When I opened my browser Saturday morning, one of the headlines jumped out at me: “St. Louis Cathedral Destroyed by Fire.” Surely that could not be true. The Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis is a massive stone Byzantine style building filled with mosaics and seating more than 2,500 people. When I clicked on the story, I learned that the structure that burned was the former St. Liborius Church, known informally as “The Cathedral of the North Side” because of its imposing physical presence. St. Liborius was a Gothic Revival church built in the 1880’s to serve a predominantly Catholic German neighborhood. Though not nearly as massive as St. Louis Cathedral, it could comfortably seat over a thousand people. As a worship space, it eventually fell victim to demographic change. The parish was merged with three other North Side parishes in 1992. In its last years, the congregation was so small, that Sunday Mass was normally held in the church rectory. After the church formally closed, the sacred furnishings were removed and the building sold. It recent years, it was called Sk8 Liborius and functioned mainly as a skateboarding venue.

I once attended Sunday Mass at St. Liborius. In the late 1970’s I was working in St. Louis as a college librarian, and sometimes on Sunday attended Mass at different churches. I was intrigued by this huge church surrounded mostly by vacant lots that I frequently passed on my way downtown. When I walked into the church that Sunday, there were so few lights on that I could barely see the walls. There were about fifty people, mostly elderly spread out all over the church. At Mass time, an elderly Monsignor entered from the sacristy and announced the opening hymn. Really? There was no musician, no leader of song, and the people were probably too far apart to hear one another. To my surprise the congregation sang well and with a lot of energy. Afterwards I did some research (well, I was a librarian) and I discovered that St. Liborius had been on the forefront of what was called the Liturgical Movement in the 1940’s, an effort that begin in Europe and was later taken up by German-American parishes in the Midwest. One of the goals of the Liturgical Movement was celebrating Mass in the language of the people (which did happen in the 1960’s); but even with Mass still in Latin, some of these pastors began inviting the people to respond in Latin to the priest and to sing the Latin Mass parts. The leader of the Liturgical Movement in St. Louis was Monsignor Martin Hellriegel.  He believed that all congregations were capable of full active participation in the liturgy, as long as the music is adopted to their capabilities: “Take what is possible and do it well. It is better to let Palestrina rest in peace that compel him to turn over in his grave.”

Why do I tell you all this?  Well over the next few months I will be sharing with you some of the things we learned from the Archdiocesan survey that about 17% of you took in Lent.  The survey covered attitudes and beliefs, your relationship and satisfaction with the parish, and your level of participation in the parish. In most categories we compared very favorably with other parishes in the Archdiocese. One of the areas that we scored slightly below average was the statement that “The music deepens my desire to participate more fully in the Sunday liturgy.” Do we think of the music as separate from the Mass? Is the congregational singing any worse at Assumption than at many parishes? Certainly not. But even with cantors and musicians and a choir every other week, the singing at most Masses most weekends is not great, either at the Masses with organ music or on Sunday night when we have a more contemporary sound. We do have one Mass (7:30am) with no music. My point is not to debate the statistics, but to point out that it has now been sixty years since our church issued the universal call to full active participation in the liturgy, sixty years since congregational singing moved out of niche parishes like St. Liborius and became standard practice for the Catholic Church. Three generations of Catholics have treated singing at Mass as optional. When people around us are singing, it can be contagious. We become less self-conscious about our singing voice. As someone once said, “Whatever singing voice God gave you, give it right back to God.”

This is all part of that bigger picture called Renew My Church.  Full, active participation in the liturgy attracts newcomers. If people seem passive and disengaged at Mass, it can give the impression that they are not connecting with the worship and the parish itself is not very active. So, I just ask you as a favor to one another to pump up the volume a little. If you never sing at Mass, give it a try. If you do sing, try to do so with more enthusiasm. If you can sing in the shower, you can sing in the church.

                                                                                                Fr. Joe