April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
ECUMENISM
Promote Christian unity: Come to 2014 concert
In my hometown, there was an ecumenical service the night before Thanksgiving every year. Each of the churches would send their singers to form a single choir and would take turns hosting the event.
I couldn't have been more than 12 years old when I first participated. I distinctly remember being at a practice in the Baptist church. I don't remember what piece we were practicing, but all of a sudden I had a sense of overwhelming joy.
It was wonderful but very peculiar, because it was very clearly not my own emotion. The best way I can describe it is to say I was feeling another's emotions. As I walked home later that evening, I reached the conclusion that I must have been sensing God's joy that all of us who claimed Him to be our Father were together - working together and praising Him together.
It was the first time I felt the presence of God, and I have never forgotten it.
Since this experience some 20 years ago, I have come to long more deeply for an end to the scandal of division among Christians. Now I am a priest, a pastor of a parish. I am so eager to meet the Orthodox priest in town and the Protestant ministers: to get to know them, pick their brains and work with them any way I can. I am convinced it is on the local, personal level that barriers between Christians will be dismantled. I know I am not alone in that assessment!
This all stems from that one experience of one rehearsal for one small-town service. Think of what could grow 20 years from now from the myriad experiences of months of rehearsals, collaboration and a top-notch performance in a state capitol!
Christian unity through the arts is the motivation for a concert of Handel's Messiah scheduled for May 30, 2014, at Albany's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. It's a collaboration between the Albany Diocese and Christian Arts International, the first major joint undertaking between Catholics and Evangelical Christians in the Capital Region since the Billy Graham crusade.
My childhood experience of how effective music is at bridging divisions between Christian groups has only been reaffirmed in recent years. As a seminarian, for instance, I made some wonderful connections with Eastern Orthodox Christians by enrolling in a class in Byzantine chant at the Hellenic American Academy in Deerfield, Ill.
I enjoyed the class and was enriched as a musician. I learned that my presence was indeed promoting harmony (no pun intended) when a classmate said to me, "You know, many Orthodox don't trust you Catholics, but I think they're wrong. You're not here to destroy Orthodoxy; you're here to learn from us!"
As a member of the Albany diocesan Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, I mentioned my interest in using music to promote Christian unity to our chair, Rev. James Kane, and he more or less said, "Great! Have I got a job for you!" Now, I am representing the Diocese on the planning board for the concert - an event we hope will inaugurate an annual, national day of praise.
I appeal to all Catholic musicians and laity to join in "making a joyful noise unto the Lord" - and making the Lord rejoice in a noise made by all those who call Him "Father."
(Father Atherton is pastor of St. Theresa's parish in Windham. To participate in the concert, contact music director Sylvia Kutchukian at 459-3152 or email [email protected].)[[In-content Ad]]
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
Comments:
You must login to comment.