The room is buzzing with anticipatory energy, people leaning across their seats to greet friends they haven’t seen in a while, waving and smiling, all dressed in festive, glittering outfits. The lights slowly fade in and out. Once. Twice. A signal to everyone to find their seats. It’s time to begin.
I’m watching everyone sit down from the back of the theater in my perch in the audio booth. I click into my communication headset that connects all of the crew. “Everyone ready to bring some Christmas joy?” Sr. Carly Paula, running the lights, video, and the audio track, looks over at me from across the booth and says into her headphones, “Let’s do it!” The voice of another crew member backstage comes through, “We’re ready when you are!” I nod at Sr. Carly Paula as she hits the button on the track and simultaneously says into her headset, “Ready, and go.” The curtains open and I push the faders on the audio consul as the sisters walk out onto the stage to begin the first Christmas concert of the season.
The Christmas concerts that we put on every year in a handful of cities across the United States are a beautiful and catechetical moment, since a concert is an easy thing to invite people to who perhaps might not be practicing their faith for whatever reason. The Sisters’ singing, joy, and presence is a witness to the joy and anticipation of God’s presence that is so characteristic of the Christmas season.
As the audio tech Sister, I love looking over the crowd before the concert starts and watching the transformation from buzzing excitement at the beginning of the program to a deep-seated peace and joy by the time people stand up to leave. Over the years, many people have shared with me how they came in with certain expectations and they left instead with a deep sense of peace and the knowledge that God deeply loves them. This is all we ever want from our concerts. We want people to encounter Jesus—to meet him through the music and the love that the sisters have.
Sister Carly Paula shared with me her experience at the concerts: “Every winter you’ll find me on concert with my Sisters, but I’m not singing, I’m in the tech booth in the back of the theater pushing buttons with the rest of the crew to make sure people can see and hear the Sisters during the concert. It’s a great place to be to witness the concert and the way people are affected by the singing of my Sisters….“
“One thing that is in my heart as I look out at the crowd is I keep placing them before the Lord—wherever people are at that day or whatever they are experiencing at the moment this Christmas season. I pray that tonight at the concert would be a night in which they really experience a particular grace of God, that God comes to meet them in a special way….
“As a tech person, my focus is helping the concert to go off without a hitch. Whatever I do with the sound and the video aspects of the concert I hope to create an environment and an ambient in which people can hear God’s voice speaking to them personally and clearly in whatever way God speaks to them, whatever it is that they need to hear at this point in their life. The number one way the voice of God comes through at a concert with the Daughters of St. Paul is through my Sisters and their voices….
“Watching a concert from my position I always see the little details: maybe someone forgot a line, or another Sister is slightly off key, or someone else might have missed their cue. Even though these are things I’m supposed to pay attention to, I have learned over the years that the people don’t see these things. In way, it’s like God ‘autocorrects’ whatever stressful thing might be happening in the background. During the concert I pray for my Sisters, that they can just be themselves, be relaxed, and be a conduit of God’s love and God’s grace to others that night.”
Our Christmas concerts for 2024 have wrapped up, but each person who attended them is still in our hearts and prayers and will be for quite a while. How can we forget the special intentions, the stories, the tears, the laughter…. It is a beautiful gift to walk with people for that night of the concert, and to carry them with us in memory and prayer for weeks and months afterward.
Sister Mary Martha (alto, stationed in Metairie, LA) said that when she finishes a concert she feels “…wonder. I feel a great wonder at God’s graciousness and love which is so powerful and real. God shows himself mightily and sweetly, using his poor earthen vessels to awaken hope and joy through our singing. So, I feel great wonder and so much gratitude for witnessing his loving presence.”
