Last week I made a quick trip to New Orleans for a reunion with those who were involved in campus ministry at LSU forty-five years ago! Since I hadn’t seen most of them in the interim it was like meeting strangers … until we started singing. As we went through our repetoire (yes, all the leaves are still brown and the sky is still grey) the years melted away and we were united again. John the Seer uses a similar image to speak of what our reunion in heaven will be like. They were singing what seemed to be a new hymn before the throne. Singing together makes from many diverse voices, one sound of praise. That St. James is a singing church is one of the elements which forms us a parish, as a community. When people from twenty-four different countries all raised their voices together in song — often in a languge or a melody unfamiliar — we become truly Catholic, a universal expression of God’s presence in our midst.
