Beethoven, Boone, and Ignatian Indifference

 

Let him who is in consolation think how he will be in the desolation which will come after, taking new strength for then… Let him who is consoled see to humbling himself and lowering himself as much as he can, thinking how little he is able for in the time of desolation without such grace or consolation.

- St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Rules for perceiving and knowing in some manner the different movements which are caused in the soul, 10th and 11th rules

 

And I thank God everyday for the girl He sent my way, but I know the things He gives me, He can take away… Oh, God, don’t take these beautiful things that I’ve got!

- Benson Boone, Beautiful Things, 2024, emphasis added

 

…The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!

- Job 1:21, emphasis added

 

But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing… Perhaps I shall get better, perhaps not, I am ready… Divine One, thou seest my inmost soul, thou knowest that therein dwells the love of humanity and the desire to do good.

- Ludwig Van Beethoven, Heiligenstadt Testament, emphasis added

 

I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me. Still, it was kind of you to share in my distress.

- Philippians 4:12-14, emphasis added

 

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.

- St. Ignatius of Loyola, Suscipe prayer

 

There’s a very popular song that I hear frequently on the radio these days. It’s called Beautiful Things by Benson Boone. In the song, Boone shares how, after going through a rough patch, his life has taken a turn for the better—he gets to spend more time with his family, his mental health has improved, he’s finding his faith, and of course, as is often the case in popular love songs, he’s met this girl who he’s very much in love with! Then, with an admirable awareness of how nothing in this life is guaranteed, Boone confronts the very real possibility that all these great things might not last, and with raw emotion in his voice, he pleads to God: “Don’t take these beautiful things that I’ve got!” Thirteen years ago, I was in exactly the same place that Boone describes in his song, so believe me when I say that song gets me right in the feelz! And did I lose my beautiful things? Yes. Oh, they were such beautiful things indeed… but I’ll spare you the lengthy details of that!

 

We all know Job’s famous words: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away…” I imagine it’s easy to say that about trivial things like small material possessions, perhaps less so about more meaningful things like treasured friendships, and no doubt incredibly difficult when it feels like you’re losing a part of your soul, like, say, if you were a brilliant 19th-century composer resigned to never hearing a note of music ever again. See, when I was in high school, I’d often go to our library to read about the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven, whom I so revered. I read his letters to his friends, colleagues, lovers and all that, so I know what beautiful things he lost in addition to his hearing. The spiritual maturity with which he embraced his circumstances—or bore his cross, if you will—was nothing short of heroic. It was under those circumstances that he composed the Ninth Symphony, which to this day continues to be an anthem of hope, joy, and the good in humanity. How does anyone do that?! I honestly don’t know if I’d have a fraction of Beethoven’s spiritual maturity if I were to ever lose my hearing. I’ve sometimes joked to my friend Danielle, “You know, Danielle, I really hope God doesn’t pull a Beethoven on me. I really really really reeeaaalllllyyy hope He doesn’t… cause I can’t guarantee that I wouldn’t feel incredibly bitter toward Him if He did.” I mean, I don’t think I’ll be composing a Ninth Symphony anytime soon haha.

 

In Ignatian Spirituality, there’s a virtue called “Indifference,” which is not so much the bad kind like not caring about other people. It’s more about detaching oneself from (or being “indifferent” to) one’s personal desires so as to focus entirely on the will of God. St. Francis de Sales expresses the same idea using the metaphor of water in a container:

 

If I desire pure water only, what care I whether it be served in a golden vessel or in a glass, as in either case I take only the water… What matter whether God’s will be presented to us in tribulation or in consolation, since I seek nothing in either of them but God’s will, which is so much the better seen when there is no other beauty present save that of this most holy, eternal, good pleasure.

- St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God

 

Granted, it would be very difficult to exercise Ignatian Indifference when it comes to the things we feel most strongly about—our hopes, dreams, the things we’ve put a great deal of time and effort into, and yes, and even our ties with friends and loved ones. It seems to be the dialectical nature of prayer (and life in general) that one must plea with the tenacity of Boone while being ready to accept the outcome with the maturity of Beethoven. That said, we could start by practicing Ignatian Indifference on a smaller scale. A simple and readily available way for churchgoers to practice that virtue might be to try attending Masses where the style of music may not necessarily be one’s preference. Say, if you normally go to the 5pm Mass because you like more contemporary music, you might consider attending a Mass that has much older music like Gregorian chant. Conversely, if you’re the type who prefers pre-Vatican II music, you might consider attending our 5pm Mass with a more modern flavor. Think of the music as the vessel that holds the water in Francis’ metaphor—our music ministry certainly aims to make it beautiful, but at the end of the day, the reason you come to Mass is to hear the word of God and to receive the Eucharist, and the music is only secondary, right? Of course, if you do come to the 5pm Mass this Sunday, you may get to hear our Worship Band’s newest singer, Tessa Jones, offer a poignant song based on St. Ignatius’ Suscipe (see epigraph above), which is one of those prayers that I think captures very well the spirit of Ignatian Indifference.

 

For now, allow me to leave you with these words from another song that’s popular on the radio these days:

 

God, thank you for sunshine, thank you for rain, thank you for joy, thank you for pain. It’s a beautiful day! …And thank you for this life, sorry I complained. The ups and the downs is just a part of the game. It’s a beautiful day!

- Akon, Beautiful Day, 2025

 

With my peace,

Carlo Serrano, Music Director

Pax...

August 17, 2025
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”

- Luke 12:51

 

“With these it is honorable to contend, and to set the battle constantly in array against them, and to glory in holding opposite sentiments, so that even though it be a father that believes not, the son is free from blame who contradicts him, and resists his opinions.”

- St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Sermon XCIV

 

“But in this passage, above all, we must strive to grasp the spiritual sense. To take it literally or in a simplistic sense would bring upon ourselves an accusation of harshness. But when you look deeply into the figurative and mystical sense, the seeming harshness is tempered. This is important because our holy religion has always shown humanity in its teaching, and has shown by example with what affection we must treat each other. By its kindness and humility it inclines even those who are exiled from the Faith to treat religion with respect.”

- St. Ambrose of Milan, Commentary on Saint Luke’s Gospel, Book VII

 

Before I started working here, my previous music director job was at a small UCC church in upstate New York. Their pastor at that time really wanted me to select music that matched her sermon topic for each Sunday, so she’d send me her itinerary of sermon topics that she had apparently planned out months in advance. I thought, “wow, that’s some next-level preparedness!” 

 

Bringing what I learned from that experience to my current work, I decided to play a little game with myself here at St. Joe’s: I’d challenge myself to predict how each of our Priests would preach on any given Sunday. I’d look at the readings and go, “Hmmm… What would Fr. Bryan, or Fr. Ssenfuma, or Fr. Charles say about these readings?” Sometimes the readings make it obvious, but other times, like with this Sunday’s Gospel in particular, I’ve found that Priests can vary in their interpretations. One thing I’ve started doing to help me in this little game of mine is to consult different Scriptural commentaries, usually ones from the early Church Fathers. Would you believe that the Church Fathers also varied greatly in their interpretations?

 

I recall when this Gospel came up a few years ago, I found myself thinking, “but… but… I like peace! Why would Jesus want to bring about division instead of peace???” So at the 5pm Mass, I played Let There Be Peace On Earth as a prelude. Fr. Joseph Kim, who was our Parochial Vicar at that time, seemed to sense my thoughts—when he began his homily, he said something like, “I’m reminded of the very beautiful hymn Let There Be Peace On Earth. Doesn’t Jesus want peace?” He then went on to share his interpretation of that Gospel, and I must say, it was an interpretation I would’ve never expected. He said that Jesus was ultimately declaring war on selfishness. I was like, “Ok, I didn’t see that coming, cause I figured this was gonna become about how some people believe in Christ and some don’t and how that’s gonna cause families to be divided and stuff.” I mean, that certainly seems to be the literal interpretation, and the one taken by Cyril of Alexandria, as in the epigraph above.

 

But as I’ve found after doing more reading into the Church Fathers’ commentaries, Fr. Joseph’s interpretation seems very similar to that of Ambrose of Milan, whose commentary on the Gospel of Luke is characterized by the recurring theme of God’s immeasurable mercy. For St. Ambrose, what Jesus describes as a divided household represents the human person, rather than a literal family of persons. Ambrose interprets “two against three” to refer to the human person (a composite of body and soul, hence “two”) being divided between three modes of being—rational, covetous, or passionate.

 

Are we to believe that He demands disunion among His dear children? How, in that case, can He be “our peace, who has made both one” (Ep 2:14)? How is it that He Himself said “My peace I give you, My peace I leave you” (Jn 14:27)? How can He say these words if He has come to divide parents from their children, children from their parents, and so dissolve the bonds that bind a family together? …It seems to me that we should seek in the passage a profounder meaning…

 

One household represents the human person in his oneness… “Two” we can take to mean body and soul… Now that we have seen who are the “two,” we must equally recognize who are the “three.” This is something we can reason out from the premises already established. The soul, you see, has three modes of being: it can be rational; it can be covetous; it can be passionate…”

- St. Ambrose, Commentary on Luke, Book VII

 

See, doesn’t that sound remarkably similar to Fr. Joseph’s interpretation that Jesus was declaring war on selfishness? I’m now wondering if that was something they took up in seminary. See, I’ve always wondered what types of things the Priests study in “Priest school,” but I suppose that’s a topic for another time! As far as music is concerned, I must confess that I’m still in the space of “but… I like peace!” so you can expect some peace-themed songs at this Sunday’s Masses. And if you so happen to attend the 5pm Mass, you may hear Eloise Mascitti from our children’s choir, whom I’ve invited to sing one of my favorite peace-themed songs…

 

With my peace,

Carlo Serrano, Music Director

Liturgical music, self-examination, and August(ine)

If you’re a church musician and you’ve read any guidebook on liturgical music, or if you’ve attended any workshop on the subject, then you know that music in the liturgy is not meant to be a performance. Its purpose is to raise the mind to God. At the same time, a church musician employs the techniques of performance to achieve the desired goal, the same way a Priest might employ the techniques of good public speaking to deliver a compelling homily. Now when a minister—be it the lector, the cantor, or even the Priest himself—does a good job and is perhaps even a bit charismatic (cause who doesn’t love charisma, right?), it’s easy to fall into the trap of making that, rather than God, the object of our attention. It seems to be the eternal struggle, for church musicians especially, to carry out their work in a skillful enough way that raises the mind to God, but not to the point of diverting undue attention to themselves.

 

St. Augustine was no stranger to that struggle. In Book 10 of his Confessions, Augustine grapples with two opposing poles: one on hand, he acknowledges how singing has the power to convey the words of God in a unique way, and on the other hand, he recognizes the tendency to focus more on the singing than on the word of God. Aaaaaand here comes a long quotation, just cause I love sharing Augustine’s musings:

 

The delights of the ear had more powerfully inveigled and conquered me, but You unbound and liberate me. Now, in those airs which Your words breathe soul into, when sung with a sweet and trained voice, do I somewhat repose; yet not so as to cling to them, but so as to free myself when I wish. But with the words which are their life do they, that they may gain admission into me, strive after a place of some honour in my heart; and I can hardly assign them a fitting one. Sometimes I appear to myself to give them more respect than, is fitting, as I perceive that our minds are more devoutly and earnestly elevated into a flame of piety by the holy words themselves when they are thus sung, than when they are not; and that all affections of our spirit, by their own diversity, have their appropriate measures in the voice and singing, wherewith by I know not what secret relationship they are stimulated. But the gratification of my flesh, to which the mind ought never to be given over to be enervated, often beguiles me, while the sense does not so attend on reason as to follow her patiently; but having gained admission merely for her sake, it strives even to run on before her, and be her leader. Thus in these things do I sin unknowing, but afterwards do I know it… Notwithstanding, when I call to mind the tears I shed at the songs of Your Church, at the outset of my recovered faith, and how even now I am moved not by the singing but by what is sung, when they are sung with a clear and skillfully modulated voice, I then acknowledge the great utility of this custom. Thus vacillate I between dangerous pleasure and tried soundness; being inclined rather (though I pronounce no irrevocable opinion upon the subject) to approve of the use of singing in the church, that so by the delights of the ear the weaker minds may be stimulated to a devotional frame. Yet when it happens to me to be more moved by the singing than by what is sung, I confess myself to have sinned criminally, and then I would rather not have heard the singing. See now the condition I am in!

- St. Augustine, Confessions, Book X, Ch. 33

 

See this is why I love Augustine—he reminds me that I’m not the only overthinker in the room! That said, I might respectfully disagree with him on two points: Firstly, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that someone has “sinned criminally” if they just so happen to be “more moved by the singing than by what is sung.” Feelings, as the Catechism teaches, “are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons…” (CCC 1768). I wonder if Augustine might have had just a little too much… ahem… Catholic guilt… ahem. But I can definitely relate to the struggle of getting caught up in examining one’s motivations, asking oneself “am I doing this for the right reasons?”, or “am I only telling myself that I’m doing this for X-reason when really I’m doing it for Y-reason?”, and perhaps even losing a bit of sleep over such inquiries. I imagine Augustine up in Heaven might cringe if he ever heard a parishioner say, “I only come to Mass for the music…” Thankfully, at least from what I’ve read, cringing does not appear to be a thing in Heaven!

 

Secondly, I wouldn’t necessarily say that using “the delights of the ear” to stimulate devotion is for “weaker minds.” One does not need a degree in music theory to know that different types of music affect different types of people in different ways, regardless of one’s strength of mind. I know some very intelligent Catholics who use the delights of the ear to stimulate devotion! If music helps you to worship, I’d say go with it. If it distracts you from worship, I’d say drop it. And if you’re not sure if it helps you or distracts you because you feel paranoid about your blind spots and get caught in a spiral of self-examination where you wonder if you’re still using it for God or simply for the thrill of it, then I’d say… umm… ask St. Augustine haha.

 

This August, we celebrate the Feast of… you guessed it… St. Augustine! That’s on August 28th. I think the good Bishop of Hippo would appreciate if we all took a moment to examine our internal attitudes toward the music at Mass—but please don’t lose sleep over it! I think one very good way to promote an attitude of treating liturgical music as prayer and not performance would be to… ahem… ahem………… not applaud after a song… ahem. And if the site-building tool for this website allowed me to insert emojis, I would have totally placed at least three smiley emojis after that!

 

Finally, during this month, we also celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That’s on August 15th. On that note, I’d like to make a little plug: At the 6:30 PM Mass on August 15th, my amazing friend Caroline Walsh will be providing music. Caroline both sings and plays the flute like an angel, so I’m excited for the opportunity to accompany her on piano. I may have to mentally prepare myself so that I don’t end up “more moved by the singing than what by what is sung…” Below is a video of Caroline singing a congregational favorite, On Eagle’s Wings.

 

With my peace,
Carlo Serrano, Music Director 

On main quests, side quests... and the Beatitudes

One question I hear fairly often around this time is “how’s your summer going?” Honestly, I think I have waaaaaay too much free time! And I must confess that I end up spending more time playing videogames than I should… Now if you’ve played a bunch of Action/Adventure/RPG videogames (or if you ask your kids about it haha), you may have noticed how in most games, there’s a “main quest,” which is the primary thing you have to accomplish to beat the game, and then there’s “side quests,” which are other things you could do but are not essential. The game developers of course know that different players have different attitudes toward quests, so they design the game such that players have the freedom to play it the way they like. Some players want to finish the game as quickly as possible, so they focus solely on the main quest. Other players like to explore every single side quest, collecting every possible item, trophy, etc., since they feel it gives them a fuller experience of the game. Ok Carlo, why all the videogame talk?

 

Well, this Sunday’s liturgy deals with focusing on the things that are truly important to God. My friends know how I tend to think (and overthink!) about things a lot, and I’m thankful to have been able to talk through some of those things with our wonderful Pastor, Fr. Bryan. Among other things, we talked about distinguishing between “wants” and “needs,” how the word “deserve” is used in common parlance, and how one reconciles self-care with Christianity’s emphasis on self-denial. Underlying all of this was a question I had been wanting to ask different Priests for a while now: Assuming God wants us all to be happy with Him for all eternity in Heaven (our ultimate goal), and that God wants us to live good moral lives while on earth, does God also want us to be happy on earth? I think it’s a fair question, especially if we consider that there are a lot of people out there who live very good and moral lives yet seem… honestly… very unhappy. To phrase my question in videogame language: Assuming our main quest is to find eternal happiness with God in Heaven, and to live a good and moral life on earth, is happiness on earth also part of the main quest, or is it just a side quest?

 

As you can imagine, our conversation went on for quite a bit! I mean, just the word happiness itself has been the subject of much disagreement among philosophers, theologians, psychologists, and life coaches. Fr. Bryan noted how the original Greek word for blessed as it appears in the Beatitudes could also be translated as happy, and we acknowledged the paradoxicality of it—the types of people described in the Beatitudes, after all, would seem kinda… unhappy. I won’t go too much into the details of our conversation (and despite what I’ve shared here, I’d still prefer to keep most of it private), suffice it to say that it was very fruitful, and I’m privileged to be able to serve under a pastor like Fr. Bryan.

 

Speaking of the Beatitudes, sometime back in February, Mateo Sevigny from our Youth Choir played piano at Mass for the very first time. The song was Blessed and Beloved/Bienaventurados, hymn #726 in the current edition of our hymnal. If you missed the Family Mass on that day (it was a very snowy day!), click here to see Mateo singing and playing at Mass!

 

With my peace,
Carlo Serrano, Music Director 

Prayer, the dignity of causality... and some gospel!

Those of you who are social media savvy likely already know that the algorithms are designed to show you your “preferred content” based on your browsing habits, the stuff you click on, etc., right down to how long you spend looking at something. You can tell what a person’s into by simply scrolling through their Facebook feed. Care to know what’s on mine? Well, in my FB feed you’d find stuff like superhero movie clips, The Legend of Zelda clips, science-y things from popular science influencers such as Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox (Science!!!), stuff about healthy eating (that’s due the influence of Kathy Fritz!), relationship and dating advice (does God want me to be a monk…?), Christian apologetics responses to theological questions from the likes of William Lane Craig and Bishop Robert Barron, Catholic-Protestant debates, and yes, even counter-apologetics from prominent atheists such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris. 

 

So as I was scrolling through FB one time, I chanced upon an apologetics clip aimed at answering an all-too-common question which I’m sure you’ve asked at some point: “If God has a plan and He already knows what we’d pray for, why even pray?” As you can imagine, I came upon various answers, such as “Prayer is not aimed at changing God’s will, but rather aligning our will to His,” or this interesting one from Catholic Answers which went along the lines of, “God already knows what we’ll ask, but sometimes He makes things contingent on our asking so that we learn to depend on Him.” One particularly humble answer (perhaps the answer I respect the most) came from a certain Randall Smith, a theology professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. One of his students had asked, “But if I am totally surrendered to God, I shouldn’t be asking for things, should I?” And Smith admits to giving an answer which he describes as “not sophisticated theology or inspired apologetics.” His answer was “Jesus said you should ask for things you need. So maybe you should listen to Him because He probably knows what He’s talking about, being God and all.” I dunno about you, but I have great respect for theological humility!

 

Now of course, if you know me, or if you’ve read my previous posts, you know that despite my respect for humble answers, I have an insatiable urge to find all the possible answers I can when a question is stuck in my head, and questions have a very unpleasant way of sticking in my head for a long time! Sometimes they spiral into other questions, such as: If I ask for something in prayer, is the thing I ask is either aligned with God’s plan or not, or is there a middle category, i.e. not necessarily in God’s plan but not against it either, such as what food I eat for breakfast, or does God’s plan extend to my breakfast choice? If we ask for the intercession of the saints because their prayers are powerful, does that mean that the strength of my prayer is increased through a saint, and conversely, would my prayer be “weaker” had I not asked for the saint’s intercession? Is my prayer likewise strengthened if I say it while I’m right next to the tabernacle containing the Blessed Sacrament? Is my prayer strengthened by the number of times I say it? Is there like a baseline efficacy value for prayer which can be increased in direct proportion to one’s level of holiness, one’s spatiotemporal location in relation to the Eucharist, and one’s persistence? I could probably seek all kinds of theologically sophisticated answers from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae or William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith articles, but something tells me I’ll be more at peace with a humble answer…

 

I will say though that in that clip I mentioned, the speaker brought up a phrase that has stuck with me since: “the dignity of causality.” He was making the point that our prayers can cause changes in the world that would otherwise not happen if we didn’t pray. If you Google “dignity of causality” on your phone, the AI Overview will say “The concept of the ‘dignity of causality,’ coined by Blaise Pascal, refers to the idea that God grants humans the capacity to affect outcomes through their actions and prayers.” If the name Blaise Pascal doesn’t ring a bell, you may nonetheless have heard of his famous thought experiment, known as Pascal’s Wager, which argues for belief in God on the basis of risk assessment. Notwithstanding my criticisms of Pascal’s very problematic argument, I must correct a little error of the AI (yes, AI is not infallible…). Blaise Pascal did not coin the term “dignity of causality.” That phrase actually appears in… you guessed it… St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, written centuries before Pascal was even born:

 

…there are certain intermediaries of God's providence; for He governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures.

- Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I q22 a3

 

To put Aquinas’ eloquent prose in the vernacular: God causes stuff, but you can cause stuff too, cause God is so good that He gifted you with the ability to also cause stuff! I’ve often vented to my friend Danielle about how summer is such a bummer (lol summerbummer…) for me because school is on break, so I don’t get to cause the stuff that I normally enjoy causing. I go “Danielle, I’m wasting my dignity of causality! I need to cause stuff in the world but instead I’m at home playing videogames…” Just ask Danielle how many times I've texted her asking about how I should exercise my causality! So then I try to push myself to go out and do something. And then in the idle times, like on the train rides, I remember that clip and I’m like, “Oh, I guess prayer is also a thing I can do…” See, social media ain’t all bad!

 

Finally, speaking of prayer, if your Mass plan this Sunday (July 27) involves coming to the 5pm Mass, might I invite you to come a little earlier, say, 4:55-ish? My Worship Band colleagues Danielle and Michelle have been hard at work preparing a special Gospel-style setting of The Lord’s Prayer, which we plan to offer as a prelude before the start of Mass. That’s a few minutes before the 5pm Mass this Sunday, July 27th. We hope to see you there!

 

With my peace,
Carlo Serrano, Music Director 

Pentecost, summer break, and tongues...

As I mentioned in last week’s post, after this Sunday, the 11am Adult Choir will go on summer break, and the 5pm Worship Band will go into “optional mode.” Our 9:30am Youth Choir will stick around for one more Sunday and will go on break after June 15th.

 

For a long time now, I’ve been contemplating the idea of doing songs in multiple languages, as I’ve been fortunate to have worked with some very talented individuals who have shared their language and culture with me in some way or another. Perhaps you were present during one of the rare times at the 9:30 or the 5 when did a hymn in Spanish. Or perhaps you were at the 9:30 or 11 on last year’s Solemnity of Christ the King (11/24/2024), when we were graced with the joyful music ministering of The Karolines, a Ugandan choir based in St. Mary Parish in Waltham. I’ll let you in on a little secret… For this year’s Solemnity of Christ the King (on 11/23), I’m seriously considering inviting The Karolines again to jointly minister with our Adult Choir, and I have a very special song arrangement in mind (a challenging one at that!), which utilizes different languages, among other things. But I won’t spoil the surprise any further!

 

This Pentecost Sunday, at the 9:30am and 5pm Masses, our Youth Choir (9:30) and Worship Band (5:00) will offer a little something I like to call “Amazing Grace in Tongues.” At the 9:30, this will involve our Youth Choir’s own Eloise Mascitti, the Sevigny siblings (Mateo & Isabela), and a special guest named Natasha Mikhaylova (one of the 4th graders from the St. Joe’s School choir), who will each sing a verse of Amazing Grace in French, Spanish, and Russian, respectively. As for the 5:00, I will keep that a secret—come in-person if you’d like to see for yourself.

 

Finally, for the 11am this Sunday, as mentioned previously, we’re giving the music a little extra flourish for our very own Marty Cunniffe, who will be moving to New Hampshire in the near future. In addition to doing all the Mass responses, including the Responsorial Psalm and Gospel Acclamation, in multi-part harmony (normally we sing these all in unison), we’ll be doing a Holy Spirit-themed song that has a special place in the hearts of our choir members from St. Bart’s—it’s called Surely the Presence of the Lord, and Marty will sing the 2nd verse as a solo.

 

We look forward to seeing you at any of the Masses this Sunday, and may our music help you to feel the movement of the Holy Spirit in your worship!

 

With my peace,

Carlo Serrano, Music Director

The Mary Month of May

May is one of those months where there’s just a lot of stuff going on. On both May 4th and May 18th, there will be two consecutive Confirmation Masses, at 5pm and 7pm, to be celebrated by Bishop Robert Reed. Our parish Worship Band volunteers have generously agreed to serve at the 7pm on both Sundays, in addition to their regular 5pm duty. 

On May 11th is the crowning of Mary at Mary’s Garden, right after the 9:30am Family Mass. Our Youth Choir will of course be singing Marian songs at the 9:30, and our Adult Choir will sing an acapella rendition of Jacques Arcadelt’s Ave Maria in Mary’s Garden as the procession enters. Lyn and Jan De Benedictis (aka “the twins”) will also sing Lambilotte’s Ave Maria during Communion at the 11am Mass. And of course, May 11th is also Mother’s Day! If you’re a mom and you happen to be at either the 9:30am or 5pm Mass on May 11th, you may be in for a little something, and that’s all I’ll say about that!

Finally, for this Sunday’s (May 4th) 11am Mass, I’ve invited my 11-year-old piano student, Mateo Sevigny (who normally sings with the 9:30 Youth Choir) to accompany our Adult Choir, which is not something that you’d normally expect at an 11am Mass. I don’t normally assign children to accompany on piano at Mass since it’s a huge responsibility that requires greater proficiency, but Mateo has shown great promise. He’s worked really hard on practicing the song, so if you get a chance, come see Mateo accompany our Adult Choir as they sing Easter Hallelujah at the 11am!

With my peace,

Carlo Serrano, Music Director