Being Christ for One Another

The choir director as leader stands as a figure of Christ, modelling Christian behaviour and teaching the children to do the same, to be Christ to one another and to their parish community. 

In practice this means 

• Teaching the Gospel with authority and understanding. The choir director is usually in charge of regular catechesis for the singers, and to do this well, they must study and meditate on the Gospel, and work on different ways of connecting the Gospel to the choir members’ experience. 
• Practicing patience and forgiveness. One of the most obvious and necessary ways in which the director must be the person of Christ for the choir is to behave like Christ towards the choir members. They lead gently but firmly, modelling Christian behaviour and expecting it from the singers. Choir is a great place to learn courtesy, patience, how to say sorry and how to forgive, how to be tolerant and to learn to appreciate each person’s unique gifts. Unless the choir members love one another in practice, none of the work that they do singing is of any value at all. “If I am a gong booming or a cymbal clashing and have not love, I am nothing at all.”
• Expecting joy. When a person’s vocation and their day-to-day activities coincide, the result is abiding joy and peace: Catherine of Siena said, “If I only be what God has made me to be, then the Holy Spirit will blaze.” The choir director may be surprised to find themselves in the position of leading a group of singers, but chances are that they are in this situation because a specific vocation from the Holy Spirit. Skills and ability will grow with practice and training but the joy that comes from the exercise of love is God-given, and will communicate itself to the children. The singers, too, living out their vocation of service and evangelisation through music, find joy in the choir and in singing itself.  
• Cooperating with the Holy Spirit. Leadership, beside entailing all the organising, forward planning and regular running of the choir, is essentially about pastoral care of the members of the choir – and this includes the director. The good leader, like the good shepherd, makes sure the flock is well-nourished and well-rested, that they have a sense of belonging, that they are growing in knowledge and love of Christ. The wisdom and strength to lead well comes from a close acquaintance with the Holy Spirit, which is why the prayer which we open every rehearsal with addresses the Holy Spirit. Once the rehearsal and the heart of the choir is opened to the Holy Spirit, God’s creative love has full reign.
• Being a model of faith and prayer. The choir director, or whoever is appointed to lead the prayer at the beginning of rehearsal, invokes the Holy Spirit and may then make a safe place where the members of the choir can state their own prayers and petitions, even allowing a space of silence for unspoken prayers. The director’s active faith in promoting prayer and stating their own petitions and thanksgiving models the possibilities of relationship with God. 

The choir itself as leaders of liturgy and prayer in the Mass, is a visible presence of Christ among his people, leading, bringing joy, increasing faith, nourishing and sustaining. The music which they make brings people to God, and the example of their service inspires and warms the hearts of the community.

Written by Pat Smith