2012 Seniors Speak

The following articles were written by Carolina Tavares.

April 1 , 2012
How Many Miles has the Choir Traveled?

“What do you think of the MEC choir?”

Alexa Escalante, a MEC junior student who does not belong to the choir responded, “They are the soul of our community. They reveal with their voices what we all carry within. I am definitely a fan!”

To be true, the MEC choir holds a big place in the MEC community. This is not to say that all we do at MEC is sing. We also study hard, hold intellectual debates, help out in the diocese and give our best to become Alter Christus. Another big part of our lives is dedicated to cultivating the interior garden of our soul with dreams, aspirations, and prayers. And when this garden blooms, we can’t but help to transmit the fruits in many ways. One of them is through the singing of the MEC choir.

As Alexa implied, we are definitely proud of them! I would like to recognize their efforts because they have traveled entire miles to spread Christ’s love and joy…Ready for the journey? Here we go!

The longest trip was last year to Oxford, Michigan for a dinner and auction fundraiser for the Legionaries of Christ.. 715 miles. Anne Pirie, MEC sophomore, describes the scene: “two minivans, all seats full, enough food for two days, all our baggage for four days plus the musical instruments needed, you ship that off and off we go!”
           
When asked what drew her to the choir in the first place Anne said: “I love the camaraderie, feeling part of a team. I also wanted to know all the songs by heart so that I could have them inside whenever I wanted to”…

Let’s pick up some speed. The second longest trip was to Thornwood, NY. 166 miles. Three-hour car ride. In the fall of 2011, the MEC Choir drove to sing at a mass of Christ the King, celebrated for all Regnum Christi members in the area. The MEC Choir sang along with the choir from the seminary.         

“It was beautiful to see the unity among us, reflected even in the music,” Mariana Velazquez shared, “their low voices and our high tones were more of a harmony than a clash.”

New York was a favorite place for they also sang at another Christ Our King Mass in Syracuse, and even for a Yacht club Christmas dinner in Manhattan (170 miles)!

Another stop of the journey was St. Joseph’s College in Connecticut. 80 miles. President Pamela Trotman invited the MEC choir for an intercollegiate concert. Ana Lucia Ramirez, MEC junior, recalls the remarkable hospitality, the beauty of the place and the “awesome acoustics” of the chapel. This experience helped her to see that “my consecration gave value to the message I was singing about.”

The preferred event by far was Divine Mercy Sunday. The shrine in Massachusetts is 125 miles away.  “It was very powerful to share in the mission of transmitting God’s mercy. If we were there singing it was because we were witnesses that we believe in His Mercy!” said Kate Bozsik, MEC sophomore. “The experience of touching souls through music is something you don’t get standing in the pews…”

 Also in Massachusetts, at St. Anthony’s Parish in New Bedford (40 miles away), during Gaudette Sunday, the choir was part of joyful Christmas concert.

All types of audiences are included. The MEC choir even had the honor to be part of a Baptist fundraiser at Providence. (17miles).           

“It was my first experience of a Black Protestant Church,” reveals Pilar Berber, Mexican Junior at MEC. “They sang and clapped like in the movies! Their love for Jesus was so contagious! They were very open and welcoming; I was glad to support them as true brethren in Christ”.

Getting closer to home, the choir had the opportunity to support Bishop Tobin in his Christmas Tree Lighting near the Providence statehouse (12 miles).

“I could feel the family spirit of the Catholic Church. People from different walks of life showed up in spite of the rain….we all shared umbrellas and sang together to celebrate Christ’s birth!” says sophomore Isabel Jamicky.

And besides the 1,325 miles traveled on the road, we can’t forget all the miles traveled up and down the hallways at MEC for different events and all those miles traveled to the chapel, the place where we all like to sing the most: to Jesus in the Eucharist!

God Bless!

February 3, 2012
Tolerance Misunderstood

I went to the bank with a friend. The windows read: ‘Happy Hanukah’, ‘Let it snow’, and ‘Happy Holiday!’ When we were about to leave, my friend wished the clerk a Merry Christmas. The clerk answered “Yes, Happy Holiday.” He explained, “I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, but last time I said that I got into trouble. People get very offended if things like this are said or posted here.”

My friend was the offended one for being excluded like that. Everyone else can express  why this season is important for them, but we Christians can’t express our joy for Christmas (the whole point for this ‘holy-day’) How is it possible that everyone else can proclaim the reasons to enjoy the ‘Christ’-mas season except ‘Christ’-ians?

This is something I don’t quite understand. I used to think that things could be just said as they are or as they want to be said, even if certain statements elicited aggressive responses. But what I perceive nowadays is a radical intolerance to expression of certain beliefs like Christian ones, but in the very name of tolerance! What then is understood as tolerance?

Encarta Dictionary says tolerance is the “acceptance of the differing views of other people, e.g. in religious or political matters, and fairness toward the people who hold these different views.” And according to author Bob Hostetler “the ‘politically correct’ definition of tolerance is to consider everyone's beliefs, values and lifestyles as equally valid.”

According to these politically correct definitions, the clerk at the bank shouldn’t have felt bad about wishing us back a merry Christmas. We can already see a discrepancy here. The first definition sounds pretty good. But we must clarify that acknowledging others’ beliefs does not include giving up our own. Sometimes people think that fairness towards others’ beliefs means not imposing our own. This is equating expression of beliefs with imposition.

What about the second definition? Hostetler says that tolerance “means to consider everyone's beliefs, values and lifestyles as equally valid.” What does valid mean? I think the validity lies in the expression of beliefs, not necessarily in the belief itself. Not all beliefs are equally valid or true.

I can believe that 2+2 =5, or that the moon is made out of cheese. Nevertheless, this belief is not true and therefore not as equally valid as 2+2=4. Admitting that all beliefs are equally valid, that they are just a matter of opinion means we are settling with the ideas we already feel comfortable with without testing their truth and validity. One thing is to give room for expression of opinions. This would be tolerance; a very different one is to give the same weight to all of them; that’s relativism. Saying everything has the same weight, nullifies the existence of universal truths. 

So far, I see two flaws in the politically correct concept of tolerance: first, it is not really tolerant to all expression of beliefs. Second, it promotes relativism.

“In the real world, we have to judge. It is impossible to go through life without making some judgment about what is true or false, good or bad” (Brandenburg 36). In life, we have to be mature about our options and worldview. Maturity involves being open to the ideas, maybe even questioning some beliefs with a critical spirit, and moving towards a “renewed conviction about what is good and true” (Brandenburg 12)

This sounds more like a true concept of tolerance. True tolerance, I believe, means respecting people who hold beliefs other than our own and being open to them so as to dialogue and walk together towards the truth; because real tolerance is always subject to truth. Tolerance does not stand on its own, it is subject to truth!

Christians know the Truth that is God Himself, “living within the truth means living according to [his Word]. It means believing that the truths of the Creed are worth suffering and dying for. [It] means telling the truth and calling things by their right names. And that means exposing the lies by which some men try to force others to live. We need to fight the evils we see. We need to be so convinced of the truths of the Creed that we are on fire to live by these truths, to love by these truths, and to defend these truths, even to the point of our own discomfort and suffering” (Chaput).

So let us not be silenced in the name of tolerance…let us speak the Truth we have discovered…Let us proclaim the Good News we have found! Let us show Christ’s face to the world!