Hispanic Children’s Choir Fashions Young Evangelists

By PRISCILLA GREEAR, Staff Writer

Published: September 11, 2003

LAWRENCEVILLE—Juan Loza can sing and be assured that by joining the Hispanic children’s choir at St. Lawrence Church, he is helping parishioners quench their spiritual thirst while bringing his parents back to church.

Juan, 13, sings with one brother and sister in the 33-member choir, which performs in Spanish and English twice monthly during the Spanish Mass. He is also one of the many children who have volunteered to deliver a reading or the psalm. His aunt, Teresa Vargas, is “behavior management” director along with co-director Carlos Garcia. Juan, who along with his siblings had already been participating in religious education, is grateful to see his parents praying and the difference in his dad, who works six to seven days weekly as a painter.

“He didn’t go that much (to church). He’d be like sad and now that we go and sing he’s like happier and he helps us more. He encourages us,” Juan said. “The first time I read, I was very nervous. He said, ‘You did fine, but you weren’t used to it.’ When I do something in church he encourages me to do it again.”

One of Juan’s favorite songs is “De Colores.”

“It’s about when people are thankful that God helps them, gives them bread, and it talks about bread and rainbows and all that. (Church) helps me because I get to learn more stuff about God,” he said. “(The choir) is important because I get to meet more people and I get to have more fun.”

Juan’s mother, Celina, said that the family used to attend church “cada domingo” (every Sunday) back in Mexico. But after moving to the United States four years ago, they became slack about worship due to her husband’s long hours, and her work as a cashier at a restaurant and caring for their five children. So now, as she lacks a car, she either pays a $5 fare to take her children in a taxi to weekly Friday night choir practice or has Vargas give them a ride. But it’s worth the effort as the three children are enriched, she said, adding that their little brother tried it out but started crying and quit. Attending Mass helps Celina feel “more calm, happier” and her husband is “a little happier, more understanding, more open with the children.”

Vargas said that, in fact, many parents like her brother have become more regular Mass-goers and participants in parish life as they started coming to hear their children sing. Typically Mass attendance is at about 300 but goes up by about 60 on choir days. Before the choir formed, they used to just drop their kids off for religious education.

“They know the church is there and they need to go to Mass and what Catholic education teaches, but having the kids is another motivation.”

When immigrating to another country, it’s easy to not take the time for things one enjoys, she added.

Vargas is grateful to serve a church that has “opened its doors” to the area’s Hispanic residents and has been especially welcoming. Longtime Hispanic parishioner Iraida Grau has been pleasantly surprised to find the choir is also a new tool of evangelization for the ministry, which began as a monthly Mass celebrated by Father Jose Duvan Gonzalez in 1997.

“The parents are coming and they’re staying because they want to see their children. We took some photos when they were singing and they are very proud of them … They said that they weren’t interested, but now that the children are in the choir they like to come. I think the children make them come. They say, ‘We have to go to Mass.’ They’re very proud of them, even the old people. It’s a different atmosphere. It’s like angels. Everybody smiles and watches them,” she said.

Many young evangelists, ages 5-13, are pleased to see their “padres” pack the pews.

“As we sing we’re always praying and we are happy and they are very happy about it,” Vargas said. “We are teaching them how to pray and they are following the Mass very closely. They feel proud about it … We read sometimes. We do the first reading and the psalm and they are very happy about it. Everybody wants to do it even though some don’t know how to read in Spanish. I always have a waiting list.”

Father Joseph Mullakkara, MSFS, a parochial vicar who leads the Hispanic ministry and who initiated the choir back in February as a way to involve the children more, has found that their joy is infectious.

“You can see it in their faces. You can see the glow of participating, the glow of joy when the children sing,” said Father Mullakkara, a native of India. “The parents are helping and assisting in coordinating, providing parental support to the music director, Carlos,” he said.

While the majority of the Hispanics are from Mexico, countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica and Colombia are also represented, and Father Mullakkara is working to promote unity among the different nationalities, which tend to stick with their own.

But he appreciates their new willingness to participate.

“I enjoy its diversity. They are from different countries and also are really simple and dedicated people and they do any kind of service. They are really disposed to help in various ways. They are not in a hurry; they come for Mass and they stay.”

And he is pleased to see the young adults becoming more active in other aspects of parish life, including prayer groups, Bible studies and retreats. He also hopes to start a youth Mass to get teens more interested in their faith.

Another Hispanic ministry leader, Sister Xenia Gonzalez, MAG, reported that 30 youth have already signed up for an upcoming retreat and that 32 adults are participating in a new Bible study for Hispanic ministry leaders. She is grateful to have priests like Father Mullakkara and the pastor, Father Al Jowdy, who offer “muchísimo” support in the ministry. And she’s strategizing on other ways to bring back the padres.

“This year we are going to do activities for children in catechesis during the Mass so that the parents bring them to Mass. It’s another way to evangelize.”