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Mark Munkacsy is accustomed to taking things seriously. As a combat system architect at Raytheon, he works with the intricate complexities of a new US Navy surface ship now on the drawing board. As an amateur astronomer he has built a small observatory in his own back yard. As a serious computer user in both fields, his name can often be found on software reviews and comments on computer systems.

So when one of the cantors, Judy Sousa, noticed him singing in the congregation and invited him to join the music ministry, Mark applied this same energy to music. He studied music in books. He joined the National Association of Pastoral Music (NPM - www.npm.org). He used his vacation to attend a week-long Cantor School sponsored by NPM and taught by religious composers Marty Haugen and Jim Hansen.

Mark stresses the effect of Cantor School on his own better appreciation of the liturgy - especially the psalms. And this had a clear effect on him when he became a cantor himself.

"I see my job as two-fold," Mark says. "I’m a song leader, and I proclaim the psalm." The latter he takes seriously. He feels it is his job to preserve and convey the sense of the psalm, to make it part of the community’s everyday life. For Mark this has played out in an interesting way.

"I can’t tell you," Mark says, "the number of times I’ve gone [to the pulpit] to proclaim the psalm - but with unexpected results" - ways he felt he had somehow failed. At first he thought, God, what’s going on here? Then he came to understand: It was not like giving a performance, the psalm was a communication between God and the faithful. Now he prepares the psalm well enough to turn it into his own prayer, but after that "I let myself be available" to whatever God has to say.

Mark grew up in southern New Jersey before attending MIT on a NROTC scholarship, earning a BS in physics. After graduating he joined the nuclear power program and served six years on the attack submarine USS Boston (SSN 703).

He and wife Martha met when both were engineers at Raytheon. They were married in 1987 and have two children. Alan is starting his senior year at Portsmouth High School (PHS), plays saxophone, is a member of the PHS marching, concert, and jazz bands. Daughter Kendra is 14, plays recorder and flute, and last year was selected for the RI All-State Band. She enters PHS in the fall and hopes to play in the marching band. Already she plays flute at St. Lucy liturgies.

Musical background? Mark’s father played violin, his mother piano. An uncle made violins. There were pianos at his relatives’ homes, and family get-togethers often involved music. Mark himself played saxophone in the Cherry Hill East HS band. But singing? "I have to say honestly," he says, "I have no recollection of opening my mouth and singing [as I was growing up]." But later, in the Navy, attending liturgies at various parishes on the East Coast, Mark found he enjoyed singing.

What does it require to join the music ministry. "We need more people who just want to sing," says music and choir director Helen Glynn. "I can hear them out there - so I know they can sing."

The choir practices once a week. Cantors are assigned to specific Masses on Sunday, but choir members sing at whatever Mass they attend.

E-mail Ed Weyhing with corrections and suggestions.