God upstaged singer's career

Priest's boffo voice praises God not the Phantom

By RENATO GANDIA
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

And instead of performing arias, he is singing in his baritone voice "Through him, with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. All glory and honour are yours Almighty Father, forever and ever."

Parishioners at St. Alphonsus in Peterborough, Ont., hear this whenever Father Paul Massel presides in their liturgies.

But step back about 40 years to a time when Massel was 10 years old, and a reporter asked him what he would be when he grows up. His answer was clear: a priest and a director.

In the end, he became an opera actor, spiritual caregiver and later, a priest.

"I knew when I was 10 years old that I was going to be a priest someday. I didn't know how I was going to get there. The journey was not direct," Massel, who was in Edmonton adjudicating at the Kiwanis Music Festival, told the WCR.

"Put it in God's hands and you will see where you need to be." - Paul Massel's mother

"At some point, I was going in all directions but I knew someday I would get there. I never doubted that it was going to happen," said the priest.

As a young boy he saw the priests in Toronto's St. Michael's Cathedral and he said, "I wanted to be a priest like them. I wanted to be a musician like them."

"It's the idea that everything happens for a reason," his mother would always say to him as a child.

"I have the music, the art, so I didn't see the road. I always felt that God has given me music." This made him believe that his calling was to be an artist.

"Put it in God's hands and you will see where you need to be."

The operatic actor

He attended Toronto Opera School and graduated with a diploma in opera performance. He then won a grant from Canada's Council for the Arts and studied in New York and worked with vocal coaches at the Metropolitan Opera.

Massel has been widely acclaimed in the United States and Canada for his outstanding performances in opera, music theatre and the concert stage. His career reached international prominence with principal roles in the Stratford Festival productions of The Mikado, The Gondoliers, Iolanthe and the Mirvish production of H.M.S. Pinafore.

These productions were broadcast on CBC-TV and toured England, Canada and the U.S. with the Tony award-winning Mikado being Massel's debut on Broadway.

"I had a career all over the world as a singer. The last gig I did was Mozart's Requiem all throughout Eastern Europe. I had a terrific career. Who would have thought that in 1994, I would have gone in the direction I did. I can't describe it."

Pastoral care

After five years of doing Phantom, he decided he needed a break from doing eight shows a week and just one week off a year. Given his involvement in caring for sick people, he thought the program in palliative care at Seneca College would be a breath of fresh air.

During his first year of study there, he found thoughts of the priesthood flowing through his mind. And at the same time, there was a Called by Name program in the Archdiocese of Toronto in which people identified parishioners who might have a vocation.

The deacon in Massel's parish came up to him and asked, "Do you ever think of becoming a priest?"

He replied, "Of course I thought about it many times."

Priesthood was always at the back of his mind. "But I thought God gave me this talent for music, so I better do one thing right, that was my sort of thinking."

His music in hand, Massel took philosophy courses at the University of Toronto to prepare himself for studying theology. When he finished, he enrolled in the theology program of St. Augustine Seminary as an external student.

His plans were to be a lay chaplain. With that in mind he studied clinical pastoral education and completed a year of residency at St. Michael's Hospital.

While doing that, he was faced with realities that made him strongly believe in the Catholic Church while at the same time discouraging him from considering the priesthood.

"The wonderful people that I served at the hospital, the families of the dying, took these big piles of sand between me and the priesthood."

Certain of his choice this time, he contacted Bishop James Leonard Doyle and said, "You know I've heard of this seminary in Boston, Pope John XXIII, a seminary for men on their second career."

Since he already had one year at St. Augustine, Doyle agreed to send him there. And, as they say, the rest is history.

Ordained in 2000, Massel also serves as the liturgist of the diocese.

As a priest-liturgist, he sees the interconnection between his art and his faith. "Faith and art are inseparable."

When he felt the call to the priesthood and decided to leave the theatre, people in theatre arts said, "Priesthood? Isn't this the wildest thing you've ever heard in your life?" And the theologians thought, "Actor?"

They both couldn't see the connection. But Massel tells the people, "My career hasn't changed at all. The arts have always been a tremendous spiritual experience for me and I believe for all artists, whether they are traditional churchgoers or mainline churchgoers or anything, the arts is a very spiritual place."

Spiritual link

"In fact when you engage in the stage you have the opportunity of discovering a reality that is far more true than the one we live in."

Massel believes that's what we do in our liturgies.

"We attempt to achieve what the apostle John was saying, "seeing through the eyes of faith," said the priest.

All his homilies during the Holy Week dealt with chronos and kairos, the sense of being in human time and the sense of being in eternal time.

"The stage is an eternal time. The altar is an eternal place. It's scandalous to the theologians when I say that about the stage. The actors don't understand when I say that "when we celebrate the Mass, we celebrate the same thing."

Blending faith and arts sometimes does not work for others.

"That's the difficulty for me - it's my experience in the arts that allows me to access this so well. Because entering the stage for 25 years, the stage has always been a place where your imagination works, where truth came alive. If someone hasn't had that experience, they can't experience as much on the altar. I believe that our ability to pray is very much connected to our imagination."

He concludes his thoughts with the caution that he believes most people's imaginations are atrophied because today's secular society leaves nothing to the imagination.

"If they atrophy, so does our ability to pray. It's the same thing."

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