April 27, 2026

Psalm 33 music ministry holds spring concert at St. Brigid’s in Amherst

REGIONAL
By Carolee McGrath

Psalm 33 Music Ministry poses for a picture with members of the Newman Catholic Center community at a concert held Friday, April 24 at St. Brigid Parish in Amherst.

AMHERST – Psalm 33 Music Ministry held their second annual spring concert inside the parish center at St. Brigid Parish in Amherst, Friday, April 24. The concert, “Sing a New Song,” was put on by the Newman Catholic Center at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Psalm 33, which plays at events and Masses all across the Diocese of Springfield, played popular praise and worship songs. 

“I’m a peer minister, so we are putting this on. I think it’s important to have a connection through different parts of the diocese and also to connect the college aged youth,” said Sarah Moriarty, a junior at UMass and longtime member of Psalm 33, which is based out of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Parish in Westfield.

Moriarty sings and plays the keyboard and mandolin for the group. She also plays at Adoration at the Newman Center, in addition to her role as a peer minister.

“I think generally it’s a good experience to have people praise and worship in a different way than we usually do,” she said. “I just feel really close to God. I feel like he is speaking through me in a way when I sing. It’s a good connection to have. In singing, it’s a heightened type of prayer for me,” she said.

Forty people were in attendance as Psalm 33 performed favorites such as “Build My Life,” “I Believe for It,” and “I Thank God,” which got people on their feet dancing.

The program included talks by Focus Missionaries, and Father Valentine Nworah, the director of the Newman Center and pastor of St. Brigid Parish.

“So, this is important for the students because we know in this time and age, contemporary Christian music and of course, contemporary Christian concerts are everywhere. We see how that culture is gradually making its way into the tradition of the Church where the young people still want to be vibrant, rejoice in their faith, be able to sing and praise and worship the Lord,” said Father Nworah, who was leading the dancing and praise.

“However, the Catholic liturgy is designed in a way that it doesn’t really give room for that. So, an occasion like this, a concert, it’s outside of the chapel, outside the liturgy, it’s not within the Mass, not within Adoration, it’s an event of its own where young people will have the freedom to praise the Lord and still express themselves, connecting spiritually with the music and also the joy,” he said.

The Newman Center has also been part of the recent surge in new Catholics. Twenty young men and women entered the Catholic Church at the Easter vigil, Saturday, April 4, at St. Brigid Parish.

“It’s not only here in Amherst, not only here in America but across the world. It’s happening in France, in Africa, in different continents of the world that people are making this journey returning back to faith and returning back to God. It’s really wonderful for us that we also experienced that here in our community to see people make that journey back to the Lord, which is wonderful,” Father Nworah said.

The number of new Catholics is up across the diocese. Two-hundred-seventy-nine people entered the Catholic Church at the Easter vigil.

“I think it’s the Lord himself. It is the prophecy the Lord gave. He said ‘where I am raised up, I will draw many men and women to myself.’ And I think what the church has continued to do over the years is to raise the Lord, Jesus in the Eucharist, raise him in the crucifix to raise him in the liturgy. It is the Lord himself drawing people back to himself,” he said.

A video version of this story will be featured on an upcoming edition of “Real to Reel,” which airs Saturday evenings at 7 p.m. on WWLP-22NEWS.