Tuesday, May 24, 2005
St Louis Jesuits, part 3
(Confluence)
Foley had grown tired of being the point man for Jesuit liturgy: "I was the only one doing it. I had to play all the Masses, and it was too much."
Know the feeling. Though I never thought I'd see the day. By 1988, I packed up my belongings into my new car, and left for the Chicago suburbs. After playing a few Masses a week for seven years, I was ready to work in my new parish. There I was playing even more, putting my piano skills to the test in groups that had guitar players, putting guitar skills to work in groups that had pianists. I played pretty much every parish Sunday Mass, school Mass, baptism, RE liturgy for three years. And unlike back in Rochester, I didn't find the togetherness I had cherished in my home parish. I was in charge. The point man, as Foley found out. I was ready for stepping back, and finally by 1993, it was time to step back almost entirely from liturgical music. When Anita and I moved to Iowa in 1995, I was ready to return, but not every Mass, every week. Since then, I've found a good balance. Though I have yet to uncover a songwriter or two to work with reguilarly, having the occasional great musician and the many enthusiastic ones makes it worthwhile. So I read with interest the Jesuit story from the early 70's. Foley and Dufford had dropped their music involvement, but something else was cooking at St Louis University.
The Masses there were well known for their great preaching. Now Schutte, Manion, O'Connor and others were organizing, playing and writing music for them as well. The combination began to draw attention, and crowds. "On a Sunday, we would totally fill the church," remembers Schutte. "They'd be spilling into the side chapels along the back and up into the choir loft.... My last two years there we had to give out tickets for the Easter triduum, because the fire department was upset and had put limits on how many people we could have in there."
The elder SLJ's noticed. How could one not notice? That would be the dream of any serious Catholic liturgist: drawing people by the fistfuls for good preaching and music.
By the time I had joined Corpus Christi Parish in 1982, they had held a Thursday Night Mass for several years. Like the group in St Louis, good preaching and music was drawing people to worship on a weeknight. Though I found externals off-putting: altar rail, high altar + reredo, chintzy orange carpet, and even the more than occasional inattention to prayer and liturgy (these people were still copying songs without copyright permission, for heaven's sake), the sense of being part of something far greater was more than enough to compensate for the idiosyncrasies.
And like the early Jesuits, a number of us found inspiration not only in prayer and the Church's liturgy, but also in our mutual efforts and writing music. Soon, it seemed, everybody was writing music.
Those experiences, and this story from America as well, convince me there are certain elements necessary for a lively parish and music ministry. First what doesn't work (at least not by itself): ideology, architecture, hymnals, overproduction. What is essential is what Catholics have been asking for for decades:
1. Good preaching
2. Good music
3. Intentional faith
Add to this mix, a sense of prayer, both personal and communal. If the people involved have a sense that great things can happen with human openness and God's grace, the die is cast. After seventeen years in professional liturgical ministry, I have yet to see it in any parish I've worked for. Sure, we've had moments of light and grace. I'm sad that efforts like the one in St Louis are no longer happening ... or seem to be happening. Lee's comment in the thread below is telling, and I've come to sense that professionalism might not be part of the essential mix of great parishes. More to come ...
