Courtney McGrailRachel Beard talks to Sr Marie Dunne about how her music has strengthened her faith
Rachel Beard
“I didn’t even realise I could compose,” Sr Marie Dunne says of her work in music ministry. “I was asked to write a song for something, and it went very well. Then I wrote one for our order, then I wrote one for children and they all started coming together.”
Although she feels she fell into composing over the course of her 43 years in the Holy Faith Sisters, Sr Marie’s music is now reaching people all over the world.
“It was natural,” she says. “Then I discovered that I could write melodies and people were telling me and were encouraging me to go for it so my music is used in different parts of the world now, different occasions, for celebrating Mass on Sunday and different events.”
Music has been a part of Sr Marie’s life since she was a girl going to a Holy Faith Sisters school.
“My life is very much married to music,” she says. “And I started learning music in the convent as a child and maybe that environment drew me. I just loved playing the piano. I played the piano every day.”
Faith, too, has always been an important part of Sr Marie’s life.
“It wasn’t a black and white decision,” she says. “I always felt that there were little pieces of God touching me in some way. It’s hard to understand it. Some of my friends, they might have thought I was crazy.”
Decision
Sr Marie has never regretted her decision to join the Holy Faith Sisters 43 years ago. “It just seemed right,” she says. “There’s no reason not to be there, and I’ve always been happy as a religious sister.”
Her love for music has always been connected to her love for God, so merging the two seemed natural for Sr Marie.
“I loved the Church music from the time I was a child,” she says. “As a child, I used to love to go to religious services to hear the music. That’s a new insight there for me.”
Sr Marie worked in education for most of her years with Holy Faith Sisters, but wherever she was, she always found a way to share her love of music.
“I brought music everywhere I went but that had a huge impact on me,” she says. “Because I had responsibility for the choir, the adult choir, four parts.
“I nearly died when I was asked to take a four-part choir. Now I studied music and liturgy and liturgical music, and I was very involved in music and the folk group and I formed the music society.”
Although she’s worked in education for so long, Sr Marie feels she’s found her true calling with her work in musical ministry.
“I’ve moved on from education, education in general,” she says. “I wanted to be a primary school teacher. Faith is very important, and sacraments are very important, but I think also being a loving presence wherever I was, with children, with parents. To try and bring God without forcing God’s presence into a situation.”
Sr Marie finds her new job working in musical ministry with Holy Faith Sisters very rewarding both musically and spiritually.
“I work with people with special needs,” she says. “I work in different congregations now, St John of God Services and children who have life-limiting conditions, I do music therapy with them. I do music therapy with adults with Alzheimer’s.”
Sr Marie calls her music “a tool for faith”.
“We love to go to church,” she says. “We love to hear good singing, so music is so important. Also people I’m working with, with Alzheimer’s, people do music with them and it just brings back their whole reality. It just brings them back to where they were.”
Her current work keeps Sr Marie busy, but she still finds time to compose music for special occasions when she has the chance.
“Vocations Ireland, a few years ago, about eight years, I wrote a song, You Will Be My Witnesses,” she says. “The Year of Religious Life last year, I composed a song. So a lot of Mass settings and a lot of inspirational music, that’s what I’m trying to do now, is touch people through music and faith.”
Message
Sr Marie uses her music as a way to further the message of the Holy Faith Sisters.
“I think my own congregation, that’s what we’d want to do is to meet people where they’re at,” she says. “Not to be people of judgement. To meet people where they’re at to bring God’s love where people are at and not on my terms. God works through all of us.”
Taking their inspiration from Pope Francis, the Holy Faith Sisters hope to keep spreading bringing God’s love to others.
“Our goals, I think, are to always look out for the other and to be people of justice and to reach to the people on the margins,” Sr Marie says. “I think to keep the conversation open is very important. Everybody has something to say, and I believe everybody reflects God in some way. I do think the greater God is love, and I think people deep down are good people, and we’ve got to honour that in people.”
Personally, Sr Marie is looking forward to continuing her work in the Church.
“For myself, I’m just hoping that I’ll have the health to keep bringing God’s love in a particular way through my music and my faith,” she says.