A CHURCH IN CHANGE
“ I do know, however, that Christ walks with us now as ever, sings with us, connects us.”
are going through. Te senior recitals that will not be performed. Te concerts wiped from the calendar. Te loneliness and frustration of being ensemble artists who cannot gather with their ensembles.
How strange it is now for us, thrust onto the other side of music-making; we choral musicians and conductors and pastoral musicians are used to making music with others, for the healing and wholeness of others. Where do we find our healing and wholeness now that we cannot do that? Where is the life in our music if it is not shared with others, made in community and communion with our brothers and sisters?
I do not have the answers, and my spirit grows ever hungrier, even as I remain grateful for shelter and food, and I pray for those who are not able to shelter safely, and for those who still go out and work, from doctors and nurses and EMTs to grocery store employees and manufacturers, who make isolation possible for the rest of us.
I do know, however, that Christ walks with us now as ever, sings with us, connects us. And that we will sing together again, and that it will be that much more of a gift when we stand in that place, together. In the meantime, we stay connected as best we can. We succeed. We fail. We do our best.
MARK SCOZZAFAVE
Chicago, Illinois Director of Music Ministries Old St. Patrick’s Church
I work for a faith community marked by great vibrancy of Spirit, life-giving energy, and a distinctive sense of hospitality and welcome. Tat “sense”
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includes a pleasantly protracted greeting at the start of liturgy, a multi-camera LiveStream system to reach our members from over 200 zip codes around Chicago; our 165-year-old facade bears a banner proclaiming this church to be “a place of welcome,” and it includes under that welcome the words “divorced,” “lesbian,” “immigrant,” and “they.”
I work in a church with very pretty walls. And by “pretty” I mean stenciled over a century ago by Irish immigrants who sought not only solace, but “sanctuary”; an artisanal sacred shelter in a time of economic turmoil and endemic cultural porousness. Sure, we’ve been here before, but as I sat on the piano bench this afternoon, hours before our state-wide shelter-in-place directive took effect, I admired, cautiously, the artwork of those walls, punctuated by even older stained glass windows, and accented by the counterpoint of Celtic wooden carvings.
After a Triduum planning video conference this morning [futile?], my “work” took me to Old St. Pat’s to play for the unions of three couples. Barely under the wire, I, with a small group, ministered to three families for whom postponement would mean that a terminally ill family member could not attend a future wedding. Tere are others who did not make the cut. I returned home for a FaceTime call to plan the funeral of our pastor’s recently deceased father, at a time when distancing feels like the last social dynamic we need.
Yet, it is clear that our work as pastoral musicians is at a crescendo. We ache to “throw open the [Celtic stained glass] windows of the church,” the doors, the skylights; and yet our place of ministry lies as locked as that upper room. While my team gazes onward, emboldened by 30,000 views of our last LiveStream mass, we know that our true work lies ahead. It lies in undiscovered resources, connective technologies, and unbuilt bridges. It lies in our creative response to expectation from our community. It lies in knowing that our walls do not make church, but our faith, our music, our communion, and God-willing, our re-union, does.
May the fresh air of the Spirit blow through us all!
For more voices on being ministers in isolation, check out the special episode of our Ministry Monday podcast from March 18, 2020, with host Amanda Bruce.
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