I was raised in fairly traditional parishes. When I was in late elementary school, we attended a Byzantine Rite parish for a while (a long story in and of itself), but when we came back to the Roman Rite, my parents decided that we would attend a LifeTeen Mass at the parish closest to our home. We gave it a shot, but none of us really liked it--compared to the staid chanting of the parish we had left, the contemporary music and attitudes of the attendees seemed downright disrespectful. In retrospect, the sharp contrast between the two Masses probably exacerbated those feelings, but I came away from that experience with an extreme distrust of any sort of contemporary music.
Finally, we settled at a parish that was, and still is, home: a small but diverse parish whose music is a combination of traditional Catholic hymns and African American gospel spirituals (sounds odd, but it works for us!). That was the church I attended all through college, because I was afraid that the Catholic Student Association (CSA) at the local state university would be too much like what I had experienced before. I went to Mass at the CSA maybe 6 or 7 times in my four years of undergrad; it was different, but I was comfortable and involved in my home parish in the same city, so I felt no reason to change.
But I graduated and moved south and as much as I'd have liked to go home for church every weekend, the trip (four hours one way) was completely impractical. So, right after I moved, I talked to the priest I knew here, Father W, to see if his parish could use me as a cantor or Sunday School teacher; I had decided that I was an adult and I should have a proper parish that I was registered in. He smiled, thanked me, and then told me that the CSA over at the College could probably use me more. I agreed to go and check it out, though secretly I was really less than thrilled about it. I was just so sure that it would be like my memories of those LifeTeen Masses and I didn't want to waste a Sunday.
I do like to please people, though, and I pride myself on being a woman of my word, so sure enough, when 4:30 rolled around on that Sunday, I put the church address into my GPS and upon arrival, with knots of anxiety in my stomach, climbed the steps of the old brick church downtown. I was greeted with a smile and a bulletin from a girl that... looked really excited to be there. Odd, I thought, but I was there to give it my best shot, so I went and found a seat. I couldn't tell you now, months later, what the homily was about, but I do remember thinking Wow, everyone looks really happy to be here. That surprised me then, though now it doesn't seem odd at all. Best of all, the musicians weren't irreverent and self-important like I had expected and (most exciting for me) there were no hand motions. Of all the things about contemporary music that I disliked, hand motions are still my sticking point. So, all those things in mind, I hesitated, then checked the box marked "Yes" next to the question on the parish registration form that asked if I was interested in serving with the music ministry.
The next week, I showed up at 3:30 for rehearsal and plunged right into the thick of the music ministry. We had a rough start to the semester, with the old campus minister retiring and a new one coming, as well as musicians dropping out and joining, but by the end of the semester, we had a cohesive group which has in fact grown since the semester started. And you know, it's a funny thing, but I've grown to love (some of) the music I once wrote off as not being worth my time. When I was home for Christmas, I found that as much as I still love my home parish, I missed my CSA friends--it feels like home too.
I'm afraid that the classical training that I got at MC made me a bit of snob when it came to music, but I've gotten past that. I've also found that I'm using that training, which is good. We do use the contemporary music, but we also do a few traditional songs and we have a great, enthusiastic group of musicians; we may not always sound totally professional, but we're all there because we want to give back to God from the gifts we've been given. And I think that that makes all the difference. That girl that greeted me the first day? Well, we're now running the music ministry together (she's one of our guitarists and a really good one at that) and she's my Monday lunch buddy. I see our viola player twice a week when she's leaving class and I'm going in to TA another class on the same hall, and I occasionally run into the other folks in the group while I'm on campus. It's a good feeling, to have a musical family not unlike the one I left behind when I graduated from college.
My journey into CSA music ministry is, I think, a good example of these small conversions that happen from time to time. Because of the wonderful people that I'm working and making music with at the College, I now have another place that used to seem empty where I can see God. Life is good, music is great, and God is best.
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