Choirmaster Ger to get Papal honour at Festival Mass
A CHANGE of time and venue has been announced for this year’s Festival Mass which will take place in Bride Street at 11 a.m. on Sunday, October 28 and will see organist and choirmaster Ger Lawlor, who is also Festival Chairman, presented with a Papal honor for his services to the church.
The annual Mass of Thanksgiving is a special occasion which features musical performances by opera singers from the festival and is attended by Festival staff, cast and audience members and local dignitaries.
The Mass will be extra special as Mr. Lawlor will be presented with the high honour of a ‘Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice’ by Bishop Denis Brennan to mark 40 years of work as an organist and choirmaster in Bride Street Church and the parish of Wexford which has a strong tradition of classical sacred music.
‘I am delighted and pleasantly surprised to be receiving the honour. I see the role of church musicians as being a way to bring people into a more spiritual place, with a different music for the seasons of the church year’, said Ger.
‘In recent years, the likes of our Good Friday and Christmas liturgies in particular attract large numbers of people who comment on the way that the music touches and grounds them’, he said.
At the Festival Mass, church choirs will be joined by soloists from the Opera Festival and this year’s music choice will represent a personal selection of music which has a particular resonance for Ger in relation to his work with the church and also the Festival for the past four decades.
The ‘Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice’ is a decoration of honour just below a Papal Knighthood which is conferred on lay people and clergy for distinguished service to the Catholic Church .
Among the notable Irish recipients were the late Bernadette Greevy, and W.H. Grattan Flood, historian and organist of Enniscorthy Cathedral.