Reflection for Catherine Kessler's Mass of Christian Burial
November 23, 1998, Joan Mitchell, CSJ

We have come to celebrate the life of someone we love, our sister Catherine, someone
we are very unready have leave us. Cath lived the Magnificat. Mary chose this gospel
reading. Cath lived Amen to endless birth in her own life and in her labor to bring forth
the impossible in us her singers and students, her fragile instrument.

Let's sing one verse: "Magnificat anima mea Dominum; et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo
salutari meo."

The arsis-the upbeat, pure elan lifting off in melody, the jig, opening up and out to
transcendence, to beauty, to what we can touch of God in sound.

Some of what Cath taught was very simple. "What does this word mean?" "Rejoice,"
someone bravely says. Then why are you singing it-She spent her life of reflecting on the
scriptures line by line, note by note bringing the Word alive in melody and in life.

In August of 1940 Cath was among the St. Joseph Academy girls who came out to St.
Catherine's to wait tables and help out for August retreat. Mary Davida remembers
hearing someone playing the violin so beautifully and following the sound to where Cath
was playing and asking if she could play with her. Cath was used to playing with her
sister Helen as the pianist and Davida was used to accompanying her sister Mary Flo
who played the violin. After playing one measure together of the "Cavatini" by Raff, the
rest is history-58 years of having only to point to a key.

Cath is one of the people we all know best in the community because she played from
her deepest self; we have known her intimately every time she played "Ave Maria."

I think Cath was mystic. She came whole rather than in parts or with fronts of any kind,
unprotected, unveneered, refreshed by any beauty, ready to help every new singer that
turned up in her group find that same place within where body and self and spirit could
come together.

That center is somehow connected with diaphragm. The mystics methods were great
fun. To find the diaphragm you pant like a dog and can fill that holy space within that is
your own breath and send it forth in melody or words that you mean and feel.

When you do, you experienced what the ministry of this Sister of St. Joseph was all
about-the liberation of your gifts for the common song, the common joy, the common
good.

Many people think I was born being articulate. Not true. It's only since the day of my
sophomore year at St. Catherine's when she sat for two hours in a chair on one side of
her studio and I sat in the other chair on the other side and she waiting until I could
speak for myself. This was only the beginning of teaching me to perform-to face fear, to
expect it, but to act, speak, sing nonetheless, to be free.

Once you experienced in one of her choirs the energy and beauty that a chord coming
into perfect harmony releases and what a motley group of people can do together, your
life was never the same. You had been part of something much bigger than yourself. The
liturgical choir, madrigals, Chambers, the sesquicentennial choir, the Derham Christmas
celebrations. A chord coming into pitch has a transcendence resonance that opens the
spirit to more that can be. It sets the harmonics ringing. We hear the octaves of the
chord up the scale, beyond our range of hearing but where she sings and she plays now
in the choir that is holy communion.

To celebrate Cath's life we will listen to Rita Commondore sing the "Magnificat," the
impossible coming to be in her, in us because of her.

If you have questions or comments about this reflection, please contact the
Alumnae Association office by e-mail at: Alumnae@stkate.edu

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