Onward to Possibility

New Year's Post, 2024

A wish I have for our music ministry is that each year, our groups may accomplish something that they hadn’t done before. A sure sign of growth is consistently having “new firsts.” Of the music ministry’s new firsts in the year 2023, my favorites include: 

1. The first time to participate in a joint concert with the choir of St. Bartholomew Parish.
   
   
2. New members for each of our groups.
   Adult Choir: Lois Kelly (re-joining)
   Worship Band: Michelle Sroussi, Cassandra Desir, and Emmeline Fritz
   Youth Choir: Eloise Mascitti, our first youth cantor!
   
   
3. On Christmas Day, the first time our Youth Choir sang all the hymns at Mass. Our usual practice has been for the kids to sing only the Communion Hymn, but since Christmas songs have a special kind of familiarity, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to let them sing all the hymns. As our Youth Choir gradually builds a standard repertoire of hymns, I hope to gradually increase their involvement in the Family Mass, from one hymn, to two, and eventually to all the Mass music. 

By now I’m sure our music groups are aware of my tendency to keep pushing them out of their comfort zones and into the unfamiliar. I think the same principle can apply to one’s own church life. We all know how the experience of coming to Mass can very easily feel ritualistic, repetitive, and formulaic – the same three cycles of Scripture readings every three years, the same prayers, the same motions every Sunday. Such is the very essence of Tradition. But within the constant ritual, there are many possibilities for novelty – the sharing of a Priest’s recent experience in his homily, a new hymn, or even the surprise of hearing a familiar hymn in a fresh new way. Our very selves, too, are made new by virtue of the experiences we accumulate between one Sunday and the next. 

Recently I’ve been exploring the work of the English mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead. One key insight of his that stuck with me is this: At every moment, I have a choice between 1) Conformation – to continue exactly as I’ve been doing, 2) Alternation – to return to what I was doing before and to switch back again, and 3) Novelty – to do something entirely new. I’m sure our music ministry, growing as it is, has only scratched the surface of what is possible. In my own personal life, in the times when I feel as though my ship has sunk, my best friend Kathy has always been an expert rescuer, pulling me out of the water and back to the port of possibility. So, I’d like to leave you with these words from the Christian philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard:
 

For possibility is the only power to save. When one swoons people shout for water, Eau-de-Cologne, Hoffman’s drops; but when one is about to despair the cry is, procure me possibility, procure possibility! Possibility is the only saving remedy; given a possibility, the desperate man breathes once more… So to pray is to breathe, and possibility is for the self what oxygen is for breathing… for God is that all things are possible, and that all things are possible is God; and only the man whose being has been so shaken that he became spirit by understanding that all things are possible, only he has dealings with God. The fact that God’s will is the possible makes it possible for me to pray; if God’s will is only the necessary, man is essentially as speechless as the brutes.

- Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death 

As we start the year 2024, I invite you to stand with me in this port, before the horizons of conformation, alternation, and novelty. Which ship looks fun to board? Say with me – onward to possibility! 

With my peace, 
Carlo Serrano, Music Director