We Pray Through Our Music
The ministry of music at our parish was on display at our three-part Lent retreat at the beginning of March. Members of choirs and musicians from different music groups collaborated and enriched our experience. Music and singing is like praying twice, said St. Augustine. We pray through our music.
Our organ was recently repaired (cost $750). It is a big, old, and valuable instrument that requires special care and maintenance. A repairman came from Milwaukee to Green Bay and coupled his organ repair visit to St. John the Evangelist (SJE) with a visit to our parish. Jason Pues of SJE, who collaborates with Pamela Quick of our parish, helped to coordinate the maintenance of our wonderful musical asset. With that repair, we can continue to pray through our music.
Our Hispanic community provides a fully volunteer music ministry. We currently have 13 groups and/or individual musicians and cantors who serve our parish at the Masses and prayer times in Spanish. Four of the groups are families, and one group consists of mainly high school and grade school children who are accompanied by a few adults. This group plays strings, trumpets, guitars, drums, and piano. All together these individuals and groups help us to pray through the ministry of music.
Our parish has invested in bi-lingual hymn books which are intended to last for three years. Given that the current issue was not used very often over the last two years, because of diminished attendance during the COVID crisis, we may extend their use for a couple of more years. These hymnals are useful for our diverse parish. They were particularly useful during our recent retreat! The hymnals facilitate our prayer through music.
We encountered a new challenge recently when the sound has been muted on our Facebook live-stream Masses. We learned that we must have a license to use copyrighted music on a publically accessible broadcast. When Facebook’s internal monitoring system detected copyrighted music, and had not been notified of our license, they muted our livestream until the music stopped. At times, we still have some issues with the sound. Now, we have paid for a license (cost $595), but technology and communication are not always in synchronicity. Nonetheless, we are trying to provide every means we can in order for our parishioners and others to pray through music.
Let us not take for granted the investment of many hours of practice and preparation by our cantors and musicians, nor be unaware of the personal and parish investments in musical instruments, printed music, and the rights to use others’ artistic works. There is so much that required for the success of our praying through music.
God forgives! Let us repent!
Peace, Fr. Andy