Hallelujah!

My wife sent me an email a few weeks ago about a “flashmob Hallelujah chorus.” These things have been happening in a few parts of the country at least since last year. There are links below to the YouTube of this flashmob and to my interview with a participant, so read on!

Funded as part of the “Random Acts of Culture” program by the Knight foundation, the general idea, for this type of flashmob, is to plant a choral group, disguised as shoppers or whatever, in a crowded public place. They break into Handel’s famous Hallelujah Chorus (from the Messiah), as people around them basically are awestruck. Very cool idea.

The Youtube clip Cathy sent to me—come back here after you watch it!—was from a group of choirs, professional and community choirs in Philadelphia, who staged their act at Macy’s, home of the famous Wanamaker pipe organ, on October 30. It moved me to tears, and I’ve heard of similar reactions from others (there were 6 million+ views when I last checked).

A heart-moving question drove my reaction: Can’t we put aside the fussing, the competing, the working, the worrying, the struggle in our lives and just be open to beauty?

It begs the question, especially during Advent: How is God breaking into our lives? Right in front of our faces? All around us? It’s the kind of question St. Francis asked; it’s what we at St. Anthony Messenger help our readers, listeners and viewers to ask.

Interview With a Participant

SAM editor that I am, I started thinking: There has to be a Catholic angle to this. I carefully studied the credits at the clip’s end, and, sure enough, spotted a Catholic school. So I searched the Web, got on the phone and eventually was connected to Camden Catholic choir director Nancy Warner Keiser. Her son sings with the Philadelphia Opera, which was involved in this Random Act of Culture.

Nancy enlisted her school liturgical group, and another she leads at a nearby parish: “We went, were given about a half-hour prep, given shopping bags, buttons that said ‘Random Acts of Culture’ and we sang the Messiah!” she explains. Needless to say, she adds, it was “a lot of fun.”

You can hear my 5-minute interview with here at the link below, and watch the fun performance on the link above that, but let me leave you with something she said, after telling me about the many public events her choirs sing: “You don’t do things for any kind of reward,” she said. “The kids just love to sing. They love to use the gift God gave them to share with other people.”

There’s something for all us to consider as Advent yields to Christmas, the feast of the Incarnation, God’s gift to us, in the coming days.

Here’s a link to the YouTube clip.

Here’s a link to my interview with Nancy.

Top photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Opera Company

About the Author

John Feister

John Feister is editor in chief of St. Anthony Messenger magazine and other periodicals at Franciscan Media. He has a B.A. in American Studies from University of Dayton, and master's degrees in Humanities and in Theology from Xavier University. He writes and edits for various publications and contributes to American Catholic Radio. He is married with three sons. His new book, Thank You, Sisters: Stories of Women Religious and How They Enrich Our Lives (Franciscan Media) will be published early in 2013.