Biography

The St. Bernard Choir is made up of about thirty people of various ages who contribute to the animation of the liturgical celebrations of the Parish and participate in choral performances during the various singing events organized within our Diocese and neighboring Dioceses, as well as in events and parish festivals.

Usually the singing group animates the two Sunday morning celebrations, the solemn masses of the Christmas and Easter period and the particulate celebrations on the occasion of Communions and Confirmations, of the Patron Saint, etc.

Choral singing is supported by guitars and keyboards, but we are always looking for new people, new instruments to integrate into the Group and new songs to learn to make the experience of singing richer and more engaging and to make sure that the liturgical musical animation is increasingly supportive of the liturgy itself and knows how to best emphasize the themes and times that the liturgy proposes.

From the Confessions of St. Augustine:
“The pleasures of hearing had ensnared and subjugated me with greater tenacity, but You have dissolved and freed me from it. Even now, I must confess, from the melodies that are inspired by your words and are sung by a beautiful voice I let myself be caressed a little, certainly not so much as to lose myself, indeed with the possibility of detaching myself from it, if I want it. However, those songs, enlivened by the holiness of the words, to reach me, seek in my spirit a dignified corner, and I struggle to offer them a convenient one. Sometimes then it seems to me to grant them more honor than it is convenient, when I have the impression that our souls are driven into the flame of piety more devoutly and more ardently by those holy words if accompanied by song than when they are not; and that all the feelings of our spirit, according to their nature, find in the voice and in the song their own rhythm, from which they are awakened as if by a hidden affinity. But this delight in meaning, which should never weaken the spirit, often deceives me, because the auditory sensation is not accompanied by the mind by being content with second place, but instead tries to precede and guide it, it that only out of respect for the mind has been introduced. And in this without realizing it I sin, but I am then aware of it.
Sometimes, however, for exaggerated fear of this danger, I exceed in severity, so much so that, when, I would like to keep away from my ears, and from the meetings of the faithful, every melody of those sweet songs with which it accompanies the recitation of the psalms of David, and it seems to me safer the method of the bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, of whom I have often heard said that he wanted to follow such a linear modulation in the singing of the Psalms that was closer to a recitation than to a real song.
However, when the memory of the tears I shed listening to the songs of your Church in the early days of my conversion comes back to me; and even now, when I feel moved not so much by the song as by what is sung, if the performance is done by a beautiful voice and with an appropriate modulation, I must admit again the great usefulness of this institution. 
So I am somewhat uncertain between the danger that that enjoyment can bring. the experience of its usefulness; and, without giving a categorical judgment, I incline to approve the use of singing in churches, so that the pleasure of the ears raises the rather weak souls towards fervor. However, if I happen to be moved more by the song than by the words, I confess to sinning and deserving punishment: then I would prefer not to hear more singing. That’s where I am!”

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