| |
|
|
|
Vol. 46 No. 16
July 11, 2007 |
|
|
Music, religion with a lively island beat
By Mary Gorry
Staff Reporter |
|
|
TLIC photos/Gregory A. Shemitz |
|
The Caribbean Catholic
experience is one where music and religion are
emphasized and entwined. The Caribbean population on
Long Island enriches the Diocese of Rockville Centre by
bringing that cultural practice to their local parishes.
“The Caribbean people are very religious,” noted Father
Richard Ho Lung, founder of the Missionaries of the Poor
in Kingston, Jamaica and composer of Caribbean
liturgical music. He has been visiting the diocese for
about 12 years, primarily using Our Holy Redeemer Church
in Freeport as his home base to conduct missions,
perform concerts, and celebrate Caribbean-style Masses.
“Religion is out in the streets. People talk about God.
It’s very much part of our folk culture and our daily
living.” |
Maria Joseph, above left, her
sister, Wendy Genco, and Ms. Joseph’s daughter,
Michelle, 11, sing during Mass July 1 at St. Gerard
Majella Church, Port Jefferson Station; while Mike
Greenidge plays an African drum.
|
|
Not only is religion an integral part of Caribbean culture,
but so is music. “In Jamaica, you find people are gardening,
cooking, cleaning, and they’re all singing,” said Father Ho
Lung. “It’s not uncommon to have that. People are just
walking down the street, and they’re singing.”
It is not surprising, then, that “music is a very important
part of Caribbean worship.
It’s the expression of the people,” Father Ho Lung noted.
“Music is really from your soul. Worship is about your soul.
If you don’t worship from your soul, it feels a bit empty.”
“I think (Caribbean) Masses are very celebratory,” he said.
“It really rises out of the people — the rhythms, the
feeling of the music.” Father Ho Lung uses calypso, ska,
mento, and reggae rhythms in the liturgical music he writes.
Catholics in the diocese hailing from Caribbean nations “are
exuberant,” said Msgr. Francis Caldwell, pastor of St.
Martha’s Church in Uniondale. He counts as parishioners
people from many Caribbean countries, including Jamaica,
Haiti, Antigua, and Puerto Rico, with a parish school
population that is more than half Haitian. Members of the
different Caribbean cultures “get along very well with each
other. There are natural bonds because many of them come
together for multicultural liturgies and for the school.”
Maria Joseph, a cantor at St. Gerard Majella in Port
Jefferson Station, is originally from Trinidad. After taking
part in a Caribbean Mass while visiting her sister in
Massachusetts, she said she decided to bring the experience
back to her home parish, where a Caribbean Mass was
celebrated earlier this month.
“We do have Caribbean people in our parish,” Joseph noted,
and while that number is still small, “there are a lot more
Caribbean people moving into the area.”
St. Gerard’s is “ a very open parish,” she said. Coming to
Long Island from Trinidad, “I missed my Caribbean music, I
really did,” said Joseph. Teaching her fellow parishioners
Caribbean hymns and having the Caribbean Mass was a way “to
share my culture with my parish.”
|
|
|
|
Send
questions or comments about this web site to
webmaster@licatholic.org
E-mail intended as a Letter to the Editor
goes to
editor@licatholic.org
Last modified:
11/28/2007
© Copyright 2007 The Long Island Catholic |
|
|
|
