everyone felt the honor and responsibility of being a part of this wonderful project and we wanted to do the very best for our fearless and wonderful leader, Steve. Over the years we have all come to know and love Karen and of course we wanted to do our very best for her as well.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Folk Choir Unplugged: Story of an album, part 1
In a lot of ways, you just can't top the experience of a live album.
For years, people have suggested such a thing from our venerable ensemble. But there were always projects ahead of it: a collection of responsorial psalms (Psalms of the Notre Dame Folk Choir), an anthology of the music we've garnered from Ireland (Songs of Saints and Scholars), or a chance to put together much of the music we use for weekly sacramental celebrations (The Seven Signs).
But about a year ago, we received a singular invitation, and it seemed like the planets were aligning themselves for this live experience to come into being.
The invitation was to this past summer's National Pastoral Musicians convention, in Louisville, Kentucky. And it was singular, in part because of the threshold we all were experiencing, months before the inauguration of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal. Expectations were high. Needs were great. Even the anxiousness of the good folk gathered at that convention was palpable.
We found ourselves, for yet another year, invited to provide a concert of sacred music for this extraordinary gathering.
But to do something LIVE! The hurdles were legion. Was there a way to capture the awesome sound of an NPM singing assembly? How could we bring the Folk Choir to Kentucky, knowing that at least half of them were already involved in either the ACE or the ND Vision program? How do you do a concert when you have one shot at every song – no retakes!
The first problem to present itself was a humbling one. Back in April, we received a phone call from Paul Colleton, o.p., at NPM in Washington. His words of advice: Louisville Cathedral, the place where we would hoped to hold the concert, would not accommodate the projected numbers for our night of song. There was nothing to do but drive down to Louisville and visit churches!
So my great colleague Karen Kirner and I headed south the first week of May, and we found a simply beautiful venue: St. Boniface Church, a mere ten blocks from the Kentucky Convention Center. It was guided by an equally hospitable and caring music director, Bill Lincoln, who welcomed us warmly and showed us just how flexible this mammoth venue could be.
The next hurdle: how to gather up an ensemble in the middle of the summer, when we knew that a mere 15 members of the current ensemble could commit to such a venture. For a concert this big, we'd need about 50 members, and we'd have to work within budget. Furthermore, we'd need this group to sound like they'd been singing together all their lives!
I'm going to write this story in segments, so stay tuned! It's a great story, a tale of the making of an album, and a unique chapter in the history of the Notre Dame Folk Choir.
For years, people have suggested such a thing from our venerable ensemble. But there were always projects ahead of it: a collection of responsorial psalms (Psalms of the Notre Dame Folk Choir), an anthology of the music we've garnered from Ireland (Songs of Saints and Scholars), or a chance to put together much of the music we use for weekly sacramental celebrations (The Seven Signs).
But about a year ago, we received a singular invitation, and it seemed like the planets were aligning themselves for this live experience to come into being.
The invitation was to this past summer's National Pastoral Musicians convention, in Louisville, Kentucky. And it was singular, in part because of the threshold we all were experiencing, months before the inauguration of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal. Expectations were high. Needs were great. Even the anxiousness of the good folk gathered at that convention was palpable.
We found ourselves, for yet another year, invited to provide a concert of sacred music for this extraordinary gathering.
But to do something LIVE! The hurdles were legion. Was there a way to capture the awesome sound of an NPM singing assembly? How could we bring the Folk Choir to Kentucky, knowing that at least half of them were already involved in either the ACE or the ND Vision program? How do you do a concert when you have one shot at every song – no retakes!
The first problem to present itself was a humbling one. Back in April, we received a phone call from Paul Colleton, o.p., at NPM in Washington. His words of advice: Louisville Cathedral, the place where we would hoped to hold the concert, would not accommodate the projected numbers for our night of song. There was nothing to do but drive down to Louisville and visit churches!
So my great colleague Karen Kirner and I headed south the first week of May, and we found a simply beautiful venue: St. Boniface Church, a mere ten blocks from the Kentucky Convention Center. It was guided by an equally hospitable and caring music director, Bill Lincoln, who welcomed us warmly and showed us just how flexible this mammoth venue could be.
The next hurdle: how to gather up an ensemble in the middle of the summer, when we knew that a mere 15 members of the current ensemble could commit to such a venture. For a concert this big, we'd need about 50 members, and we'd have to work within budget. Furthermore, we'd need this group to sound like they'd been singing together all their lives!
I'm going to write this story in segments, so stay tuned! It's a great story, a tale of the making of an album, and a unique chapter in the history of the Notre Dame Folk Choir.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Paperless and Planning
You could see it coming like a truck: our University is pushing hard for less paper, for ways to streamline, consolidating our efforts to stop cutting down forests. At the same time, we could foresee a pretty urgent need, even a few years ago, to reach our students by way of the Internet. With all the activities ND undergrads are involved in, their ability to learn new music and attend workshops was sorely compromised.
For more than twenty years, we'd been sending out the venerable "liturgy packet" to all our residence halls. But it was beginning to resemble a dinosaur... Wasted paper, slow and cumbersome, and no way to connect with our ND students scattered across the globe, either. We needed a way to reach them on the web.
Three years ago, we started cooking up a new idea in Campus Ministry, assisted by one of our great colleagues, Joe Nava. Joe was in the Folk Choir for years, became a Campus Ministry intern, and had great skills by way of a combined theology degree and computer science. And with his help, we began designing a website for liturgy that was beautiful to behold, had an intuitive interface, and best of all, was the summation of years of liturgical planning, able to be shared with a much wider audience.
The result: a new liturgy planning website offered by Campus Ministry. You can reach the site by clicking this link here. The actual address is www.newmanhymnal.org.
Now, instead of pages and pages lumbering their way through the campus mail system, students can simply click onto the website for instant access to music suggestions, seasonal planning considerations, special blessings and commissioning rites. Here's a glimpse of the home page of the site:
This "portal" opens up the visitor to the entire liturgical year. Further tabs allow for listening to hundreds of MP3 clips of sacred music regularly used in the Catholic world.
But the best part of this new address is access to all of the new mass settings of the Roman Missal, which are available for instruction 24/7, as video tutorials of the new sung texts. These tutorials were recorded in Alumni Hall chapel over the summer, performed with a minimum of resources – guitar, cantor and piano – just like what our halls would use. While we'll continue the tradition of our workshops, students from Dublin, Ireland to Dillon Hall can log on any time they wish, look and listen and learn the new music of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal.
And finally – the site is never complete! There is a "Wikipedia" function for each Sunday planning page, which allows musicians to continue to send their own sacred music suggestions.
Up and running since the start of the school year, our students have eagerly embraced this new resource – we've had more than three thousand visitors since the beginning of the semester! So now, there's one more way to help plan our sacred gatherings.
For more than twenty years, we'd been sending out the venerable "liturgy packet" to all our residence halls. But it was beginning to resemble a dinosaur... Wasted paper, slow and cumbersome, and no way to connect with our ND students scattered across the globe, either. We needed a way to reach them on the web.
Three years ago, we started cooking up a new idea in Campus Ministry, assisted by one of our great colleagues, Joe Nava. Joe was in the Folk Choir for years, became a Campus Ministry intern, and had great skills by way of a combined theology degree and computer science. And with his help, we began designing a website for liturgy that was beautiful to behold, had an intuitive interface, and best of all, was the summation of years of liturgical planning, able to be shared with a much wider audience.
The result: a new liturgy planning website offered by Campus Ministry. You can reach the site by clicking this link here. The actual address is www.newmanhymnal.org.
Now, instead of pages and pages lumbering their way through the campus mail system, students can simply click onto the website for instant access to music suggestions, seasonal planning considerations, special blessings and commissioning rites. Here's a glimpse of the home page of the site:
But the best part of this new address is access to all of the new mass settings of the Roman Missal, which are available for instruction 24/7, as video tutorials of the new sung texts. These tutorials were recorded in Alumni Hall chapel over the summer, performed with a minimum of resources – guitar, cantor and piano – just like what our halls would use. While we'll continue the tradition of our workshops, students from Dublin, Ireland to Dillon Hall can log on any time they wish, look and listen and learn the new music of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal.
And finally – the site is never complete! There is a "Wikipedia" function for each Sunday planning page, which allows musicians to continue to send their own sacred music suggestions.
Up and running since the start of the school year, our students have eagerly embraced this new resource – we've had more than three thousand visitors since the beginning of the semester! So now, there's one more way to help plan our sacred gatherings.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
When we learn, and when we own
For years, we've been working toward this day in Campus Ministry: the Big Roll Out of the Roman Missal, complete with a foretaste of Notre Dame's Newman Hymnal for our residence halls. The table was prepared: we had our website resource up and running, we had created (through the able help of Jenny Ubl, my superb colleague) a temporary pew edition of the four new World Library Masses which have been chosen for use in the residence halls. All that was needed was for the priests, rectors, liturgical commissioners and music directors of the dorms to show up!
And did they ever! We had, for the first time in all of my years in Campus Ministry, a 100% turnout for the residence halls – every single dorm sent a student representative. We taught three new masses: The Mass for Our Lady, the great rewrite of Michael Joncas' Sing Praise and Thanksgiving 2, and the Mass of Charity and Love. My long-time colleague, Fr. Peter Rocca, csc, went over all the changes – a careful overview of the differences between the old Sacramentary and the new, Third Edition of the Roman Missal. Here's a shot of our morning gathering, more than a hundred strong:
But one of the most important points we delved into as we worked our way through the prayers, responses, acclamations and new mass settings today: there is a big difference between owning the mass, and learning the mass.
We haven't had to face this dynamic for a while – at least for a generation. We've actually had it pretty easy: Marty Haugen's Mass of Creation was the boiler-plate, one-size-fits-all mass setting, and it had rumbled along for more than a quarter of a century. We knew how to respond to everything – which meant, for better or worse, that we were on automatic pilot, scarcely thinking about the things we were responding to, acclaiming, or taking in.
This new Edition of the Roman Missal is going to change all that, whether we like it or not. Even pat responses that we know: "The Lord be with you!" ... (and its response is not what you think!) have changed. We'll all be more tentative. We'll all be making mistakes. But I'll wager that we'll also be thinking much more about what we say and what those words mean.
It's going to take a good, long time to own this new prayer. And it IS a new way to pray. The furniture of our sacred space is being rearranged, regardless of our comfort level. But I'll also guess that there will be a lot of good – maybe even good that our episcopal leaders could not foresee – that will come from this venture. We're going to be thinking a lot more about what we're saying "Amen" to. And that is always cause for celebration, and for song.
And did they ever! We had, for the first time in all of my years in Campus Ministry, a 100% turnout for the residence halls – every single dorm sent a student representative. We taught three new masses: The Mass for Our Lady, the great rewrite of Michael Joncas' Sing Praise and Thanksgiving 2, and the Mass of Charity and Love. My long-time colleague, Fr. Peter Rocca, csc, went over all the changes – a careful overview of the differences between the old Sacramentary and the new, Third Edition of the Roman Missal. Here's a shot of our morning gathering, more than a hundred strong:
We haven't had to face this dynamic for a while – at least for a generation. We've actually had it pretty easy: Marty Haugen's Mass of Creation was the boiler-plate, one-size-fits-all mass setting, and it had rumbled along for more than a quarter of a century. We knew how to respond to everything – which meant, for better or worse, that we were on automatic pilot, scarcely thinking about the things we were responding to, acclaiming, or taking in.
This new Edition of the Roman Missal is going to change all that, whether we like it or not. Even pat responses that we know: "The Lord be with you!" ... (and its response is not what you think!) have changed. We'll all be more tentative. We'll all be making mistakes. But I'll wager that we'll also be thinking much more about what we say and what those words mean.
It's going to take a good, long time to own this new prayer. And it IS a new way to pray. The furniture of our sacred space is being rearranged, regardless of our comfort level. But I'll also guess that there will be a lot of good – maybe even good that our episcopal leaders could not foresee – that will come from this venture. We're going to be thinking a lot more about what we're saying "Amen" to. And that is always cause for celebration, and for song.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Pressing forward for the House of Brigid
Greetings, friends!
I told you I'd give you an update on our Concert for the Missions from last week. This is the first time we've actually held the concert on a Friday night, and save for a few disgruntled guests from Southern California who approached me at Sunday mass, I really think the Friday evening slot is a keeper! Although we went head-to-head with the Notre Dame Glee Club and another big "guy group" (ever heard of "Straight No Chaser?"), the church was full of people eager to hear the Folk Choir.
The focal point of the concert was our continued efforts to celebrate Ireland and help raise consciousness about the faith plight of that country at present. To that end, here are a few words that I shared with the assembly:
"Notre Dame is a singular University, for many reasons. Here is one: where some schools may choose as a figurehead some Greek warrior, or a bird, or an animal, we have chosen a culture as our namesake – the Irish culture. We call ourselves the Irish of Notre Dame. And often I wonder: is our commitment to that culture only found with a mascot, on a football field on a Saturday afternoon?
Ireland needs our help, help to rebuild her church. It is a difficult thing to admit, but they do need it. We have seen it. And we can do something about it. For the past three years, graduating members of the Folk Choir having been working at a new initiative; they have created a lay volunteer community called the House of Brigid, in the Diocese of Wexford, Ireland. Even after three years, their efforts have been legion: they’ve helped bring young children back to the church through sacramental preparation; they’ve formed new choirs in their host parish; they’ve extended their reach far beyond the confines of Wexford, to their entire diocese, teaching new songs and preparing other leaders in liturgical formation; they’ve been sought after for liturgical work as far away as Dublin and Country Galway. And just this year, they were chosen as leaders for World Youth Day in Madrid, chosen to lead their Irish diocese’s young people to meet the Holy Father."
Last Friday night, we raised three thousand, five hundred dollars for the House of Brigid, thanks to the generosity of many supporters of our labors overseas. Even more important, we continue to raise awareness of the Irish Church's health and vitality.
Thanks to all of you who came out for the concert! And to those of you who pray for us, as we make our song heard both here and abroad.
I told you I'd give you an update on our Concert for the Missions from last week. This is the first time we've actually held the concert on a Friday night, and save for a few disgruntled guests from Southern California who approached me at Sunday mass, I really think the Friday evening slot is a keeper! Although we went head-to-head with the Notre Dame Glee Club and another big "guy group" (ever heard of "Straight No Chaser?"), the church was full of people eager to hear the Folk Choir.
The focal point of the concert was our continued efforts to celebrate Ireland and help raise consciousness about the faith plight of that country at present. To that end, here are a few words that I shared with the assembly:
"Notre Dame is a singular University, for many reasons. Here is one: where some schools may choose as a figurehead some Greek warrior, or a bird, or an animal, we have chosen a culture as our namesake – the Irish culture. We call ourselves the Irish of Notre Dame. And often I wonder: is our commitment to that culture only found with a mascot, on a football field on a Saturday afternoon?
Ireland needs our help, help to rebuild her church. It is a difficult thing to admit, but they do need it. We have seen it. And we can do something about it. For the past three years, graduating members of the Folk Choir having been working at a new initiative; they have created a lay volunteer community called the House of Brigid, in the Diocese of Wexford, Ireland. Even after three years, their efforts have been legion: they’ve helped bring young children back to the church through sacramental preparation; they’ve formed new choirs in their host parish; they’ve extended their reach far beyond the confines of Wexford, to their entire diocese, teaching new songs and preparing other leaders in liturgical formation; they’ve been sought after for liturgical work as far away as Dublin and Country Galway. And just this year, they were chosen as leaders for World Youth Day in Madrid, chosen to lead their Irish diocese’s young people to meet the Holy Father."
Thanks to all of you who came out for the concert! And to those of you who pray for us, as we make our song heard both here and abroad.
Monday, October 31, 2011
All Hallow's Coin
It is just a little custom, something that I got into the habit of doing after my first trip to Ireland. If you’ve ever been to a foreign country, you know that a hazard of the trip will be a pocketful of odd coins, completely useless upon your return home.
Here is my custom: For years, I would manage to keep one of those coins in my pocket, and every May before the Folk Choir made an overseas musical tour, I would go down to the Grotto, take that coin that I’d been hanging onto, and say a prayer to Mary. I figured it was most appropriate to pray to the Mother of God before a pilgrimage; to the woman who knew exile and pilgrimage so well. As a mother, she more than any would keep her daughters and sons safe on the road.
For several excursions I kept this habit of dropping a single Irish coin into the slot at the Grotto and lighting my candle, whispering a prayer for safe passage at the same time. But as so often happens, life came along and interrupted this little ritual, for after the third trip to Ireland with the choir, my father passed away.
I remember my last moments with the earthly temple which I had known to be my Dad. After all the grieving and crying by the family, in that precarious moment when the coffin was shut, I asked the funeral director for a last few moments alone with him (I am the eldest son and figured it was my due, after all the experiments that came my way because of this dubious honor). I asked that the casket be opened one last time. I prayed to Mary, and to God, that Dad would have safe pilgrimage to a place in their presence. And then, for some reason known only to my Maker, I reached into my pocket. My hand came across something that I had been saving: a single Irish coin. I took it out, and placed it in the pocket of Dad’s suit coat. “For your journey,” I said. Then I closed the coffin.
It so happened that I had the opportunity to be in Dublin for the Football Game Across the Pond, more than a decade ago. And as fate would have it, I was there for the Feast of All Hallows. There, on a cold and blustery autumn night as little goblins scampered around the neighborhood of Raheny pleading for nuts and fruit and an occasional Cadbury bar, I sat for my evening meal with old friends. Anne Marie had made cuilkullin, a traditional meal for Halloween made from potatoes (what else?), kale and onions. I could hear the wind howling outside. I thought of my own children celebrating Halloween across the Atlantic.
But here is the thing that brought the night to life for me. As I was sitting down to my meal, I happened to glance down at the plate, and there, slightly hidden by the vegetable-laden dish, was a bright new Irish coin – a twopence. When I asked my hostess whence came this little monetary offering, she offered me a mysterious smile and said, “You know, on the Feast of All Hallows the Irish have been known to keep their doors unlocked, that the souls of our ancestors may come in and sit and warm themselves by the fire and gather strength for the rest of their journey.”
Of course, you may think, it was my gracious hostess that put the coin in my supper. But whom, may I ask, put the thought in her head? Or linked these two symbols so preciously together in my life? You may see the story as you wish. I, for my part, see the hand of God at work.
Here we are on the doorstep of November, the month wherein we keep holy the memory of our ancestors, those who have gone before us marked with a sign of faith. I can tell you this: the marks of our ancestors are vivid and real. I see those that go before me, woven in little symbolic ways, threaded through my life in a tapestry that surrounds me and supports me and keeps me warm. When I doubt my father’s safety, when I wonder where are the souls of those whom I love but now cannot touch, it is somewhat easier to remember them when I think of how my father, and my Father, visited me through the gift of a simple coin.
Here is my custom: For years, I would manage to keep one of those coins in my pocket, and every May before the Folk Choir made an overseas musical tour, I would go down to the Grotto, take that coin that I’d been hanging onto, and say a prayer to Mary. I figured it was most appropriate to pray to the Mother of God before a pilgrimage; to the woman who knew exile and pilgrimage so well. As a mother, she more than any would keep her daughters and sons safe on the road.
For several excursions I kept this habit of dropping a single Irish coin into the slot at the Grotto and lighting my candle, whispering a prayer for safe passage at the same time. But as so often happens, life came along and interrupted this little ritual, for after the third trip to Ireland with the choir, my father passed away.
I remember my last moments with the earthly temple which I had known to be my Dad. After all the grieving and crying by the family, in that precarious moment when the coffin was shut, I asked the funeral director for a last few moments alone with him (I am the eldest son and figured it was my due, after all the experiments that came my way because of this dubious honor). I asked that the casket be opened one last time. I prayed to Mary, and to God, that Dad would have safe pilgrimage to a place in their presence. And then, for some reason known only to my Maker, I reached into my pocket. My hand came across something that I had been saving: a single Irish coin. I took it out, and placed it in the pocket of Dad’s suit coat. “For your journey,” I said. Then I closed the coffin.
It so happened that I had the opportunity to be in Dublin for the Football Game Across the Pond, more than a decade ago. And as fate would have it, I was there for the Feast of All Hallows. There, on a cold and blustery autumn night as little goblins scampered around the neighborhood of Raheny pleading for nuts and fruit and an occasional Cadbury bar, I sat for my evening meal with old friends. Anne Marie had made cuilkullin, a traditional meal for Halloween made from potatoes (what else?), kale and onions. I could hear the wind howling outside. I thought of my own children celebrating Halloween across the Atlantic.
But here is the thing that brought the night to life for me. As I was sitting down to my meal, I happened to glance down at the plate, and there, slightly hidden by the vegetable-laden dish, was a bright new Irish coin – a twopence. When I asked my hostess whence came this little monetary offering, she offered me a mysterious smile and said, “You know, on the Feast of All Hallows the Irish have been known to keep their doors unlocked, that the souls of our ancestors may come in and sit and warm themselves by the fire and gather strength for the rest of their journey.”
Of course, you may think, it was my gracious hostess that put the coin in my supper. But whom, may I ask, put the thought in her head? Or linked these two symbols so preciously together in my life? You may see the story as you wish. I, for my part, see the hand of God at work.
Here we are on the doorstep of November, the month wherein we keep holy the memory of our ancestors, those who have gone before us marked with a sign of faith. I can tell you this: the marks of our ancestors are vivid and real. I see those that go before me, woven in little symbolic ways, threaded through my life in a tapestry that surrounds me and supports me and keeps me warm. When I doubt my father’s safety, when I wonder where are the souls of those whom I love but now cannot touch, it is somewhat easier to remember them when I think of how my father, and my Father, visited me through the gift of a simple coin.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Lights, Camera.... Sing!
It's the calm before the musical storm! Tonight we have our final rehearsal before our Annual Holy Cross Concert for the Missions, and the energy is high... Soloists are prepared, instruments (will be)tuned, and please God a great crowd will turn out for our yearly gathering, tomorrow evening, Friday, October 28th, at 8:00PM in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The table is set: Now all we need is is an assembly to attend the musical banquet!
Every October, we raise funds for some mission associated with the Congregation of Holy Cross. Over the years, these funds have been scattered across the globe, to far-flung apostolates in Haiti, Bangladesh, Chile, Peru, India, and East Africa. More than a hundred thousand dollars in nearly a generation, all coming from this musical gathering.
And this year, we focus our energies on our own: the House of Brigid. Our volunteers are hard at work in Ireland right now, working in many different landscapes – with grade school children, with young adults who have recently returned from World Youth Day in Madrid, with choral programs in the parish, and with outreach to the diocese (especially in this year of tremendous change in the mass texts and musical settings). It is an exciting and challenging time to be in Ireland. I envy these four graduates of the choir!
You can read the weekly blog of the House by clicking here. And, if you can't be at the Concert for the Missions and are interested in contributing to their ministerial efforts in Ireland, you can also make an offering on the same website (look under the tab "Giving.")
Keep us in your prayers, if you can't be there in person. The song endures – and compels us to go forward, announcing that hope and joy will always have the last word.
Every October, we raise funds for some mission associated with the Congregation of Holy Cross. Over the years, these funds have been scattered across the globe, to far-flung apostolates in Haiti, Bangladesh, Chile, Peru, India, and East Africa. More than a hundred thousand dollars in nearly a generation, all coming from this musical gathering.
And this year, we focus our energies on our own: the House of Brigid. Our volunteers are hard at work in Ireland right now, working in many different landscapes – with grade school children, with young adults who have recently returned from World Youth Day in Madrid, with choral programs in the parish, and with outreach to the diocese (especially in this year of tremendous change in the mass texts and musical settings). It is an exciting and challenging time to be in Ireland. I envy these four graduates of the choir!
You can read the weekly blog of the House by clicking here. And, if you can't be at the Concert for the Missions and are interested in contributing to their ministerial efforts in Ireland, you can also make an offering on the same website (look under the tab "Giving.")
Keep us in your prayers, if you can't be there in person. The song endures – and compels us to go forward, announcing that hope and joy will always have the last word.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Beyond Leprechauns, part 1
What are your own images of Ireland? Are they of some idyllic scenes from the movie "The Quiet Man"? Maybe you went there at one point, to find out about your family roots. Or traveled the countryside as a student, perhaps having your own, unique perspective on the land. Maybe you carried a guitar when you went, like me. Or, like some of my friends, you might've slung a bag of golf clubs over your shoulder.
The fact is, many of us claim this country as the touchstone of our familial heritage. Yet for all our ownership of this place as our homeland, we usually cling to some very outmoded, and even downright quaint, images and misconceptions about Ireland. Especially when it comes to the church. For right now, the Catholic Church in Ireland is in a desperate state. And if we, from Notre Dame, claim the right to this heritage – even going so far as to use a culture as our mascot – then we must embrace a certain responsibility as well.
This Friday, the Folk Choir sings for Ireland. We do so with eyes wide open, and not hanging onto some cute or trivial icon of the country. We sing for a place that means a lot to people at Notre Dame, and we sing for a church that is in dire straits at the moment.
We've had a lot of experiences in this country over the last twenty-plus years of touring. We've sung in the highest church of the land: St. Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh, home to the Cardinal Primate of the Catholic Church. We've sung in what used to be Ballymon, the huge cluster of high-rise tenements that had, at one time, been the focal point of poverty just outside of Dublin. We've been hosted by parishes large and small. And we've sung for masses that officially "closed" the local seminary.
The fact is, only one seminary remains in Ireland. More than twenty have closed in the last two generations.
The laity, too, are without much of a home. Even with an alarming shortage of priests, the Irish presbyterate has not done what we did in America – make way for a corps of trained, collaborative professionals to work side-by-side in the vineyard of saints and scholars.
Church leaders in Ireland have estimated that, despite a statistic that boasts more than ninety percent baptized Catholics, barely over fifteen percent of these people regularly go to Mass.
So, Friday night, we sing for this country.
It is an act of witness for our own singers, because a handful of the Folk Choir – four graduates – are now working in County Wexford, the Diocese of Ferns, to help revitalize the landscape of the church, through song and prayer and story.
They are working shoulder-to-shoulder with priests and women religious to bring music back to parishes. And they're taking the skills they learned at Our Lady's University and putting them to good use, just as the founders of this place hoped they might.
They are also learning precious things from these lovely people – learning how to approach life with joy and laughter, learning the gentle art of wit and storytelling, learning that not all we do in this country, in the name of triple-tasking tedium, is worth the craziness. There is more to life than frenetic, driven, resume-building madness. There is also tea and conversation with people around a hearth.
I'll be writing more over the weeks about the House of Brigid, Teach BhrÃde. It is a small venture, right now – a small community of four men and women, hoping to rekindle the faith through song and catechesis. But most good works start small.
And Friday night, we sing for them. How can we not?
The fact is, many of us claim this country as the touchstone of our familial heritage. Yet for all our ownership of this place as our homeland, we usually cling to some very outmoded, and even downright quaint, images and misconceptions about Ireland. Especially when it comes to the church. For right now, the Catholic Church in Ireland is in a desperate state. And if we, from Notre Dame, claim the right to this heritage – even going so far as to use a culture as our mascot – then we must embrace a certain responsibility as well.
This Friday, the Folk Choir sings for Ireland. We do so with eyes wide open, and not hanging onto some cute or trivial icon of the country. We sing for a place that means a lot to people at Notre Dame, and we sing for a church that is in dire straits at the moment.
We've had a lot of experiences in this country over the last twenty-plus years of touring. We've sung in the highest church of the land: St. Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh, home to the Cardinal Primate of the Catholic Church. We've sung in what used to be Ballymon, the huge cluster of high-rise tenements that had, at one time, been the focal point of poverty just outside of Dublin. We've been hosted by parishes large and small. And we've sung for masses that officially "closed" the local seminary.
The fact is, only one seminary remains in Ireland. More than twenty have closed in the last two generations.
The laity, too, are without much of a home. Even with an alarming shortage of priests, the Irish presbyterate has not done what we did in America – make way for a corps of trained, collaborative professionals to work side-by-side in the vineyard of saints and scholars.
Church leaders in Ireland have estimated that, despite a statistic that boasts more than ninety percent baptized Catholics, barely over fifteen percent of these people regularly go to Mass.
So, Friday night, we sing for this country.
It is an act of witness for our own singers, because a handful of the Folk Choir – four graduates – are now working in County Wexford, the Diocese of Ferns, to help revitalize the landscape of the church, through song and prayer and story.
They are also learning precious things from these lovely people – learning how to approach life with joy and laughter, learning the gentle art of wit and storytelling, learning that not all we do in this country, in the name of triple-tasking tedium, is worth the craziness. There is more to life than frenetic, driven, resume-building madness. There is also tea and conversation with people around a hearth.
I'll be writing more over the weeks about the House of Brigid, Teach BhrÃde. It is a small venture, right now – a small community of four men and women, hoping to rekindle the faith through song and catechesis. But most good works start small.
And Friday night, we sing for them. How can we not?
Sunday, October 23, 2011
From DOG to Dome
The last two days, I've accompanied my wife to her twenty year reunion at the College of William and Mary, home of the Tribe (who lost their football game yesterday to Towson State University) and DOG Street (the Duke of Gloucester Street, along which Colonial Williamsburg serves as a front porch to the academy). I always have loved Williamsburg – walking along this venue of living history is like stepping back in time.
There have been a lot of people to connect with here, particularly those involved in Michele's early ministry years with the Catholic Students' Association here at W&M. It was great to meet some of the pastoral staff of St. Bede last night, to walk the campus during the day, and head to a football game!
But today, the idyllic autumn days come to an end, and there are huge events waiting for us back at the Dome. This Wednesday I give a talk at St. Mary's College on the writing of "Cross of Our Hope," the hymn that was composed during the year Fr. Basil Moreau was canonized. And, of course, this coming Friday is the annual Folk Choir Concert for the Missions (8:00PM in the Basilica), being held on the Friday for the first time in its history (thank you, football!). You can find out more about the concert by clicking here. So much to look forward to and prepare for....
These have been amazing days of fall splendor. Such a wonder to be able to walk not one, but two campus communities, and be able to call them home!
There have been a lot of people to connect with here, particularly those involved in Michele's early ministry years with the Catholic Students' Association here at W&M. It was great to meet some of the pastoral staff of St. Bede last night, to walk the campus during the day, and head to a football game!
But today, the idyllic autumn days come to an end, and there are huge events waiting for us back at the Dome. This Wednesday I give a talk at St. Mary's College on the writing of "Cross of Our Hope," the hymn that was composed during the year Fr. Basil Moreau was canonized. And, of course, this coming Friday is the annual Folk Choir Concert for the Missions (8:00PM in the Basilica), being held on the Friday for the first time in its history (thank you, football!). You can find out more about the concert by clicking here. So much to look forward to and prepare for....
These have been amazing days of fall splendor. Such a wonder to be able to walk not one, but two campus communities, and be able to call them home!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
When day is done
I still have vivid memories of my first visit to a Trappist monastery: we had driven all day long from Notre Dame, arriving at dusk, and finally, along with my companions, walked into the expansive chapel (it’s actually a basilica) of the Abbey of Gethsemani. It was there that I heard Fr. Chrysogonus’ arrangement of the Salve, Regina for the first time. It was Compline – night prayer – and we all stood there, clothed in the dark of a November evening, listening to the monks sing their haunting anthem at the end of the day, the only thing visible being the icon of the Madonna, surrounded by candlelight.
The integrity of that prayer and song has influenced all I’ve done back at Notre Dame. I’ve always been caught up with this extraordinary paradox, a community of quiet men standing before the image of the Holy Mother, night after night, singing of their affection, petitioning for her protection.
It is no different here at Mepkin Abbey, except the chapel is simpler and on a smaller scale. Yet this only lends itself to a heightened sense of intimacy: we are closer to the image of Mary, closer to the scent of beeswax, shoulder to shoulder with the tremulous voices of the elder monks. There is a fragility and earnest attitude here that the world could learn much from.
The end of the day, celebrated through Vespers and Compline, mirrors the end of life. It provides a chance to look back on the work of our hands, a chance to embrace peace before darkness envelops everything, still confident that light awaits. Whenever I visit with the monks, well aware of their own faults and failings and human imperfection, I am still cognizant of just how closely they live this daily reality.
We leave Mepkin soon, having spent some wonderful days with Brother Dismas, our son. He, like us, has miles before him, especially when it comes to the implementation of the new liturgy and the musical demands that have been placed on his own shoulders. But we are so much better for the time together. And for both of our communities, Notre Dame and Mepkin, there is a clearer sense of the days that lie ahead, and how we are to be poured out.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Lauds and the Teeth of Beasts
First you wake up, very, very early in the morning. All is motionless and dark. In some ways, there is nothing really special about the time – all you know is that it still seems like the middle of the night (and in some respects, it really is!). Sunlight has not even begun to creep toward the horizon. Heading toward the chapel, you might see something wild crawling out of the woods.
Today is the feast of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, and I’m surrounded by Trappist memories. The Post-Communion prayer that was spoken today are Ignatius’ words: “I am the wheat of Christ, ground by the teeth of beasts to become true bread.” My dear old monastic friend Chrysogonus composed a piece on those words, a song that eventually made it onto our collection “Witness of the Saints.” And now I am hearing these words in the pre-dawn hours on the feast of the martyr.
When you wake up for Lauds, you also make a decision to literally greet the day. This part of the year, Lauds starts in darkness and by the time Mass arrives, the sun has begun to make her presence known. The passage of that time, from pre-dawn darkness to early light of rosy day, is something that most of us miss, if only for the fact that we are hurried through our morning rituals of getting ready for work.
But right now, we are not getting ready for anything. We are just praying. And standing in silence. And listening to the Word. And breaking bread. In the midst of all this, there is the slow, steady, purposeful advance of dawn.
About thirty years ago, almost by a fluke, I made a trip down to the Abbey of Gethsemani, while I was taking a course on the Book of Psalms at Notre Dame. That one trip changed the trajectory of my life and my friendships, influenced the way I approached the craft of music writing, and eventually brought my own son to a Trappist monastery.
Here we are then, standing in the quiet before the break of day, caught up in the quiet. This is what I was thinking:
In some ways, we are all grist for the mill, our lives being ground up into the flour that, hopefully, might feed others. Whether it be through our songs, our witness, our labors, our commitments – every part of our life eventually makes it into the mill of life, that we might, please God, be bread for others.
So, like every other morning on this planet, the dawn broke again today. Except today, I marked every minute: quietly, deliberately, with peace-filled prayer.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Silence and Spanish Moss
Today we arrive at Mepkin Abbey, and before any other encounter, before you step into the cloister area or walk into the chapel, before you walk the labyrinth or discover the Cooper River, you know, undeniably, that you are in the Deep South.
In her former life, Mepkin was a stately plantation, and her roots go almost as far back as the Revolutionary War. Early in the 20th century the property fell under the ownership of Clare Booth Luce, heiress to the Time Magazine fortune, but around the 1940's she donated the entire property to the Order of Cistercians, Strict Observance: the Trappists.
The lane is your first encounter with the monastery, and it's hard to think of a more genteel or beckoning welcome to a place of quiet and prayer. The live oak bends down to meet you, arching over your head like an attendant mother. The soft fronds of Spanish moss whisper in the wind, adding other, quiet voices to the welcome – if you care to listen. The monks have taken this property and gently made it their own home, building a beautiful chapel (the shape of which is modeled, serendipitously, after tobacco barns in the South). Miss Ursula welcomes you at the gift shop, where there are precious collections of pottery, jams, and spiritual books. Most days, recordings of orthodox chant waft gently through the shop.
If you've ever seen any movies about cloistered orders – Into Great Silence or Of Gods and Men – you will know that at a monastery, schedules are important. Small sounds are important. Bells mean something beyond their mere sound. There is a gentle rippling, an almost imperceptible purling to the passage of time here, not unlike the movement of a very small stream of water.. If one can open up the heart and settle the soul, there are spiritual landscapes that can lead to wonderful discoveries.
So today we step into that landscape. After two months of frenetic, non-stop labor in the vineyard of Notre Dame, here is where we choose to find some rest.
There is music here, too. Not just the audible kind. But more on that later.
In her former life, Mepkin was a stately plantation, and her roots go almost as far back as the Revolutionary War. Early in the 20th century the property fell under the ownership of Clare Booth Luce, heiress to the Time Magazine fortune, but around the 1940's she donated the entire property to the Order of Cistercians, Strict Observance: the Trappists.
The lane is your first encounter with the monastery, and it's hard to think of a more genteel or beckoning welcome to a place of quiet and prayer. The live oak bends down to meet you, arching over your head like an attendant mother. The soft fronds of Spanish moss whisper in the wind, adding other, quiet voices to the welcome – if you care to listen. The monks have taken this property and gently made it their own home, building a beautiful chapel (the shape of which is modeled, serendipitously, after tobacco barns in the South). Miss Ursula welcomes you at the gift shop, where there are precious collections of pottery, jams, and spiritual books. Most days, recordings of orthodox chant waft gently through the shop.
If you've ever seen any movies about cloistered orders – Into Great Silence or Of Gods and Men – you will know that at a monastery, schedules are important. Small sounds are important. Bells mean something beyond their mere sound. There is a gentle rippling, an almost imperceptible purling to the passage of time here, not unlike the movement of a very small stream of water.. If one can open up the heart and settle the soul, there are spiritual landscapes that can lead to wonderful discoveries.
So today we step into that landscape. After two months of frenetic, non-stop labor in the vineyard of Notre Dame, here is where we choose to find some rest.
There is music here, too. Not just the audible kind. But more on that later.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Songs in the South
The threshold of fall break gets tantalizingly closer! And you can actually see it on everyone's faces – especially the rectors and hall staff personnel. These past nine weeks have been tremendously demanding on everyone, and the coming nine days will offer a brief but well-needed and deserved respite for us all.
You can see from this picture that the entrance to Mepkin just whispers of the South: the Spanish moss hanging from the trees, the long, graceful lane lined with live oak trees. It is a place of uncommon quiet and solitude. And it is now the place our son calls home, and has for seven years.
One of the vows professed by a monk is that of stability, and I find myself caught up more and more in this aspiration. What does stability mean in this culture? So much of what we experience is fleeting, transitory, and bound up in self-serving diversion. Yet here, things are quiet and slow. There is time to think. And lots of time to pray.
We will be walking this lane a lot in the next week, often in the pre-dawn hours and at dusk, as we join the brethren in their prayer, and in their song. Despite their quiet, there is not much that can stop a monk from singing, unless it be their final breath.
My wife, Michele, and I will be traveling into the Deep South, making our annual pilgrimage to see my son Joshua, now Brother Dismas, of the Order of Cistercians, Strict Observance – he is a Trappist. These are exceptional days: a chance to spend time with this gifted young man, a chance to drink up the quiet of the abbey, a chance to enter into a different pattern of life (we always get to most of the daily prayer services, with the exception of Vigils at 3:15AM!). This quiet fabric of prayer, music, and a tiny abbey nestled on the banks of the Cooper River make for a much-needed change of pace, as compared to the driven, high-energy culture of Notre Dame.
You can see from this picture that the entrance to Mepkin just whispers of the South: the Spanish moss hanging from the trees, the long, graceful lane lined with live oak trees. It is a place of uncommon quiet and solitude. And it is now the place our son calls home, and has for seven years.
One of the vows professed by a monk is that of stability, and I find myself caught up more and more in this aspiration. What does stability mean in this culture? So much of what we experience is fleeting, transitory, and bound up in self-serving diversion. Yet here, things are quiet and slow. There is time to think. And lots of time to pray.
We will be walking this lane a lot in the next week, often in the pre-dawn hours and at dusk, as we join the brethren in their prayer, and in their song. Despite their quiet, there is not much that can stop a monk from singing, unless it be their final breath.
Monday, October 10, 2011
'Tis the gift to have simple mass settings...
Autumn greetings, everyone!
One of our blog readers commented a couple of days ago, asking if there was a simple mass setting that was designed for a "very small church with few resources."
This very issue has been on my mind for quite a few years, and about eighteen months ago, I had an experience at Corby Hall on campus that really shaped my composition (and the work load for the next six months!)
You see, I've always been attracted to simple chant settings. Not the elaborate, highly ornamented and melismatic lines – rather, the ones that average congregations can hang on to and sing back with great gusto. My ultimate "parochial best chant" is, of course, Veni, Veni Emmanuel. But surely there must be another, accessible tune that might fit this criteria?
But along with simplicity of tune, I would want the setting to work well both with organ and guitar, and to have the straightforward integrity to work either unadorned or with a little bit of instrumental help, if available.
So.... back to Corby Hall, during the Second Week of Lent, 2010. You see, for the past 15+ years, I've been providing music every Wednesday night for the men of the Holy Cross community, and this Wednesday night was no different than any other. I chose an Opening Hymn which I've always enjoyed hearing the Corby community sing so well: "Where Charity and Love Prevail," which was originally arranged by Dom Paul Benoit.
Well, we hadn't gotten through verse 1 before I started hearing other texts aligning in my ear – the "Holy, Holy, Holy" and the "Kyrie" and the "Lamb of God." And by the end of the week, I had presented the idea to my editors at World Library Publications. The result is below:
This setting, which incorporates the revised texts of the Mass, is a very simple musical accompaniment for the liturgy. It can be done on guitar, or on organ, or on both. It can be done unadorned, with no instrumentation whatsoever. But it can also be done with a complimentary C instrument (we recorded it with my daughter Jessica playing the oboe, which was beautiful). And for dressing up at times, there are descants at appropriate places.
Most important, though, is the notion of simplicity and integrity. Some parishes just don't have the resources, nor is it a true reflection of their community, to do a mass setting that "pulls out all the stops." And in that instance, this is a musical treatment of the texts that just might find a home in smaller parishes, at military bases, or – who knew – in some of the residence halls at the University of Notre Dame!
As I've said, we spent the last three years preparing for these days ahead. And much of that, for my colleague Karen Kirner and myself, has been devoted to looking at the new mass settings, and finding something that would fit our needs, something sacred, but also some new wineskins into which we could pour the new wine of these words.
So, at the risk of trumpeting the news – here is a new mass setting! And it is doable, even for parishes with the simplest of resources. It was borne out of an a cappella experience and the singing of a hymn that has been a mainstay of parochial life for two generations.
May we keep singing that hymn! And fear not the First Sunday of Advent!
One of our blog readers commented a couple of days ago, asking if there was a simple mass setting that was designed for a "very small church with few resources."
This very issue has been on my mind for quite a few years, and about eighteen months ago, I had an experience at Corby Hall on campus that really shaped my composition (and the work load for the next six months!)
You see, I've always been attracted to simple chant settings. Not the elaborate, highly ornamented and melismatic lines – rather, the ones that average congregations can hang on to and sing back with great gusto. My ultimate "parochial best chant" is, of course, Veni, Veni Emmanuel. But surely there must be another, accessible tune that might fit this criteria?
But along with simplicity of tune, I would want the setting to work well both with organ and guitar, and to have the straightforward integrity to work either unadorned or with a little bit of instrumental help, if available.
So.... back to Corby Hall, during the Second Week of Lent, 2010. You see, for the past 15+ years, I've been providing music every Wednesday night for the men of the Holy Cross community, and this Wednesday night was no different than any other. I chose an Opening Hymn which I've always enjoyed hearing the Corby community sing so well: "Where Charity and Love Prevail," which was originally arranged by Dom Paul Benoit.
Well, we hadn't gotten through verse 1 before I started hearing other texts aligning in my ear – the "Holy, Holy, Holy" and the "Kyrie" and the "Lamb of God." And by the end of the week, I had presented the idea to my editors at World Library Publications. The result is below:
Most important, though, is the notion of simplicity and integrity. Some parishes just don't have the resources, nor is it a true reflection of their community, to do a mass setting that "pulls out all the stops." And in that instance, this is a musical treatment of the texts that just might find a home in smaller parishes, at military bases, or – who knew – in some of the residence halls at the University of Notre Dame!
As I've said, we spent the last three years preparing for these days ahead. And much of that, for my colleague Karen Kirner and myself, has been devoted to looking at the new mass settings, and finding something that would fit our needs, something sacred, but also some new wineskins into which we could pour the new wine of these words.
So, at the risk of trumpeting the news – here is a new mass setting! And it is doable, even for parishes with the simplest of resources. It was borne out of an a cappella experience and the singing of a hymn that has been a mainstay of parochial life for two generations.
May we keep singing that hymn! And fear not the First Sunday of Advent!
The theology of a color
One of my great friends and a fellow composer, Carolyn Pirtle, makes no apologies for her ardent love of the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth". There is much to admire about it: the celebration of earth and sky and hours and human relations, all find their place in that for which we must simply accept as gift.
These are good days to be tuned to the beauty of the earth, especially on a campus with the inherent loveliness of Notre Dame. It seems that around every corner lately, there is some breathtaking, golden view leaping into the eye of the beholder:
In one of my favorite contemporary novels, "The Color Purple," the heroine makes a statement that has stuck with me for many a year. She says, "I think it must piss God off when we pass by the color purple and don't thank him for makin' it".
I'd say amen to that. Or any other color out there, too - especially now, during the season of red and amber and yellow and gold and cobalt and earthy brown. It is time, even when walking across campus or coming upon a tree that is exuding an optical alleluia, to simply say thanks for the gift.
Every morning when I go to work, I walk the same route: up from Lyons Hall parking lot, through the archway, then along the south side of Howard and Badin Halls. I know the trees well along that route, when they shout out their colors, those that are early and those that are late. One of them, a particularly old and decrepit maple that was half-patched with cement, finally succumbed to the ND landscapers last year. But not before gracing my morning walk with one more season of visual glorification.
Indian summer at Notre Dame is a miracle of visual joy for anyone who cares to see. And the words below, whenever we sing them, give us a way to unlock that Mystery.
For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight,
For the mystic harmony, linking sense to sound and sight:
Lord of all to you we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.
These are good days to be tuned to the beauty of the earth, especially on a campus with the inherent loveliness of Notre Dame. It seems that around every corner lately, there is some breathtaking, golden view leaping into the eye of the beholder:
In one of my favorite contemporary novels, "The Color Purple," the heroine makes a statement that has stuck with me for many a year. She says, "I think it must piss God off when we pass by the color purple and don't thank him for makin' it".
I'd say amen to that. Or any other color out there, too - especially now, during the season of red and amber and yellow and gold and cobalt and earthy brown. It is time, even when walking across campus or coming upon a tree that is exuding an optical alleluia, to simply say thanks for the gift.
Every morning when I go to work, I walk the same route: up from Lyons Hall parking lot, through the archway, then along the south side of Howard and Badin Halls. I know the trees well along that route, when they shout out their colors, those that are early and those that are late. One of them, a particularly old and decrepit maple that was half-patched with cement, finally succumbed to the ND landscapers last year. But not before gracing my morning walk with one more season of visual glorification.
Indian summer at Notre Dame is a miracle of visual joy for anyone who cares to see. And the words below, whenever we sing them, give us a way to unlock that Mystery.
For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight,
For the mystic harmony, linking sense to sound and sight:
Lord of all to you we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Armed and Do-Re-Mi-Fa-bulous
Yes, we are on the verge of Fall Break at the University (Ah, fall break – when all our students can go back home and try to recover from the sleep deprivation they've brought upon themselves over the past month and a half!) But for me, the countdown has begun: we're about six weeks away from the big kick off on the First Sunday of Advent – new texts, new mass parts.
This "Liturgy Day" at Notre Dame will be offered by both myself and longtime colleague Fr. Peter Rocca, the Rector of the Basilica. Peter will be working with the Presbyters and Rectors; I'll be focusing my energies on the residence hall musicians and liturgical commisioners.
More as we get closer to the day! And thanks to all of you who've been so encouraging - blogging is an art and it takes time and patience. May we all sing well this weekend (and not lose our voices at the game!)
But it's not really six weeks away for us. On Saturday, November 5th, we'll be taking over the Coleman Morse Center, lock, stock and barrel, and doing our best to bring in every priest, rector, music director, and liturgical commissioner on campus. We have a new mass to learn.
Truth be told, we've been preparing for this workshop for more than two years. Longer, if you consider the work that's gone into the composition of our own mass settings for the campus.
This "Liturgy Day" at Notre Dame will be offered by both myself and longtime colleague Fr. Peter Rocca, the Rector of the Basilica. Peter will be working with the Presbyters and Rectors; I'll be focusing my energies on the residence hall musicians and liturgical commisioners.
More as we get closer to the day! And thanks to all of you who've been so encouraging - blogging is an art and it takes time and patience. May we all sing well this weekend (and not lose our voices at the game!)
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Setting sights on Scotland
About six years ago, the Folk Choir received an email from someone across the Atlantic: "We're doing a setting of Psalm 104," said the post, "and I'd like to know more about the group that sang it." Thus began a dialog that led our choir to Edinburgh in 2008 – and that dialog continues next spring, as we will make pilgrimage there once more in May/June of 2012.
The parishioners we've met in Scotland - at St. Kentigern's Catholic Church, to be precise – became extensions of our own family from the outset. They welcomed us into their homes, their churches; even the Lord Provost's (Mayor's) chambers hosted a luncheon for us! So we look forward to our collaboration with great joy this year, as we begin to set our sights on Scotland.
Last weekend, we Skyped with our principal hosts, led on the Scottish side by Dr. Maureen Bruce. We're planning a great set of experiences while the Folk Choir is there, but one of the things most important to all of us is to make sure we leave something tangible behind. By this I mean, not just a concert program or a great musical experience. Rather, a chance to empower the young adults of Scotland to form musical ensembles of their own, to help them find their own voices. To that end, our hosts in Edinburgh have many high goals set before them, ones that we embrace with great enthusiasm.
The Catholic Church of Scotland is as besieged as her neighbor in Ireland at present. Last year, they closed their only seminary. But unlike Ireland, Catholics are a minority in Scotland, so our presence and companionship with them on their faith journey is all the more keenly felt.
We will, as well, be working hard to offer our services to both the Catholic Archdiocese of Edinburgh and, with a little bit of planning, bring the Presbyterian, Anglican and Catholic families together for an ecumenical service in the heart of Edinburgh. We have much work to do!
All of this prefigures a huge gathering that will be taking place in Dublin a few weeks after we leave Scotland's shores – the International Eucharistic Congress, which will be hosted in Ireland's capital city in the middle of June. We'll be taking along plenty of music for Eucharistic celebrations, as this will be on the minds of many while we travel.
Pictures can tell much of how a nation spreads the welcome mat: Here's one of the reception we were given when we pulled up to that wonderful parish in Edinburgh almost four years ago.
May we keep on singing!
The parishioners we've met in Scotland - at St. Kentigern's Catholic Church, to be precise – became extensions of our own family from the outset. They welcomed us into their homes, their churches; even the Lord Provost's (Mayor's) chambers hosted a luncheon for us! So we look forward to our collaboration with great joy this year, as we begin to set our sights on Scotland.
Last weekend, we Skyped with our principal hosts, led on the Scottish side by Dr. Maureen Bruce. We're planning a great set of experiences while the Folk Choir is there, but one of the things most important to all of us is to make sure we leave something tangible behind. By this I mean, not just a concert program or a great musical experience. Rather, a chance to empower the young adults of Scotland to form musical ensembles of their own, to help them find their own voices. To that end, our hosts in Edinburgh have many high goals set before them, ones that we embrace with great enthusiasm.
The Catholic Church of Scotland is as besieged as her neighbor in Ireland at present. Last year, they closed their only seminary. But unlike Ireland, Catholics are a minority in Scotland, so our presence and companionship with them on their faith journey is all the more keenly felt.
We will, as well, be working hard to offer our services to both the Catholic Archdiocese of Edinburgh and, with a little bit of planning, bring the Presbyterian, Anglican and Catholic families together for an ecumenical service in the heart of Edinburgh. We have much work to do!
All of this prefigures a huge gathering that will be taking place in Dublin a few weeks after we leave Scotland's shores – the International Eucharistic Congress, which will be hosted in Ireland's capital city in the middle of June. We'll be taking along plenty of music for Eucharistic celebrations, as this will be on the minds of many while we travel.
Pictures can tell much of how a nation spreads the welcome mat: Here's one of the reception we were given when we pulled up to that wonderful parish in Edinburgh almost four years ago.
May we keep on singing!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Dancing with the Angels
Years ago, Father Theodore Hesburgh, csc, made a comment about the choir I direct, the Notre Dame Folk Choir: "...wherever and whenever they sing, you suspect that somehow angels may be hidden in their ranks."
Like most observations made in his long and storied life, I believe Fr. Ted's comments are right on the money. And if they're true, then it means that I've been dancing with these angels, in and amongst the choristers and instrumentalists of the Choir, for many years.
This blog/journal/set of meditations come out of that dance. I'll be writing about the experiences of our choir, about our creative projects, about new songs that are being crafted. I'll be marking our exploits in monasteries and overseas. There are new mass settings, podcasts, and a fascinating new website devoted to liturgical planning that's spreading like wildfire. So much to write about!
Here's the first posting, written on the vigil of the Feast of the Guardian Angels. How appropriate! I write with the hope that these angeli, these angels, are in fact what we are meant to model: messengers of hopeful tidings for our world.
I'd like to encourage all of you who've been part of the Choir, who've supported our efforts over the years, who've come to our concerts, or who've been following our community in Ireland, to forward these journal entries along to any other readers you think might be interested. At last count, there were more than 500 alums that have graduated out of our humble ranks – and many of them have become liturgical leaders and innovative pastoral voices around the world. This blog is a way to keep everyone up to date with what's going on back in the Loft.
... back in the Loft, where we continue to dance with the angels.
Keep singing all!
Steve Warner
Like most observations made in his long and storied life, I believe Fr. Ted's comments are right on the money. And if they're true, then it means that I've been dancing with these angels, in and amongst the choristers and instrumentalists of the Choir, for many years.
This blog/journal/set of meditations come out of that dance. I'll be writing about the experiences of our choir, about our creative projects, about new songs that are being crafted. I'll be marking our exploits in monasteries and overseas. There are new mass settings, podcasts, and a fascinating new website devoted to liturgical planning that's spreading like wildfire. So much to write about!
Here's the first posting, written on the vigil of the Feast of the Guardian Angels. How appropriate! I write with the hope that these angeli, these angels, are in fact what we are meant to model: messengers of hopeful tidings for our world.
I'd like to encourage all of you who've been part of the Choir, who've supported our efforts over the years, who've come to our concerts, or who've been following our community in Ireland, to forward these journal entries along to any other readers you think might be interested. At last count, there were more than 500 alums that have graduated out of our humble ranks – and many of them have become liturgical leaders and innovative pastoral voices around the world. This blog is a way to keep everyone up to date with what's going on back in the Loft.
... back in the Loft, where we continue to dance with the angels.
Keep singing all!
Steve Warner
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