“I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
Growing up at St. Polycarp in Pleasure Ridge Park in the 1980s, I don’t remember having the option not to go to mass. It was just what we, mom and I, did. There were times I was gone on a camping trip with the Boy Scouts, traveling somewhere to visit my dad, or involved in some program or activity far away and missed mass on a particular weekend, but if it was possible to go, we always went. It was a utilitarian church with cinder block walls, square edges and metal poles everywhere, and little in the way of religious art. It was not so beautiful, altogether. I passed many masses in boredom as they seemed to drag on. In fourth grade, however, I had what I believe to be my first true religious experience.
On that Sunday, mass was over before I knew it. When the final blessing was said, I remember wondering what had happened. Did I fall asleep and just wake up at the end? No. Had I been daydreaming the whole time? No. Had I been transported by an alien to a different dimension (I was an imaginative child)? No. I enjoyed it, despite my expectations, and time flew. That didn’t happen every weekend that followed, rarely again with the same intensity, in fact. A seed had been planted by the Holy Spirit, however, and I began to look more intently each week for what was going on. What was the mystery we celebrated? Certainly, the Eucharist was at the center, but I started to see the community gathered, the joy and love in friendships, and they could sing! They loved God, each other, and me. I knew that I belonged.
It wasn’t sophisticated or polished, not that those things are bad. It was just very real and honest worship: salt of the earth people gathering, singing, and trying to live out the command to love one another as best they could. I’m sure it wasn’t as idyllic as I recall and there must have been failures, sin, strained relationships, and personal agendas. It seemed, at least to me, that those things melted away at mass. We were united in love together as we worshiped God. Song was an important part of that worship. Singing was a big part of our prayer. The community had even made their own hymnals, paying for the rights to the songs they wanted to sing, photocopying them all together, and binding them to use week after week. Later, I remember being surprised that other parishes bought hymnals from publishers. My personal experience was a bit odd.
Song was important to them and to me. Although originally more verbose, a quote attributed to St. Augustine says, “He who sings prays twice.” A lesser known quote by Fr. John, chaplain at the Air Force Academy, was, “If God gave you a good voice, use it well to give him glory and praise. If not, sing loudly to make him pay.” When we sing, according to St. Augustine, we pray and praise with our words (the text of the song) and with the affection of our hearts (for the one of whom we sing). Not only that, but song carves deep memories in our brains and helps to form us as disciples of Jesus throughout our lives. I can still remember, nearly word for word, many of the songs from my time at St. Polycarp. The first verse and refrain from one of them, based on today’s gospel, follows:
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.