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Music Ministry: In My Heart
Albert Go-Alcantara
When I joined the choir together with my batch mates, little did I know that FCCY was in the process of being re-established. At that time, I joined because I felt the need to look into my faith seriously as I was searching for something more in life. College life was liberating, in that I was free to do anything I want with my life. Yet the decisions were not as clear as getting into a good school, getting a good degree to get a good job eventually. There were a lot of distractions during college but those I felt were only temporary remedies. I thought of finding something worthwhile to do in college.
Looking back in retrospect, I can still remember most of the songs we sung during all those masses. I remember how we shared our lives every Sunday mornings. I can still remember the events and activities that were celebrated with unexpected joy and sometimes relief. Then there were those practices that were long and were full of stories (or gossips?) and full of laughter. We had so much time together, so much fun together. We were like a family far from our families during Sunday mornings and music ministry meeting days.
I remember the many times we had a hard time coming to mass on time. Waking up early Sunday was really a sacrifice and hard thing to do. Looking back, it was really weird and somewhat funny. During the start of the mass we would start with only two to three people singing and we would end up singing the final song with the complete group. It was sort of encore or finale. Actually these symptoms were recurrent that one time the assistant parish priest reminded us during one of the parish council meeting that being late for mass was not good. We had tempers flaring regarding punctuality during our Sunday choir services. We once sang acapella because our instrumentalist walked out on us to protest our "Sunday morning sickness" but those were overcome by love and friendship.
I missed those Saturday night practices with the music ministry when I thought I should be having a fun time out with friends bar-hopping. My friends thought I was nuts.
You see when it all started, all I knew was melody and the songs that I knew were limited to a few songs. There were songs that were totally new to me. At the very beginning, I sometimes would make a mistake by singing the wrong lyrics or sing the wrong tune. Our guitarist would either kick me in the foot or stare at me like "you dunnit man" to signal that I made a mistake. Some other members would make queer faces trying to hide or contain their smile.
Then we started learning voicing during our Saturday night practices. It was hard at first but it was really fun once you get the hang of it. Somehow in the early stages I had the tendency to sing melody in between the voicing. It was an experience that forever changed my concept of "just merely singing". SATB (Soprano Alto Tenor Base) voicing added another dimension to the singing of songs. Suddenly, commonly sung liturgical songs have much more meaning, more depth and beauty. The sound blends into harmony collectively, though we sing individual voicing.
Upon reflection, choral music teaches us that when we sing individually it may sound good but collectively singing our own parts make it sound better because of the different pitches and tone of our voices that blends.
From this experience, liturgy music taught me that it is a communal experience. That individuality gives way to communality. Worship or prayer is much more meaningful when it is joined by others who in their uniqueness offer a part of themselves and together form a community of believers and worshippers.
From then on, music ministry has been a passion for me. I grew to love those songs (liturgical music) because now the words carry more than the meaning itself. They carry the memories, the friendships and the love that has been shared and expressed to me. Those songs were made flesh through the years by the countless people that have inspired me no end in serving Christ and His Church through singing.
I sorely missed some of the community members who used to sing with us but are now gone and far away. For whatever reasons, the impression is that they have moved on but for me every time the choir sings, I can still hear their voices in my mind and in my prayers. I believe they were just reassigned to some places that need their voices. I pray that they do not forget to sing our songs.
Music ministry is for me a way of evangelization or telling other people about God through songs. I also find comfort in the songs when I need something to cling on or to believe in something.
To sing with an attitude and to sing it with love and from the heart that is how liturgy music should be sung. Although with much difficulty I strive to live by the songs that we sing. It is in living up to the songs that we sing that I believe we pray twice.
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