News - September 2023

Greetings! I’m Mary Jo “MJ” McConnell, celebrating my one year anniversary as a choir member. My “art” as an actor/singer had been paused during the pandemic and big move from NYC to San Francisco…I found it here.

In the last weeks, I’ve reintroduced Nana, my Sicilian grandmother, to the parish. She’s the one who lovingly required her entire family to gather around her dinner table the first Sunday of every month for a feast of the best veal cutlets, pizza, eggplant, spaghetti and meatballs, and, on the most special occasions, her cannoli. It was the place (the experience!) where we learned a lot about what it is to be family.

I was attracted by the beauty of St Ignatius choir's singing at the Requiem mass last year, and my sister also sang there, so I asked to join. As I live far from church, I hoped to commit only a week at a time. At the first choir rehearsal, I was impressed by how wonderful people sang and eventually more by their friendship and kindness.

Pipe organs have always played an important part in the musical life at St. Ignatius. The Market Street church contained an instrument built by the Hook Brothers of Boston, a major builder of the 19th century. This organ was moved to the new church on Van Ness Avenue when that church opened in 1880, but was replaced in 1896 with an organ built by Farrand & Votey of Detroit, builders of the organ for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

If you ask Barbara, she will tell you why I joined the choir. She will say I was having a hard time sitting still in the pew with my wriggly fidgety children who were driving me crazy with all their wriggling and fidgeting during mass. She will tell you she pleasantly suggested I join the choir.

Maura Lafferty, music minister at St. Ignatius Parish, has "had the occasion to know musicians associated with major symphonies and professional choral societies on the West Coast, as well as former directors of the music program at St. Ignatius." Why is she a music minister? She quotes a Jesuit who served with St. Ignatius for a few years: “Maggie Warner is a treasure.” Read her piece and bring your talent to church!

It’s been nearly five months since the scaffolding began to rise around our beloved St. Ignatius Church. It’s rather awe-inspiring to think that it’s been 110 years since that last happened! I think that the symmetry and the black protective netting have a beauty unto themselves.