by Fred Moleck
Easter Afterglow
Every significant experience produces an energy that just won’t give up. In fact, there is an “afterglow” that is stoked by memories and conversations about what happened.Easter is an example. No doubt, you probably are still basking in that glow and continuing conversations with other church musicians about the triumphs and the near triumphs in the liturgy this year.
At this writing I’ve heard from four people in the church music business who were giddy with the success of the singing of the Exultet and with the inspired homily by the presider (bless him!) and the tear-drenched neophytes’ albs and—it never fails—Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”
We all have many reasons to rejoice. My personal rejoicing was caused by being able to celebrate with the Norbertine community at Daylesford Abbey, which is thirty miles west of Philadelphia.
They and a sizable number of people who join them for their liturgies fuse an Easter people. (That is not to say they are not a worshiping community the rest of the year.)
I’ve been a visitor to the abbey for about twenty years now. After I removed myself from full-time parish music ministry five years ago, I traveled to the abbey for the first weekend in Advent to make a retreat.
Then I made the pilgrimage for the Easter triduum. I dare say that recovering my baptismal right to “give thanks to the Lord our God” without directing a choir, playing the piano or organ, and fretting over pitch problems in the alto section created my second baptism.
“I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the House of the Lord.’”
The renewal of my baptismal promises has never been so strong. I took considerable glee when I rejected Satan and all his works and all his empty promises.
So, there! Life in the pew is not so bad.
My newly assumed nonministerial vocation was short-lived. Last year I was asked to help in the ministry by directing the men’s schola in the Exultet.
“Gladly,” I said.
This year I was asked to help in directing the two vocal ensembles and play the organ every so often.
“Gladly,” I said. After all, “I was glad when they said to me…”
At the Vigil, the prior introduced me saying that I came out of retirement to exercise my ministry in their community and to the people who have found comfort and enlightenment at the abbey.
At the Easter triduum, the liturgy and its song oozed from their bones and their hearts.
I think it was Aidan Kavanagh who said, “Jesus died and rose again and became a people.”
Alleluia! Alleluia, a thousand times, alleluia!
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net