By Rita McInerney

“Let the wilderness and the dray lands exult, let the wasteland rejoice and bloom, let it bring forth flowers like the jonquil, let it rejoice and sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35:12, Third Sunday of Advent)

The Latin “Gloria” by Mozart and the traditional Negro spiritual, “Mary Had a Baby,” will be among the gifts the choir at Our Lady of Lourdes Church will offer at midnight Mass on Christmas when the singers lead the parish family in rejoicing that the waiting and expectation of Advent are over and the Savior has been born.

The small church will resound with the voices from the choir and from the congregation in the pews. The carols and hymns will be the customary heralds of Christmas, sung sweetly by the choir under the professional direction of James Jones, who is instructor in the organ at Clark College.

Traditional hymns are preferred by many of the older parishioners, according to Janice Griffin, president of the choir. “We will have a mixture, we try to cater to everybody’s needs,” she said.

The choir has members ranging from their teens to their seventies. Janice, now 38, has been singing at Lourdes since she was a third grader at the parish school. It is, she said, “a lot of people who enjoy being together and who have a commitment to the music. Because of this we maintain a spirit of worship.”

Janice believes the choir has strengthened her in faith and given her a way to use her talents. “Traditionally there hasn’t been too much for women to do in the Church. I feel that it’s my way of serving.” Thousands heard her sing when the choir performed for Father Ralph DiOrio’s Oct. 26^th healing service at the Omni. Her solo, “We Shall Behold Him,” deeply moved the large audience.

Her vocal gifts came naturally. Her mother, Etta Erwin, was, for many years, soprano soloist at the nearby Ebenezer Baptist church. Her daughter, Kenya, 15, and son, Khary, 14, also sang in the children’s choir at Lourdes until it was disbanded not too long ago. Now they sing with their parents in the adult choir.

Husband and father Chester Griffin, a convert, called his choir membership “one area where I can return some of the spirit I have gotten from the Church. Working with music is the area I feel most comfortable with.” Music is also his profession. He teaches orchestra, strings, in the DeKalb County school system. As an “itinerant teacher,” he travels weekly to two high schools and four elementary schools in the system.

The couple, like most other members, don’t confine their faith activities to singing praise to the Lord. Chester Griffin is a member of the archdiocesan Commission for Black Catholic Concerns, and his wife, who has served on the parish council, was a member of the task force for the Day of Reflection held Sept. 13 in preparation for the sixth National Black Catholic Congress next May in Washington, D.C.

The Day of Reflection was a “blessed day” for them. “I think that one particular day will have a lot to do with the Catholic Church in America,” Chester said. “This is a sign, a statement, that issues hopefully will be addressed. Issues the Church has avoided, did not want to do anything about.”

The family relationship of friendship that the choir offers “helped me grow,” Janice said. “I learned how to relate to people differently. Some of the women are mothers of friends from grade school. Now they are my peers in the choir.”

Longevity is one key to choir harmony. Among the women, Jennie Hubbard has been a member 30 years: Ruby Palmer has been singing for 20 years, as has “Bobbie” Ware who also coordinates the parish lectors and Eucharistic ministers.

Christmas midnight Mass has a deep personal significance for chorister Charles Mize, 74, who joined the church two years ago at that celebration. The entire congregation rejoiced for him, including all the many friends who had assumed he was Catholic. He had been coming to church with his wife for years, always did the cooking for the parish suppers and breakfasts, provided transportation to church for those needing a ride, and worked on the parish Food for the Neighborhood program.

Other choir members work on the food program; Claudie and Earl Randall, one of three husband-wife teams in the choir; Frances Royal, and Helen Newman, the latter church secretary, a member of the liturgy committee and the parish council.

For Chester Griffin, a native of Lubbock, Texas, who met Janice while they were students at Howard University, the smallness of the church family makes it easy to find a home there. “You only visit Lourdes once, after that you’re a member of the family.”

The choir frequently sings at other churches, at the Choir Fest, for the Poor People’s Campaign at the Civic Center. With Father Juan Alers, chaplain at the federal prison, now in residence at Lourdes, another concert site has been added. When they sang recently for the inmates’ Mass it attracted one of the largest groups of prisoners ever, they learned. It was good for the younger members of the choir, Janice said. It gave them “a chance to see a side of life not seen before.”

They will give a Christmas concert for the prisoners on Saturday evening, Dec. 20. Like the Mass, they will perform both in the maximum security area and in the camp area.

When the pastor, Father Joseph Cavallo, celebrates midnight Mass the church will be packed with most of the 550 to 600 parishioners. Christmas morning there will be but a handful, he said. This was the way it was last year while Father Frank Giusta, now pastor at St. Philip Benizi, was still pastor. He celebrated Christmas morning Mass with seven members of a Vietnamese family in the last pew, the only people in church with him. There was silence from the non-English speaking family all during Mass, but when Mass was ended they stood and sang “Silent Night” – in English.

While Lourdes was founded for black Catholics in Atlanta in 1912, and while spirituals are very much a part of the choir repertoire, there is no music of pure African origin sung by the choir At Christmas the favorites are mainly of European origin. “We don’t look upon Christmas as European; we see the songs just as songs of Christmas. We don’t try to make it African any more than European, we just want it to reflect our spirit,” Chester Griffin said. “And we can sing it,” his wife added.

“One thing about our celebration,” Chester continued, “we don’t have to be some thing, we just are.”