This year for my workstudy job at Wyoming Catholic College I am the choir assistant. I'm not going to lie, it's a pretty cushy job, and also the best job in the world, at at least the best job at WCC. I get workstudy hours just for going to choir. I can mess around with a motet on my music writing software and get workstudy hours for it. I'm getting experience so I can lead a choir of my own someday. Best of all, I get paid for doing what I love.
I love choir. I'm a violinist, and I can't say that I have the best voice, but I love choir. There's something very wonderful about working with a group of people to create something beautiful. St. Augustine says that "singing is an expression of joy and...love. As you tell out God's praises, you give voice to the natural desire of every human being to glorify him with songs of love. It is hard to find words to convey the joy of the soul's loving encounter with God, yet fine music is able to express something of the mystery of his love for us and ours for him." (Sermo 34:1) When I'm up in the choir loft on Sunday morning I'm tired, and all I want to do is go back to bed. But then we start singing Victoria's Ave Maria, and I feel incredibly happy. I get this incredibly wonderful feeling all over my tired body, and I know that I am doing something worthwhile. I am doing something to praise God, and I am helping others to praise God. It's the same kind of feeling I get when I'm sitting alone in the church on a Saturday evening, and one of my professors comes in to practice the organ. The church is almost dark, and very quiet, and then suddenly the first notes of the organ sound, and become a vast, beautiful harmony. I want to laugh, and I want to cry, and it is at those moments that I feel so close to God.
Choir can be a pain sometimes. Sometimes I don't want to run up after dinner and go to practice every Thursday. Sometimes, well, most of the time, I don't want to drag myself out of bed for early morning practice every other week. Sometimes people don't listen, or don't get their parts, or don't count, and the whole piece falls apart. It's a struggle to create beautiful music, and it takes time, precious time when you could be doing your homework, when you have that speech or a presentation tomorrow. It's a struggle to be patient when people don't put their choir binders back in the correct place.
But really, those things don't matter. What really matters is that we're making beautiful music together, and we're praising God together. I've been in choir all four years of my college career, and I plan to be in choir till the very last moment, that very last time that we sing together at my graduation. I couldn't imagine not being in choir. When I first came here, it was sort of a consolation for not being able to be in orchestra. Now I'm in choir because I love choir. Pope Benedict XVI adds to St. Augustine's words, saying, "Always remember that your singing is a service. It is a service to God, offering him the praise that is due. It is a service to other worshipers, helping them raise their hearts and minds in prayer. And it is a service to the whole Church, a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy in which the choirs of angels and saints unite in one unending song of love and praise." Yes, we choir members have the best. We get to join forces and sing for God with the angels and the saints. And we love it.
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