Parishioners from all over the diocese came out to the 2010 Liturgical Conference at St. Jude Thaddeus, Beaumont, June 4-5. The keynote speaker Father Ed Foley spoke in several sessions about different aspects of the Mass.
He focused his talks on getting to the root of the Mass in its various stages. He spoke about love during his talk on the liturgy of the word.
“If we’re reading well and if we’re listening well then we should see that at the heart of every word is a love story between God and ourselves. God is chasing us. He’s an insomniac up at night worrying about us,” Father Foley said.
On both days attendees broke into various workshops focusing on different aspects of worship after the keynote sessions.
Debbie Prihoda, choir director at Msgr. Kelly Catholic High School, Beaumont, presented a workshop titled Music 101.
“A lot of you think you can’t read music or think that it’s too late to learn but it’s not. You’re already reading music and you just don’t know it. Realizing what you know will strengthen your confidence as a singer in your music ministry,” Prihoda said.
Jesús Abrego, director of Hispanic Ministry for the Diocese of Beaumont, focused his workshop on Hispanic worship and culture.
“Over 50 percent of Catholics under the age of 25 in the U.S. are Hispanic. They are the future of the church in America, and you’re going to find that the challenge in finding common ground won’t be the language but the culture,” Abrego said.
Rosalind Sanchez, director of Worship and the organizer of the conference closed the last day with a prayer and a thank you to all those who attended and those who helped.
“I know we’ve all learned a lot this weekend, and we’ve grown in our spiritual journey. Thank you all for coming out and making this possible,” Sanchez said.
