From a Choir Director to a Loving Pastor

In the recent issue of the Catholic Magazine, a priest who had spent most of his early life in the pursuit of musical knowledge gives an apologia for his life that was extremely interesting and insightful. He wanted to take a break from his seminary studies to study music but was told to finish seminary first. After a short time in pastoral work, he went on to study music in Italy, in the States, as well as here in Korea.

In the article he mentions that he was a professional musician who, after many years teaching music in the seminary and college, was assigned to a parish where he was able to use the music skills he had learned. But this time the members of the choir were his parishioners. However, this did nothing to change his method of teaching: when they did not do what he wanted--he would get angry. After all, he told himself, when he was teaching music that was the way he dealt with the members of the choir. He was the one who would point out the tone, the breathing, the timber, the timing, and when they were not right he would have them practice until they were right. He would not listen to objections. There was one way of doing it--his way--and he would push them until it was achieved.

Because of this drive for perfection, he had great difficulty in the parish dealing with people who didn't see it his way, especially those who weren’t interested in perfection. Doing it passably, adequately, was not to his taste. He could not accept the thinking that doing something in any fashion was proper. In the parish, he did not see the good that parishioners were doing but only the things that needed correction. Instead of praising, he was always criticizing. When he asked that something be done and he did not get the kind of response he was expecting, the good relationship with the person disappeared, replaced with his own angry response.

With this kind of relationship with the people of his parish, what kind of response could he expect to receive? Questions like this finally forced him to face himself as he was being seen by his parishioners: not a very loving pastor who took pains to be concerned with his parishioners but a pastor who was always finding fault. It was a revelation to him but one that made him realize that he didn’t have the necessary finesse that was necessary to deal with people successfuly. It came late but he wanted to make a change and did so by taking courses to improve his social skillls.

He took the Seven Habits Workshop, the Carnegie Training Programs, and kept up on his reading--applying all of it to his parish work. He knows now that it is possible to change, and it was impressive to see his humility when he realized that the problems he had were not the fault of the parishioners. It was a new way of seeing for him, and he was grateful for the change. In the article, he pointed out that he has become the proselytizer of a new way of dealing with others. Seeing the change in himself, he wants all of us to realize that to change is a very normal part of life. When our Christians are being changed for the better, so do those in pastoral work need to change.