Fred Murphy R.I.P
I would like to dedicated this post to a man I admired a lot. Let me recall a couple of memories I still treasure and I hope my fading memory doesn’t take these memories away from me. Very often I heard people say that Fred played the organ prayerfully. I agree that sitting there at the organ he wasn’t simply playing music notations from the hymnbook but he was playing what he had prayed. The tune he played was his faith in Jesus. Last year during the overnight adoration of the Blessed Sacrament after the Mass of the Lord Supper I went to the church to spend some time at prayer. It was late but I found Jean and Fred sitting very close to the tabernacle in the Altar of Repose. When I saw Fred, first I wanted to have a chat with him about some details of the God Friday Service that he was to play at. However I never had that chat with him as I was too shy to interrupt his chat with Christ. He was immersed so deeply in prayer that made me so captivated. I took a photo that night which I treasure as another Easter Story of Christ coming to converse with his disciple.
The second thing I was always moved by was Fred’s nervousness as he was playing at Mass. We could think that after such a long time of being an organist it should be a piece of cake for him but what I came to believe was that Fred had never grown accustomed to his ministry. Every service was always like the first time when he played at Mass years ago. I only pray so that he could intercede for me to have this good nervousness when I approach the altar to celebrate Mass as if it were my first Mass ever. A few weeks ago at Easter I heard Fred complained for the first time and the reason was that he wasn’t able
to be with us at the celebrations in the church. I suspect that even Jesus felt uneasy about that, that’s why He called Fred to himself in Eastertide so that he could harvest the fruits of Easter for all eternity.
I would like to dedicated this post to a man I admired a lot. Let me recall a couple of memories I still treasure and I hope my fading memory doesn’t take these memories away from me. Very often I heard people say that Fred played the organ prayerfully. I agree that sitting there at the organ he wasn’t simply playing music notations from the hymnbook but he was playing what he had prayed. The tune he played was his faith in Jesus. Last year during the overnight adoration of the Blessed Sacrament after the Mass of the Lord Supper I went to the church to spend some time at prayer. It was late but I found Jean and Fred sitting very close to the tabernacle in the Altar of Repose. When I saw Fred, first I wanted to have a chat with him about some details of the God Friday Service that he was to play at. However I never had that chat with him as I was too shy to interrupt his chat with Christ. He was immersed so deeply in prayer that made me so captivated. I took a photo that night which I treasure as another Easter Story of Christ coming to converse with his disciple.
The second thing I was always moved by was Fred’s nervousness as he was playing at Mass. We could think that after such a long time of being an organist it should be a piece of cake for him but what I came to believe was that Fred had never grown accustomed to his ministry. Every service was always like the first time when he played at Mass years ago. I only pray so that he could intercede for me to have this good nervousness when I approach the altar to celebrate Mass as if it were my first Mass ever. A few weeks ago at Easter I heard Fred complained for the first time and the reason was that he wasn’t able
to be with us at the celebrations in the church. I suspect that even Jesus felt uneasy about that, that’s why He called Fred to himself in Eastertide so that he could harvest the fruits of Easter for all eternity.
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