Catholic Sensibility

In 1973 timing called forth action. Many of the men involved were completing their studies and would soon move to new places and apostolic assignments. It was now or never. The Jesuits' first compilation, Neither Silver Nor Gold, has the rough feel of something put together quickly. There are a lot of good moments on the recording. More than meets the ear. And maybe a few things to cringe at. But it's interesting to know the recording was conceived as an ending of the times in St Louis, a personal effort to leave people with the music of their days there, and not part of a publisher's marketing effort. At Corpus Christi, we also had a substantial body of songs. We sifted through a few dozen pieces we had written and asked friends and staff members to whittle us down to about twelve to record. We approached the parish to finance it, with the promise to donate all proceeds to parish outreaches. It seemed like a good deal. We were confident we could recoup every penny put into the project and have thousands of dollars for the poor. It was the same kind of thing for us in 1986 as it was for the Jesuits in '73. People were getting married and dropping from our group in ones and twos. New members were not quite making up for the losses. Some people were discerning other parish ministries, or leaving the parish altogether.

I was finishing up the last of my MA courses, and it was dawning on me that Rochester was not a good diocese for full-time liturgists. At Corpus Christi, our organist was not considered to be part of the staff; he was listed with the parish secretary. I began to sense my own time in Rochester was drawing to a close. We had reached our zenith in the summer of '86 at the NPM convention in Rochester, being selected the top ensemble of those who had submitted tapes. We played a few real folk songs with our mountain instruments, rocked the house in our live performance, and had a lot of fun. After more than a year of arguments with parish staff and a few parishioners, the conversation over the album came down to this: Us: Remember, 100% of the proceeds will go to the parish outreach programs. Every dime. Them: Every dine? Really? Why didn't you tell us that before? Why are we even bothering to debate it? Let's do it. By then, we had lost much of our energy. I was still writing songs by the bundle, but keeping the group together was proving impossible. The parish had one last musical push during my sojourn there: the centennary of the founding. We put together one all-parish music group. I still have a photo in my office of half the group, including one of my last times playing an electric guitar. Corpus Christi 1988, and less than two months later, I was in Illinois. Mike, my good friend and choir director and his wife had left the group and the parish. New leadership came forth, but nobody talked of recording the old Thursday group. The staff recorded a tape of homilies ... which I have somewhere around here ... A few years later, the parish produced its own hymnal, and they asked if I would mind contributing some of my songs to it. I was promised payment, which I never received. Though there's a certain thrill seeing one's own music in a book, it was sort of a bittersweet moment. Back to ignoring copyright laws, I noted. The parish had come full circle, in a way, but the best musical moments for me were long in the past. I was writing new and better songs, but my friends were attached to my early efforts. I grew in my appreciation for timing, both as a musical discipline and as a fact of life. As I raced through my twenties with all the arrogance and heady expectation of doing great things, I didn't reflect as often as I might on the friendships, the bonds, the prayer that I was part of. Today I look at things differently. Just about every weekend as I walk over to church, I think, "I'll never be quite in this place again. And in forty years, I'll look back on these days as a wonderful time, full of life and music. Will I look with regret, or will I remember a time in which I was grateful for God's good gifts?" I still look forward to possible future collaboration with musicians, actors, directors. Collaboration is an underappreciated experience, one we church musicians should seek out more often than we do. More later ...