I Am Wonderful, God Loves Me

Although Father Mark was truly beloved throughout his 18 year stint as St. Joe’s pastor, his catch-phrase that he taught everybody to proclaim in response to his question “How are you?” produced mixed emotions. Some thought it was endearing, other cringed – but no matter what you thought of it, you thought of it – it was widely famous. Bishop Hennessey tells a story of warning priests who had not previously met Fr. Mark to NOT ask him “how are you”. Now Father Mark has left our midst, and similar to Jesus, left it for his followers to spread his version of His message.

It all started back in December. The Teen Mass Band had been given a formal name (Psalm 151), we were getting good attendance (both in the choir section and in the pews) and a number of the girls were getting very competent at finding harmonies. Many of our songs were sounding very strong and tight. With the unexpected passing of Father Mark and the state of uncertainty surrounding consolidations and temporary administrators and such, there was a lot of tension and worry floating around. I had it in my mind that we should come up with a song as a tribute to Fr. Mark and his signature phrase “I am wonderful, God loves me”as a tribute, and to offer a sense of closure which still felt like was missing for so many people. So, I scratched out some lyrics and over the course of about a week had refined them some. I had to keep reverting back to asking “what was the message behind the phrase?” that can be carried on by those who hear it.  As a band, we were all caught up in preparing Christmas songs for our now annual Christmas Eve Mass, which is a big deal for the band with cramped playing conditions, standing room only crowds, and of course plain old Christmas excitement. I decided that as a special gift to my three most talented and dedicated girls, that as a special secret project I would give them the lyrics and challenge them to come up with the music and arrangement. I did not want the song to be stuck sounding like the “same old” as after 40 years of attempting to write songs, there is a tendency to be predictable and stale. So by having young collaborators with their own style and taste and talent, I could expect something uniquely fresh. From the moment I conceived of this plan, I had full faith that they could successfully pull it off, and of course I could always interject if I deemed it necessary. When Christmas Eve Mass was finished, and people had greeted and congratulated the kids and myself on a job well done, I called the chosen three girls aside. Naturally, they initially were nervously giggly as if they feared they were in trouble for something. When I informed them of my plan and handed them the lyrics, they were giddy. Over the next couple of weeks, they had individually conceived some ideas of what the music should sound like. When one evening Maddie played an interpretation for us the everybody was impressed and pleased. Not long thereafter, the three – Maddie, Casey and Ansley – held a sleep-over together to really focus and put the song together. Since then, for numerous reasons and individual schedule conflicts, we rarely had them all together at one time with spare time to really break it down. None-the-less, from what I had heard, I took a chance and contacted an old friend who is part owner in a professional recording studio and asked what it would take to get them in and attempt to record. Apparently what it took was simply for me to ask (ask, and you shall receive). So with a date set, I needed to push harder to get this song more firmly constructed. I recorded Maddie playing her version of it, I incorporated some of the lyrical changes she had, added the chord changes she used, and we tried again. With some back and forth, I tweaked some of the lyrical changes they had made, revised the final chorus and ironed out a couple of transitions. In practice, by happenstance without any of the three in attendance, I went through the song with those who were present and it came out respectably well. As it was now approaching March, I was getting antsy to perform the song for real, under pressure of a listening audience, knowing that we want this thing firmly formed before we walk into a recording studio. Lent was fast approaching, with an Ash Wednesday performance on our calendar along with Confirmation Masses, and I felt that these would be excellent opportunities to put this song out there to be heard. But Ash Wednesday would be a much wider sampling of parishioners – not just the typical Sunday Night Youth Mass crowd. I had the Ash Wednesday music coordinator insert our song as a prelude before Mass starts. Still, I wanted our regulars to be the first to hear it, so I included as the Sunday night meditation song – the most prominent time during Mass when people are just quiet with no distractions. When we arrived ahead of time for our usual practice/warmup we went through the latest version that I had compiled – which was the first time Maddie, Casey and Ansley had encountered it this format. They naturally managed to fall back into doing the older version that they originally came up with, and struggled with some of the revised phrasing and chord / melody transitions. Some give and take smoothed it out some. Then with about 15 minutes left before Mass, Maddie got cold feet and suggested we wait until another day to debut it. I knew in my heart that they could pull it off well enough, and that we needed to do it now so that Ash Wednesday wouldn’t be our first attempt. So I simply announced that it was too late to back down. It was in the lyric handouts, we were doing it, and they had time to practice it one more time.

I have kidded for a while that it is no impressive thing to bring Mrs. Keane and Mrs. Lee to tears with a song, and that our goal was to get an entire parish reaching for the Kleenex. Communion ended, the band reassembled and at the ready. Nervous deep breathes were taken, and – unlike any other song we do – the drummers did not drum, I did not sing. With only Casey’s piano and Casey, Maddie, Ansley and Shannon’s voices, a large majority of the audience was brought to tears. Fr. Hobson stood and turned to the band and expressed how impressed he was and what a wonderful song it was, and read off the names of the girls who were credited with composing it. I know the band is not supposed to get an ovation during Mass, and our audience had complied to this point, but with Fr. Hobson leading them on, a standing ovation quickly evolved. Many cried, especially proud band parents. Many went out of their way after Mass to commend or thank the girls. 20 minutes after Mass, Mrs. Keane was still having trouble composing herself.


Encore on Ash Wednesday – let’s see how well we can repeat our success.

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