Father Ernest

Fellowship with Boston Symphony helped him to realize greater dream

Father Matthew Ernest was 8 years old when he began studying piano, and 10 when he started on the clarinet. He kept up his studies, adding instruments as he went along (today, he plays six) through his years at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in music performance, majoring in clarinet and minoring in piano.

It was a successful pursuit. Even as a student, he played with an orchestra in the Pittsburgh area and at music festivals and won several concerto competitions. The biggest prize was a fellowship to study and play with the Boston Symphony at the orchestra's summer home in Tanglewood, Mass.

"Going up to Tanglewood, I realized my dream," he said. "But even after living out my dream, something still wasn't right. Then I knew I should go to the seminary."

Returning from Tanglewood, he entered the St. John Neumann Residence to prepare for the priesthood.

"I always felt very attracted to the priesthood," he said.

Growing up in Poughkeepsie, one of two children of Carole and Robert Ernest, Father Ernest, 27, was an altar boy, lector and Eucharistic minister and was active in other ways in St. Joseph's parish there. His attraction to the priesthood must have been obvious to the priests he met in those years, because he remembers several asking whether he was interested.

"I'd say, 'Thank you very much, but I'm interested in music,' " he said.

He mentioned Father John Fleming, a former weekend associate at St. Joseph's, as having a big influence on his vocation. "He would take me out to lunch, e-mail me back and forth. He took a real interest in me," he said.

Father Ernest expanded his faith in college, attending holy hours and daily Mass, while pursuing his music. "I think the music really helped me find my priesthood," he said. "A lot of times, I think we can hear God through music. I think that's how I recognized my call to the priesthood."

Father Richard D. Baker, the archdiocesan music director, director of music at the seminary and pastor of St. Malachy's in Manhattan, was on the faculty of the Neumann Residence when Father Ernest arrived. "He said to me, 'You can play the piano? Then you can learn the organ.' " Father Ernest - who also plays guitar, bass and saxophone - is now the house organist at the seminary. Branching out from there, he has played at Masses at St. Patrick's Cathedral and has conducted the seminary choir for parts of the annual Christmas concert there.

He also was completing work at the seminary for his master's degree in the history of sacred music, with a thesis on Gregorian chant.

However, his apostolic assignments at Dunwoodie have taken him out of the orchestra pit, so to speak. He served at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx and St. Joseph's Nursing Home and Hospital in Yonkers, visiting patients and offering pastoral care; he taught morality at Maria Regina High School in Hartsdale and religion classes at St. Peter's parish in Yonkers. He was on the retreat team at the CYO's Blair Lodge and served at Our Lady of Consolation Home for retired priests.

What he looks forward to after ordination, he said, is "to be a parish priest, to bring the sacraments to people, to be part of parish life and, hopefully, part of the parish music program."

First Mass: Most Holy Trinity Church, Yonkers, Sunday, May 16, at 3 p.m.

Homilist: Father John F. Fleming, retired.

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