By Alphonsus Chern
KUCHING — With pray, play, work as their ethos, the members of the Cathedral Choir of Saint Gregory the Great filled each day with prayer and worship, bonded over food and fellowship, and enjoyed the city’s rich cultural heritage.
The 20-odd choristers began their four-day trip with an early-morning climb of Mount Singai in Bau, making the Stations of the Cross. At the chapel, they chanted the Divine Office and celebrated a Mass with Fr Delphin Ndungu, SDB from the Church of the Holy Trinity.
The next day, the St Gregory Choir, which serves at the Sunday 6pm Mass at Singapore’s Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, visited the Sarawak Cultural Village, toured the Archdiocesan History Gallery and Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, and sang the First Friday Mass celebrated by Archbishop Simon Poh.
At the end of the Mass, the choir presented Archbishop Poh and the Catholics of Kuching with a relic of the Jubilee Year – a Holy Door brick from the Archbasilica of St John Lateran in Rome.
“The brick is inscribed with the name of Pope Francis and was used to seal the Holy Door of the Lateran Basilica between Jubilees,” said the choir’s music director Alphonsus Chern. “It is a tangible connection between our mother Church in Rome and the Cathedral of Kuching, and we offer it to the faithful here as a token of our friendship and esteem.”
On Saturday, the choir’s penultimate day of pilgrimage, members were given a tour of the magnificent neo-Gothic St Peter’s Church Padungan by rector Fr Vincent Chin. The choristers then joined the resident choir conducted by Mr Stephen Chin to sing at the Sunset Mass.
During Communion, the St Gregory Choir presented two motets – Ave Verum Corpus (Hail True Body) composed by Mr Chern in honour of the Sacred Presence and Tu es Petrus (You are Peter) by Palestrina, whose 500th birth anniversary falls this year.
As the procession of priest and servers made their way down the nave, the Church resounded with a triumphant rendition of the Jubilee Hymn Pilgrims of Hope by both choir and congregation.
The St Gregory Choir then presented Fr Chin with a gold reliquary – bearing the triple tiara and crossed keys symbolising the papacy – as a gift to the parish.
Sharing his thoughts on the visit, Fr Chin said he “really felt the congregation participate most actively in singing during the Mass.”
Choir master Mr Chin echoed the words of Saint Augustine: “To sing well is to pray twice. We hope the beautiful voices of the St Gregory Choir combined with our St Peter’s Sunset Mass Choir will inspire those among our faithful to come forward and share their talents in praising the Lord.”
Both choirs later bonded over a Chinese dinner, ending the evening with heartfelt singing of the national anthem Negaraku.
