Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 7: Fastidious Diligent as well as Understated and Subtle

by Dan Masterton

In returning to blogging, my first project is to finish up the audiobook/podcast of my fiction stories. My three stories — “What There Is to Be Done”, “Abundance, not Scarcity”, and “Bigger than Ourselves” — are collected into “Go Your Way: Stories from Our Lives of Faith,” which is available on Amazon. (I basically use Amazon as an on-demand printer; the price is set to yield a $0.00 royalty.) My third story was in progress when I stepped away last summer, and here I’m getting back to it. Each episode is one chapter from the book plus a brief reflection.

Bigger than Ourselves is itself a series of short stories, about various people at a Catholic parish, and the book as a whole ties them together through their community life. Below is the fresh reflection to go with Chapter 7, and I’ll continue one chapter at a time through the end of this third and final story. For more on my writing, visit my LinkTree portfolio or book information website.

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In college, I sang in a really great choir. Our main mission was to foster full and active congregational participation in the Mass, and I believe we did an outstanding job at this. We were intentional about choosing music that had singable melodies, thoughtful lyrics, and relevance to the lectionary selections, liturgical seasons, and meaning of the Mass. As a result, the congregations at the Masses, prayer services, and concerts at which we sang were typically singing loudly and proudly.

The behind-the-scenes layer of this that sometimes ruffled my feathers was the rigidity with which we needed to do this ministry in order to be effective. Sometimes the quantity and intensity of our rehearsal could be a lot, especially for me as an amateur/novice singer, but the result was hard to argue with. It made the hard work and long hours preparing the music deeply valuable and impactful.

The part of this I couldn’t so easily stomach was the intense attention to detail in ways I found to be a bit over the top and sometimes downright unnecessary. One example of this was the obsession with moving people and equipment around well in advance of when it was necessary. Soloists who needed to move forward in the risers were beckoned and shuffled forward several minutes beforehand, and multiple coaches and people would adjust the mic level, binder position, and orientation of the person’s body as they prepared, and psalmists who needed to head down to the ambo were shot out of a cannon down the steps before the resonance had even subsided on the Gloria, standing in the aisle of the nave while the lector proclaimed the First Reading.

These were the backstage movements that helped the ministerial action unfold so smoothly and effectively. But to me, an idealistic purist who wanted to be fully present as a congregant while ministering the choir, it felt exorbitant and undue. It seemed like stress that needed and manufactured an outlet. And I’d have to shake it off after paying witness. All that said – it never stopped us from serving well, and arguably sustained our efficacy.

Fast forward to parish life as an adult and now as a parent, and I feel like I see the same thread sometimes unspooling again and again. There are times when it seems volunteers, ministry leaders, and Catholics in general are more dedicated to the process and structure than to the service of others itself.

The most unsettling example to me was the parish picnic at the parish where we no longer belong. It was advertised as an all-ages and family affair, from 1 to 4pm on a Sunday afternoon – the usual promises of games, prizes, treats, food, music, and more. With two young kids and finite fuses to manage, I suggested we go around 3 just to enjoy the last hour.

When we arrived, we found the volunteers already taking half the things down with nearly an hour to go in the event. The ice cream stand had one person left who was tidying up; the games stations were closing down; the tables and chairs were being stacked up and put away.

I shepherded us through the skeleton crew of remaining items, grabbing the last few ice cream sandwiches available and playing one spinning wheel game before tucking my tail between my legs and heading off. God bless Church volunteers, literally doing God’s work and often thanklessly so, but what is the point of a parish picnic going until 4pm if it’s mostly cleaned up and stored away at 3:30? It was an example of process and structure being king, at the expense of hospitality, self-awareness, and any social sense at all. (It would have been easier to write off as an outlier if I hadn’t already found little to no response for starting a family-and-children group as well as having no offerings for young kids across the parish; it was sort of a third strike.)

As usual, the proper Catholic response is a good old-fashioned both-and. It is possible we can be both fastidiously diligent as well understated and subtle, that we can be dutifully helpful as well as thoughtfully hospitable, that we can bring our best sense of order, decorum, and structure but not lose sight of the people being served and engaged. There need not be any horse-trading that shortchanges welcome and community.

In Chapter 7, Nick is your classic reliable volunteer. Telling Nick’s story was a way for me to practice empathy, to remember to give others the benefit of the doubt and not jump to shallow (and thus often misinformed or un-informed) conclusions. And a more deliberate reception of Nick, and who he is and what he offers, helps unlock another layer of his gifts, skills, and passions, in a way that renews his sense of self and sense of service while also serving this parish community.