Liturgical Pioneers / Pastoral Musicians and Liturgists

We remember those who have died . . .

2011-12-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

1938

Virgil Michel, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN

1944

Louise Walz, OSB, Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph, MN

1948

Estelle Hackett, OP, Dominican Sisters, Grand Rapids, MI
Odo Casel, OSB, Maria Laach Benedictine Abbey, Germany

1952

Joseph H. Schlarmann, D.D., Archdiocese of Peoria, IL

1953

Innocent Gertken, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN

1954

Pius Parsch C.R.S.A., Canons Regular, Klosterneuburg Abbey, Vienna

1957

Norbert Gertken, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN

1960

Lambert Beauduin, OSB, Keizersberg (Mont César) Abbey, Leuven, Belgium
Michael A. Mathis, CSC, University of Notre Dame, IN

1963

Gerald Ellard, SJ, Saint Mary's College (Jesuit Theologate), Kansas

1968

Patrick Cummins, OSB, Conception Abbey, Conception, MO
Romano Guardini, University of Munich
Paul John Hallinan, Archbishop of Atlanta
Hans Ansgar Reinhold, Sunnyside, WA, Diocese of Pittsburgh, PA

1970

Leonard Doyle, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN
Michael Ducey, OSB, Saint Benedict's Abbey, Benet Lake, WI/ Saint Anselm's Priory, Washington, DC

1971

William Busch, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Saint Paul Seminary, St. Paul, MN
Thomas Carroll, Archdiocese of Boston, MA
Thomas Vincent Dore, Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago, IL
Damasus Winzen, OSB, Maria Laach, Germany; Mount Savior Monastery, Elmira, NY

1973

Bob McGill, Diocese of Fort Worth, TX

1975

Josef Andreas Jungmann, SJ, Pastoral Theology Department, University of Innsbruck

1976

Albert Edwin Lynch, composer, Archdiocese of Perth, Australia

1979

Reynold Hillenbrand, Archdiocese of Chicago, Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, IL
John Joseph Wright, Archdiocese of Boston, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Clergy, Rome

1980

Bernard Botte, OSB, Abbey of Mont César, Louvain

1981

Martin B. Hellriegel, Archdiocese of Saint Louis, MO
Clifford Howell, SJ, Liverpool, UK

1982

Annibale Bugnini, Vatican City State
Maur Burbach, OSB, Saint Pius X Abbey, Pevely, MO

1983

Ernst Langenhorst, Diocese of Fort Worth, TX

1987

Urban Gertken, OSB, Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph, MN
Ralph A. Keifer, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, IL
Jane Marie Murray, OP, Dominican Sisters, Grand Rapids, MI
Niels Krogh Rasmussen, OP, University of Notre Dame, IN
Harold Winstone, Saint Thomas More Parish and Centre for Pastoral Liturgy, London

1988

Guilford Young, Archdiocese of Hobart, Australia

1989

Eugene Walsh, SS, Archdiocese of Baltimore, MD

1990

Thea Bowman, FSPA, Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, La Crosse, WI
Larry Gully, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN
Shawn Sheehan, Archdiocese of Boston, MA

1991

Christiane Brusselmans, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
Eric Holland, Diocese of Madison, WI

1992

Robert Hovda, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC
Theophane Hytrek, OSF, Alverno College, Milwaukee, WI
Percy Jones, Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia
Gregory Murray, OSB, Downside Abbey, Bath, England
Mark Searle, University of Notre Dame, IN

1993

Michael Marx, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
Mary Perkins Ryan, Archdiocese of Boston, MA

1994

Jacques Berthier, Taizé Community, France
Edward J. Kilmartin, SJ, University of Notre Dame, IN, and Pontifical Oriental Institute
Franz H. Mueller, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN
Jan Vermulst, Composer from the Netherlands

1995

James Dunning, North American Forum for the Catechumenate
Jerome Theisen, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
Frank Winkels, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN

1996

Robert Edward Kreutz, Composer, Lakewood, CO
Elmer Pfeil, Archdiocese of Milwaukee, WI

1997

Irma Mae McCahill Dore, Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago, IL
Alexander Peloquin, Composer from the Diocese of Providence, RI
Omer Westendorf, Composer and Publisher, World Library of Sacred Music, Cincinnati, OH

1998

Sue Seid Martin, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN
Jane Marie Perrot, DC, Daughters of Charity, Emmitsburg Province

1999

John Balka, Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle, Washington, DC
Michael H. Hay, Archdiocese of Chicago, IL
Norita Lanners OSB, Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph, MN
John B. O'Donnell, Diocese of London, Ontario, Canada
Leon Roberts, Composer, Archdiocese of Washington, DC
Leonard Sullivan, Archdiocese of Regina, Saskatchewan/National Liturgy Office, Canada

2000

Gerard Farrell, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
William Ferris, Archdiocese of Chicago, IL
William Heidt, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
William Leonard, SJ, Liturgical Conference/Boston College/Archdiocese of Boston, MA

2001

J.D. Crichton, Pershore, Worcestershire
Cecile Gertken, OSB, Saint Benedict's Monastery, St. Joseph, MN
Theodore Marier, Archdiocese of Boston, MA
John Joseph O'Flaherty, Diocese of London, Ontario, Canada

2002

Ade Bethune, Newport, RI, Diocese of Providence, RI
Patrick Byrne, Diocese of Peterborough, Ontario/National Bulletin on Liturgy, CCCB
Godfrey Diekmann, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
Nicholas Doub, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
Cletus Madsen, Saint Ambrose University, Diocese of Davenport, IA
Peter Mazar, Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago, IL
Therese J. Mueller, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN
John Rotelle, OSA, Augustinian Province of Saint Thomas, Villanova, PA
Mary Anthony Wagner, OSB, Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph MN

2003

Mary Elizabeth Bagnell, Diocese of Brooklyn, NY, Diocese of New Hampshire, NJ
Bernardus Maria Huijbers, Composer from the Netherlands
Aelred Tegels, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN

2004

Johnelle Becker, OSF, Franciscan Sisters, Little Falls, MN
Paul Cioffi, SJ, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Pierre-Marie Gy, OP, Dominican, L'Institut Catholique de Paris
Denis Hurley, OMI, Archbishop of Durban, South Africa
Frank Kacmarcik, OblSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
Clarence Rufus Joseph Rivers, Diocese of Cincinnati, OH
Gerald M. Shirilla, Archdiocese of Detroit, MI
Kenneth Untener, Diocese of Saginaw, MI
James F. White, University of Notre Dame, IN

2005

William J. Deering, Diocese of Evansville, IL
Brother Roger Schutz, Taizé Community, France
Frederick R. McManus, Catholic University of America, Washington DC/Archdiocese of Boston, MA
Aloysius John Wycislo, Diocese of Greenbay, WI

2006

José Ardazabal, SDB, Center for Pastoral Liturgy, Barcelona
Nancy Bannister, National Association of Pastoral Musicians
Teri Dlugosch, Diocese of Saint Cloud, MN
Regis Duffy, OFM, Franciscan Friary/Saint Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, NY
Aidan Kavanagh, OSB, Saint Meinrad Archabbey, St. Meinrad, IN
Francis Kline, OCSO, Mepkin Abbey, Moncks Corner, SC
Bartholonew Sayles, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
Mary Luke Tobin, SL, Sisters of Loretto, Nerinx, KT

2007

Lucien Deiss, C.S.Sp, Congregation of the Holy Ghost, France
Placid Stuckenschneider, OSB, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN
George Tavard, AA, Augustinians of the Assumption
David H. Tripp, University of Notre Dame, IN and Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

2008

Raymond (Benedict) Avery, Diocese of Metuchen, NJ
Bill Brown, Brown AIA Professional Corp., Colorado Springs, CO
Walter Burghardt, SJ, Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Kevin Donovan, SJ, Wimbledon, England
Austin Flannery, OP, Order of Preachers (Dominican), Dublin
Joseph Gelineau, SJ, Grenoble, France
Eugene LaVerdiere, SSS, Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, Cleveland, OH
John Neville, OSC, Crosier Fathers and Brothers, Onamia, MN
Frank Quinn, OP, Aquinas Institute of Theology, St. Louis, MO
Chrysogonus Waddell, OCSO, Abbey of Gethsemani, Trappist, KY

2009

Simon Bischof, OSB, Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN
Dominic Braud, OSB, Saint Joseph Abbey, St. Benedict, LA
Jerome M. Hall , SJ, Washington Theological Union and Catholic University of America
Conrad L. Kraus, Diocese of Erie, PA
Margaret Paluch, JS Paluch Company/World Library Publications
Edward Schillebeeckx, Dominican priest and theologian, Nijmegen, Netherlands

2010

James Field, Archdiocese of Boston, MA
Mary Teresine Haban, OSF, Sisters of Saint Francis of Mary Immaculate, Joliet, IL
Richard Hillert, Professor of Music Emeritus, Concordia University, River Forest, IL
Jane Klimisch, OSB, Benedictine Sisters of Yankton, Sacred Heart Monastery, Yankton, SD
John J. O'Brien, C.P., Immaculate Conception Monastery, Jamaica, NY
Richard Proulx, Composer, Conductor, Archdiocese of Chicago, IL
James Quinn, SJ, Member of the Society of Jesus, Scotland
Christopher Trussell, Diocese of Saint Cloud, MN
Irvin Udulutsch, OFM, Cap., Saint Lawrence Friary, Mount Calvary, WI
John D. Wright, Ascension Catholic Church, Oak Park, IL / Archdiocese of Chicago, IL

2011

William Bauman, Diocese of Kansas City–Saint Joseph
Gregor Bergerson, OSB, Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph, MN
Mary Delores Depner, SCL, Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, Kansas
Everett A. Diederich, SJ, Saint Louis University's Stroble Center for Liturgy, Saint Louis, MO
John Gallen, SJ, New York Province of the Society of Jesus
Lawrence J. Madden, SJ, The Georgetown Center for Liturgy, Washington, DC
Robert W. Piercy, Jr., Liturgy Training Publications; GIA Publications, both of Chicago, IL
Robert Twynham, Composer, Archdiocese of Baltimore, MD

We remember those who have died . . .

2011-12-28T10:59:00.000-08:00

A
Ardazabal, José (2006)
Avery, Raymond [Benedict] (2008)

B
Bagnell, Mary Elizabeth (2003)
Balka, John (1999)
Bannister, Nancy (2006)
Bauman, William (2011)
Beauduin, Lambert (1960)
Becker, Johnelle (2004)
Bergerson, Gregor (2011)
Berthier, Jacques (1994)
Bethune, Ade (2002)
Bischof, Simon (2009)
Botte, Bernard (1980)
Bowman, Thea (1990)
Braud, Dominic (2009)
Brown, Bill (2008)
Brusselmans, Christiane (1991)
Bugnini, Annibale (1982)
Burbach, Maur (1982)
Burghardt, Walter (2008)
Busch, William (1971)
Byrne, Patrick (2002)

C
Carroll, Thomas (1971)
Casel, Odo (1948)
Cioffi, Paul (2004)
Crichton, J.D. (2001)
Cummins, Patrick (1968)

D
Deering, William (2005)
Deiss, Lucien (2007)
Depner, Mary Delores (2011)
Diederich, Everett (2011)
Diekmann, Godfrey (2002)
Dlugosch, Teri (2006)
Donovan, Kevin (2008)
Doub, Nicholas (2002)
Doyle, Leonard (1970)
Ducey, Michael (1970)
Duffy, Regis (2006)
Dunning, James (1995)

E
Ellard, Gerald (1963)

F
Farrell, Gerard (2000)
Ferris, William (2000)
Field, James (2010)
Flannery, Austin (2008)

G
Gallen, John (2011)
Gelineau, Joseph (2008)
Gertken, Cecile (2001)
Gertken, Innocent (1953)
Gertken, Norbert (1957)
Gertken, Urban (1987)
Guardini, Romano (1968)
Gully, Larry (1990)
Gy, Pierre-Marie (2004)

H
Haban, Mary Teresine (2010)
Hackett, Estelle (1948)
Hall, Jerome M. (2009)
Hallinan, Paul John (1968)
Hay, Michael (1999)
Heidt, William (2000)
Hellriegel, Martin (1981)
Hillenbrand, Reynold (1979)
Hillert, Richard (2010)
Holland, Eric (1991)
Hovda, Robert (1992)
Howell, Clifford (1981)
Huijbers, Bernardus Maria (2003)
Hurley, Denis (2004)
Hytrek, Theophane (1992)

J
Jones, Percy (1992)
Jungmann, Josef (1975)

K
Kacmarcik, Frank (2004)
Kavanagh, Aidan (2006)
Keifer, Ralph (1987)
Kilmartin, Edward (1994)
Klimisch, Jane (2010)
Kline, Francis (2006)
Kraus, Conrad (2009)
Kreutz, Robert (1996)

L
Langenhorst, Ernst (1983)
Lanners, Norita (1999)
LaVerdiere, Eugene (2008)
Leonard, William (2000)
Lynch, Albert Edwin (1976)

M
Madden, Lawrence J. (2011)
Madsen, Cletus (2002)
Marier, Theodore (2001)
Marx, Michael (1993)
Mathis, Michael (1960)
Mazar, Peter (2002)
McGill, Bob (1973)
McManus, Frederick (2005)
Michel, Virgil (1938)
Mueller, Franz (1994)
Mueller, Therese (2002)
Murray, Gregory (1992)
Murray, Jane Marie (1987)

N
Neville, John (2008)

O
O'Brien, John J. (2010)
O'Donnell, John (1999)
O'Flaherty, John Joseph (2001)

P
Paluch, Margaret (2009)
Parsch, Pius (1954)
Peloquin, Alexander (1997)
Perrot, Jane Marie (1998)
Piercy, Robert William (2011)
Pfeil, Elmer (1996)

Proulx, Richard (2010)

Q
Quinn, Frank (2008)
Quinn, James (2010)

R

Rasmussen, Niels Krogh (1987)

Reinhold, Hans Anscar (1968)

Rivers, Clarence Rufus Joseph (2004)
Roberts, Leon (1999)
Rotelle, John (2002)

Ryan, Mary Perkins (1993)

S
Sayles, Bartholomew (2006)
Schillebeeckx, Edward (2009)
Schlarman, Joseph H. (1951)
Schutz, Brother Roger (2005)
Searle, Mark (1992)
Seid Martin, Sue (1998)
Sheehan, Shawn (1990)
Shirilla, Gerald (2004)
Stuckenschneider, Placid (2007)
Sullivan, Leonard (1999)

T
Tavard, George (2007)
Tegels, Aelred (2003)
Theisen, Jerome (1995)
Tobin, Mary Luke (2006)
Tripp, David (2007)
Trussell, Christopher (2010)
Twynham, Robert (2011)

U
Udulutsch, Irvin (2010)
Untener, Kenneth (2004)

V
Vermulst, Jan (1994)

W
Waddell, Chrysogonus (2008)
Wagner, Mary Anthony (2002)
Walsh, Eugene (1989)
Walz, Louise (1944)
Westendorf, Omer (1997)
White, James (2004)
Winzen, Damasus (1971)
Winkels, Frank (1995)
Winstone, Harold (1987)
Wright, John D. (2010)
Wright, John Joseph (1979)
Wycislo, Aloysius (2005)

Y
Young, Guilford (1988)

Gregor Bergerson, OSB

2011-12-08T11:36:00.000-08:00

Gregor (Doris) Bergerson, OSB

March 12, 1926 - July 27, 2011

Gregor (Doris) Bergerson was born March 12, 1926, to Bergie and Augusta (Ritzinger) Bergerson in Chippewa Falls, Wis. She graduated from Catholic grade school and public high school in Chippewa Falls. She entered Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph, MN, on September 7, 1943, was received into the novitiate June 21, 1945, made first monastic profession on July 11, 1946, and perpetual profession on July 11, 1949.

Gregor earned a BA degree in music at the College of Saint Benedict, St. Joseph, MN, and an MA in music history at the University of Minnesota. Further studies took her to Mary Grove College in Detroit, MI, Saint John’s University and St. Norbert’s College in De Pere, WI.

Pastoral ministry was a second venture in Gregor’s life. As pastoral minister, she served in Anaconda, MT, and in Olivia, MN. After completing training in clinical pastoral education at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, she was certified as chaplain by the National Association of Catholic Chaplains (NACC) and served in this capacity at Mercy Health Center, Dubuque, IA. In 2001, she added certification in spiritual direction from the Spirituality Ministries Program at Saint Benedict’s Monastery.

Music animated Gregor, who loved to sing and to dance; her service included teaching classroom music, individual piano instruction, liturgy and sacred dance; at times she was church organist. These ministries took her to locations throughout Minnesota and to Colorado Springs, CO.

Later, Gregor filled the role of a volunteer teacher’s assistant in several grade schools in St. Cloud, MN. At Saint Benedict’s Monastery, she was organist, a member of the monastic schola, cantor, leader for sacred dance, spiritual companion and prefect of residents for the College of Saint Benedict for two years. She retired to Saint Scholastica Convent, St. Cloud, MN, in 2009.

Tribute prepared by Saint Benedict’s Monastery, St. Joseph, MN.

John Gallen, SJ

2011-12-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

John Gallen, SJ
November 19, 1932 - April 17, 2011

Founder of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL), John Gallen, SJ, died Sunday, April 17, 2011, in New York City. John convened the first gathering of NAAL in Scottsdale, AZ, December 4-7, 1973 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium (the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1950 and received the Berakah award in 2000. The Berakah Award has been given since the beginning of the Academy and is given every year to a member of the Academy to honor her or his work. John’s Berakah response was titled “The Role of the Artist in Liturgical Inculturation.” He served for a number of years as Director of the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy.

Tribute prepared by the North American Academy of Liturgy.

William A. Bauman

2011-12-04T19:27:00.001-08:00

William A. Bauman

October 30, 1934 - April 17, 2011

“We do not come to meet Christ as if he were absent from the rest of our lives. We come together to deepen our awareness of, and commitment to the action of his Spirit in the whole of our lives at every moment. We come together to acknowledge the love of God poured out among us in the work if the Spirit, to stand in awe and praise. . .

“People in love make signs of love, not only to express their love but to deepen it. Love never expressed dies. Christians’ faith in Christ and in each other must be expressed in signs and symbols of celebration, or it will die.”

Though a young Father William A. Bauman wrote those words for the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy nearly 39 years ago in the landmark document “Music in Catholic Worship,” they were certainly the expression of a wide consultation of lay, clergy and religious.

And yet, they were still the vision of a deeply gifted, deeply pastoral priest that generations of Catholics in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph came to know simply as “Father Bill.”

That was the way of Father Bauman, 76, who died on Palm Sunday, April 17, barely two weeks after he celebrated his 51st anniversary of ordination to the priesthood of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

“The moment you met Father Bauman, he was calculating what your gifts were and how they could be used,” said Glenda Jacobson, who worked on the staff of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Oakview. “He was gifted at getting you to do your job and feeling like you owned it.”

It was at St. Charles that Father Bauman had the vision for “Foundations in Ministry,” a program in which non-ordained professional staff, such as Jacobson and Benedictine Sister Esther Fangman, would train lay people to assume leadership roles in music, liturgy and the prayer life of a worshipping community.

“Bill was leadership,” Sister Esther said at Father Bauman’s vigil and prayer service on the eve of his funeral Mass of Resurrection April 25 at St. Thomas More Parish, the last parish that Father Bauman pastored before his retirement.

“He was a human being who knew his humanness, and then he embodied leadership, he embodied priesthood, he embodied being a pastor,” Sister Esther said.

Those were the heady days in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, when then-Bishop Charles Helmsing, one of the council fathers, assembled around him the best young talent in the diocese to carry out the vision of the council, in much the same way that his namesake, St. Charles Borromeo, implemented the reforms of the Council of Trent in his Archdiocese of Milan some 400 years earlier.

And when Bishop Helmsing’s successor, Bishop John J. Sullivan, came to the diocese with a vision for the systematic training of professional lay ecclesial ministers, he quickly learned of “Foundations of Ministry,” and tapped Father Bauman to be the founding director for the Center for Pastoral Life and Ministry.

Maureen Kelly, who was on the Center’s first staff, said Father Bauman had a way of bringing out the best in every one who worked with, not for, him.

“What struck me about him was how collaborative he was,” Kelly said. “He modeled on our staff what we were doing in parishes. He empowered. He listened. He changed his mind. He didn’t come up with plans and say, “This is the way we are going to do it.” He worked with us.”

Kelly said that Father Bauman sent the Center’s staff out to parishes to listen.

“It was our job to listen to the leadership in parishes, and from what we heard, we were to design classes and programs according to what they needed,” Kelly said.

“What he wanted was competent, competent lay ministers in parishes, and he always said, “competent” twice,” she said.

Jacobson said that Father Bauman once told her that as a youth, he didn’t know if he wanted to be a scientist, an engineer, or a musician.

“He said he became a priest so that he could do all of them,” she said.

He certainly had the pedigree.

Father Bauman’s father, John, was a chemical engineer and CEO of Solo Cup Co. of Grandview, which employed over 1,200 people in several states. His mother Theresa was also a chemist who taught high school chemistry for 20 years.

His brother John is professor emeritus of chemistry at University of Missouri-Columbia. His brother Joseph served on the IBM task force that developed the personal computer, and was IBM’s vice president in charge of production and marketing of the machine that continues to change the world. He later became dean of the School of Business at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Father Bauman’s sister, Mary Ann Yeats, is the first female district court judge in Australia, serving the Western District in Perth. His youngest sister, Linda, taught elementary school for 30 years and is married to John Shumway, a champion bass fisherman who spent many hours on the Lake of the Ozarks with his priest brother-in-law.

Shumway said he didn’t need to listen to the weather forecasts when Father Bill was on board his bass boat.

“He was so into the weather,” Shumway said. “He knew exactly where the fronts were and how they were setting up.”

Last year, at the request of Bishop Robert W. Finn, Father Bauman agreed to step out of retirement and serve as temporary administrator of one more parish, Holy Spirit in Lee’s Summit, effective Jan. 1.

Ten days later, after discovering unusually high blood sugar levels, Father Bauman’s doctors told him that an aggressive cancer was attacking his pancreas and liver. He was given two months to two years to live.

Word quickly spread around the diocese, especially to his brother priests who held Father Bauman in high esteem, and heaven was bombarded with prayers.

“There is not room enough in The Catholic Key to print all the reasons the priests of this diocese respect Bill Bauman,” said Father Bob Rost, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Hamilton and its mission, Mary Immaculate in Gallatin.

“He has been a giant in this diocese for 51 years,” Father Rost said. “If there is any liturgical mentor for priests in this diocese, he is that. We all owe him an enormous debt.”

His imprint is not only on the diocese, but on the nation. Many of the programs pioneered under Father Bauman’s leadership became national norms.

“He had us working on the catechumenate (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) before the (U.S. bishops) documents came out,” said Sister of Charity Cele Breen, who served on the Center for Pastoral Life and Ministry staff.

As pastor of St. Stephen Parish, now Our Lady of Peace, in northeast Kansas City in 1970, Father Bauman had the idea that his small parish could coordinate services and programs with two neighboring small parishes, and contacted their pastors, Father Jerry Waris at Holy Trinity and Father Ernie Gauthier at St. Michael.

“What a great idea to combine resources and work as a team,” Father Waris said in his homily at the April 24 prayer service. “Bishop Helmsing trusted him and gave us the chance to work in a collaborative way.”

It made its mark not only on parish life, but on the city of Kansas City.

The three-parish ministry team founded Northeast Cooperative Social Services, an agency serving the poor which has evolved today into the multi-service Bishop Sullivan Center, feeding hundreds of people daily and providing job training and search skills, air conditioners for the elderly, no-cost loans and emergency utility assistance among other services.

The team also got a federal grant to launch “Dial-A-Ride,” a cab-based, low cost transportation system for the elderly that has evolved into Share-A-Fare which continues today.

“These were important events,” Father Waris said. “They are recorded in the hearts of all of us who are called to be church together. We know how it was, how good it was, and what the impact it had on the lives of those we serve and our lives, and we will settle for nothing less.”

For Father Bauman and the priests and lay people he led by his example, the Second Vatican Council was not about translating the Mass into vernacular languages. It was transforming the church in service to the people.

“It was not about bells and robes,” Father Waris said. “It was about a Pentecost of fire, where we still believe that we have something to say and that leadership will listen.”

And it was about complete trust in God, Father Waris said.

“As Bill lived, so he died, emptying himself, weak, vulnerable, so he could open himself to God and the call home.”

Even as he was dying, Father Bauman taught by example. Days after his diagnosis of terminal cancer, he opened a journal on CaringBridge.org.

“Prayer seems easier, more clear-headed,” he wrote on Feb. 12, the day he began a double chemotherapy regimen in hopes of slowing the cancer’s spread.

He expressed gratitude for Benedictine Abbot Gregory Polan’s gift of a Grail Psalter which the monks of Conception Abbey had translated.

“The Psalms for me have done a wonderful job of keeping God big — immense — and in charge,” he wrote. “Giving God glory and trusting his love is certainly what it is all about now.”

Soon after, his chemotherapy regimen gave him a deeply painful, burning rash.

“It takes special effort to pray in pain, to focus on Christ as companion on the journey, to say yes to each day’s journey one day at a time,” he wrote on Feb. 22.

Five days later, still in pain, Father Bauman wrote: “Prayer is different in times too of sharp pain. I find two ways quite enriching. The first is to actually focus on the pain, letting it be my point of dying and rising. . . While it is more comforting to focus on a mountain or sunset or flowing stream, it is equally consoling to focus on a pain that is transforming me into eternal life.

“I also enjoy picking one of the Psalms. . . I read it very slowly, syllable by syllable, and sooner rather than later, a phrase or thought relates to my pain in the big picture of God’s love and glory.”

On March 1, Father Bauman recalled a retreat he gave for 8th grade students some 10 years earlier.

“One group of boys asked me the very profound question: “Father Bill, are you afraid of to die?”

“I told them that I had talked life over with Jesus every day since I was their age. Why would I be afraid to meet Christ now?”

On March 14, he wrote: “Lent moves forward with its challenge to keep asking the big questions. Just who am I? What does the future hold? What can I find to do each day to bring some joy into someone’s life?”

On March 21, less than a month before he was to die, Father Bauman wrote of a beautiful spring day.

“Something way down deep says, “Lord, could I be in charge just for today?” But I would not want to miss one of those days of which I would say: “Lord, had you made me for this day alone, it would have been worth living.”

On the morning of April 4, he wrote about attending the wedding of his youngest niece, Amy, and of celebrating his ordination anniversary.

“That kind of pushed me over the limit,” Father Bauman wrote. Hardly enough energy to sit in a chair.

“Gratitude still comes easily. Thanks to God for the life of a priest. Thanks for a wonderful family. Thanks for our church, for all who have supported me so faithfully these last 10 weeks. Pray with me now that I may keep my hands lifted up to our God in a joyful, “Come Lord Jesus,” this week.”

That evening, Father Bauman wrote his final entry:

“I will move into the Little Sisters (of the Poor, St. Jeanne Jugan Center) tomorrow. . . I look forward very much to the daily Eucharist, to sharing Communion with all of you. As Jesus is blest and broken, so may each of us in our daily bread be bread that is shared with Christ and become the one Body, growing into resurrection and life.”

Tribute by Kevin Kelly, The Catholic Key, Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph.

Damasus Winzen, OSB

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Damasus Winzen, OSB
1901–1971

Dom Damasus Winzen, OSB, was a Benedictine monk of Maria Laach Abbey in Germany. He was sent to the United States by the monks of Maria Laach to secure a location for them to move in order to escape from Nazi Germany. As it turned out, this was not necessary. Instead, he found himself preaching about the liturgical reform to packed ballrooms in New York City, a novel concept in America, but one that had been developing in Germany since 1913.

In 1951, he founded Mount Savior Monastery in Elmira, New York. It was a beautiful location for a monastery, but know as “Poverty Hill” by the villagers since the farmland soil was extremely poor. His intent was to one day erect a large basilica on the hill that had sweeping views of the valley and river below. The monastery was founded on principles of simplicity and equality, without traditional divisions between choir monks and lay brothers, all sharing in the raising of sheep.

Winzen developed and cultivated many supporters downstate. Having run out of gas while on a trip in France, he called upon a friend who later left him a bequest that enabled him to hire one of the top church architects of the day. Winzen had also befriended a cardinal who later became Pope when the liturgical reforms were put into place in the 1960’s.

All of these convergences enabled Winzen to build an octagonal chapel with an altar in the center and permission from Pope Paul VI to experiment with the new liturgy. Simultaneously Maria Laach received this same permission and experimented with the first dialogue masses in Germany. These masses where held in a small crypt below the grand basilica of Maria Laach.

A monk and scholar, Winzen served as associate editor of Orate Fratres and editor of Pathways in Holy Scripture. He was a prime mover in the organization of the Benedictine Liturgical Conference (later known as the National Liturgical Conference).

Odo Casel, OSB

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Odo Casel, OSB
September 27, 1886 – March 28, 1948

Theologian of the Mystery
In many ways, Dom Odo Casel (1886–1948) was not so different from his comrades in the first wave of the liturgical reform. Like Guéranger, Beauduin, and many other pioneers of the liturgical movement, Casel was a Benedictine. A monk of the abbey of Maria Laach, he personally was responsible for much of its liturgical genius. Also like other pioneers, he was a proponent of Mystical Body theology, expanding it toward previously unexplored horizons (pushing it, some said, well over the brink). Casel even has ministry to and reform work with religious women in common with other liturgical reformers.

Despite these similarities, Casel was a unique figure. It has been said that he was singularly responsible for removing the theological shackles of the post-Reformation Roman church. He was at least a thinker not to be ignored and both the hierarchy and the scholars cast suspicious and even condemnatory glances in his direction. Because of these denunciations, the liturgist H.A. Reinhold confessed to have lost nights of sleep “worried sick over the master.” Casel, by contrast, seems to have weathered the controversy well.

Perhaps “the master” came into conflict with the hierarchy and the theological establishment more than did other early proponents of the liturgical movement because of his peculiar concerns. He was not suspect because of his liturgical experimentation, but because his thought was believed by some to be unorthodox, even heretical. A jaundiced eye was cast as well on those who accepted or elaborated Casel’s teachings.

The Roots of His Thought
Casel was born September 27, 1886, in Koblenz-Lützel in western Germany. After preparatory schools, he attended the University of Bonn. There he came to know Ildefons Herwegen, monk of Maria Laach, through whose influence Casel was to embrace the monastic life. He began the novitiate at Maria Laach in 1905, making his profession in 1907. After philosophical study in his own monastery, he studied theology at the international Benedictine house in Rome, Sant’ Anselmo, and in 1911 he was ordained a priest by the archbishop of Trier.

Casel wrote two doctoral theses. The first was submitted to the faculty of Sant’ Anselmo in 1913. It concerned the eucharistic doctrine of Justin Martyr and subsequently was published in serial form. On its completion, Casel was sent immediately to Bonn (thanks to the prodding of Herwegen) to study philosophy and classical philology. There he produced his second doctoral thesis, concerning mysticism and Greek philosophy. These two dissertations established the patterns for Casel’s subsequent scholarship.

Hundreds of articles and a number of books came from the pen of Casel during the next 30 years. Among them, his two volumes in the Ecclesia Orans series are lauded as his most important contribution to the advancement of liturgical renewal. Originally published in German and later in French, the books might be titled in English The Memorial of the Lord in the Ancient Christian Liturgy and The Liturgy as a Mystery Rite. His thought was substantially developed in the 15 volumes of Jahrbuch für Liturgiewiissenschaft (1921–1941), an important liturgical journal that Casel himself edited.

Mystery-theology
He called his system Mysterientheologie, mystery-theology. It attempted to explain how the divine is present in Christian worship: in Casel’s terms, the “mystery-in-the-present,” the Mysteriengegenwart. Drawing from the witness of both the early church and Hellenistic religious traditions—the areas of his dissertations—Casel proposed that in the liturgy, the mystery of Christ (which is Christ himself) actually is made present again. This mystery is not simply grace, nor a memory of Christ in the minds of believers, nor in the case of the eucharist only the presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Rather, Christ’s historical life as well as his glorified life is made present for the liturgical assembly, which can experience its impact anew. Exactly how this is possible, neither Casel nor his disciples were able to say. Casel, in fact, resisted asking the question because he believed that it intruded into an aspect of the divine life beyond the proper limits of human inquiry. He was satisfied with asserting, on the basis of his understanding of scripture, tradition, and liturgical writings, that Christ is present in his historical and glorified reality in the liturgy. By celebrating the church’s rites, including the Liturgy of the Hours and sacramentals, contemporary Christians transcend time and are brought into transformative contact with Christ. Because Jesus’ life reached its culmination in the pascal mystery—his passion-death-resurrection—it is in these events that the church especially knows him in its common prayer.

Some theologians, in an attempt to explore Casel’s teaching, suggested that it was the effect of Jesus’ life that was made available in the sacraments: Sacraments thus can be seen as channels of divine life, of grace. This, however, was not what Casel intended and he was insistent in his own position. He claimed that the Mystery that the rites make present is not a substance, sentiment or state of being before God. The sacramental Mystery is Jesus himself. Referring to a quote from the Apostolic Constitutions, “This [martyr] died with Christ in suffering death, the others die with him in the typos of his death,” Casel explained:

That indicates that baptism does not confer only an image, a pure and single figure of the death of Christ, but that the death of the Lord becomes a reality in [the one baptized], that it [the death] is accomplished in a “mystical” fashion, under the external image of the sacrament, just as the witness of the blood carries the death of the Lord in all its natural reality.

This theory has far-reaching implications for the liturgy. For example, because Christ lives in mystery in the entire Mystical Body, the liturgy is seen as an act of the whole church. In the liturgical prayer of all the gathered church, not only in the work of its ministers, the liturgical reactualization of Christ’s life is accomplished.

Sources of His Ideas
Casel concerned himself with theory far more than with practice, except as it was affected by his theology of Mysteriengegenwart. Casel drew his position from four sources. The first three—Jewish tradition, Christian scriptures, and early church writers—were universally accepted (although Casel’s interpretation of them was not). However, the fourth source—Graeco-Roman traditions—brought vehement criticism. He dared to claim that pagan religions have something to say about the Christian cult.

Casel’s opponents were many. Some sought to prove that he was not in accord with Aquinas, even though Casel claimed to be. Others mastered the Caselian system well enough to question its lack of internal consistency. And some merely dismissed the whole affair as absurd. The one issue that most captivated the critics was the seeming dependence of Mysterientheologie on the pagan mystery religions. Since the death of Casel, it has been shown that he approached the study of Graeco-Roman mystery cults with a certain naïveté and actually imposed Christian and New Testament concepts on them. At the time, however, his critics were not concerned with how well Casel understood the ancient religions in themselves. Their fear was that Casel was subordinating the church’s sacraments to pagan rites. By investigating the similarities between pagan ceremonies and Christian rites, Casel appeared to doubt that Jesus has instituted the sacraments and the Christianity was unique among religions. He seemed to be undermining the Christian cult rather than restoring it.

Mediator Dei and the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
Mediator Dei was written just one year before Casel’s death. His opponents saw him condemned on its pages. He, however, saw the encyclical as his vindication. After Casel’s death, a friend wrote that both affirmation and renunciation could be found in Mediator Dei, but that the gentle condemnations were not of Casel’s own thought but of his disciples’ theories that misconstrued Casel’s intent. More impartial witnesses suggest that, in fact, the document skirts the issue. Its Latin is carefully constructed to capture the tenor of Caselian thought while denying some of its specific tenets. The papacy, it seems, wanted nothing to do with this battle of theologians.

Neither did Vatican II. It did not “directly take a position on questions discussed among Catholic theologians; that is not the function of a council.” Casel’s thought nonetheless can be shown to have had a profound influence on the documents that were written for Vatican II, especially its liturgy constitution. The Constitution understood the liturgy not as an act of the ordained only, but as an act of all those assembled; it recognized that Christ is present in every act of the liturgy, not only in the so-called sacramental moments; it emphasized that Christ is present in the liturgy not merely as abstract grace but as a living person; and further, it acknowledged that he is present among his people in several ways, not only in the eucharistic bread and wine. In these examples, we hear echoes of Casel’s thought.

The Nuns at Herstelle
During the days when the battle over Casel’s orthodoxy raged more fiercely, Abbot Herwegan assigned Casel to the peaceful work of resident spiritual director and chaplain of the Benedictine nuns in Herstelle. Although Herstelle had been founded as a Benedictine house, it bore but little resemblance to a classical monastery. The community was dedicated to perpetual adoration and the ceremonies surrounding the Blessed Sacrament eclipsed everything else liturgical. In place of the psalms of the Divine Office, the nuns recited eucharistic devotional prayers. In their chapel, nuns were chained voluntarily for a given period each day to a “pillar of scourging” in commemoration of the scourging of Jesus. This sort of piety was far from the liturgical life of a Benedictine monastery.

In matters of governance, the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict mandates the election of abbots for life. Yet the nuns at Herstelle held annual elections of an abbess. The one elected always was the same: the Virgin Mary, whose image was annually led through the ceremony of abbatial enthronement. The earthly superior at Herstelle was a prioress, not an abbess.

Some of the nuns, realizing that their life was not in line with the Benedictine tradition, sent to Maria Laach for help. Herwegen undertook the task of lifting the obligation of perpetual adoration, imposing the canonical Office and having an abbess elected and bestowed with pontifical insignia. After these canonical tasks had been accomplished, Abbot Herwegen sent Casel to continue the education of the nuns in the ways of monasticism. Many of those who wrote obituaries of Casel referred to the place of his death as “Dom Odo’s Herstelle.” Clearly, he was thought to have had a profound impact on the community. The nuns themselves verified the assessment, referring to him as their “mystagogue.”

“Death is Conquered, Glory Fills You”
The circumstances of the death of Odo Casel could not have been more fitting or remarkable. Casel, who had sought to give back to the church a belief that Christ in the paschal mystery was present in every liturgy, died as he proclaimed that resurrection. He had just intoned the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil liturgy at the convent at Herstelle. One commentator remarked that if such an event were recorded in a medieval biography of a saint, moderns would disregard it as pious fantasy. It was not.

It was in light of the wonder of Casel’s death that the sisters of Herstelle concluded the obituary of their mentor:

His whole life was beset with bodily suffering and given to untiring labor in sacred sciences; his passing over into the eternal Pentecost took place by the grace of God during the great night of the Pasch. Deo gratias.

Tribute from How Firm A Foundation: Leaders of the Liturgical Movement, (pp. 50–56) by Patrick Malloy. Copyright © 1990, Archdiocese of Chicago, published by Liturgy Training Publications. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Lambert Beauduin, OSB

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Lambert Beauduin, OSB
August 5, 1873 – January 11, 1960

The Vision Awaits Its Time
When one hears the word “movement” used to describe a phenomenon of human history, one is tempted to envision a throng of humanity rather than the faces of the individual human beings in the throng. Any discussion of what is called the “liturgical movement,” however, must center on the individuals whose energies and visions have fueled and directed this movement of the Spirit in all the communions of the church. Among these men and women we find Lambert Beauduin, OSB, whose epitaph at Chevetogne reads: “Monk, Presbyter, Man of the Church.”

Christened Octave, Beauduin was born near Liége in Belgium on August 5, 1873. His family was well-to-do, liberal in political issues and deeply religious. Octave’s father gathered the family and domestic servants for daily evening devotions and the children frequently engaged in “playing church.” From his father, Beauduin inherited a strong sense of political duty (although his father disliked clerical involvement in political affairs).

Following his ordination in 1897, Beauduin was assigned to teach in the minor seminary that he had attended as a boy. But his attraction to service in the world was strong, so in 1899 he volunteered for service as a Labor Chaplain. Beauduin’s first interests in this ministry appear to have been the result of a concern for social activism, but by 1902 he became more evangelical in his view of the priestly ministry among the workers: “One is a priest to give the truth and divine grace to people through the liturgical rites, preaching, the celebration of feasts and retreats.”

The movement into which Beauduin had entered encountered increasing political and ecclesiastical opposition. Beauduin left the Labor Chaplains and, after a period of spiritual reflection, entered the Benedictine monastery of Mont César. It is indicative of his lifelong commitment to action in the church at large that he took the name Lambert at his profession in 1907: Lambert is the patron saint of Liége, Beauduin’s home diocese and the diocese of his ordination.

In his first years at Mont César, Beauduin came under the tutelage of an Irish monk, Columba Marmion (1858–1923), who at that time was prior of the monastery. Beauduin thus came to appreciate the liturgy of the church. Although reluctant to discuss the stages of his own spiritual development, Beauduin would admit to Marmion’s influence as well as his reading of Guéranger on liturgical prayer and the lectures of B. Destrée (then master of novices) on the chanting of the office. In Liturgy, the Life of the Church (written in 1914), Beauduin reveals something of his reaction to private devotions:

The charge that liturgical piety is the enemy of private devotion . . . rests on a misunderstanding. It is true that the former is, in this domain, traditional, discreet, even extremely reserved. The sickly desire that is ever in quest of pious novelties justly affrightens the liturgical mentality; the latter is the enemy of all devotionalism and glories in that. But far from destroying traditional and authentic private devotions, it gives them an increase of vigor and strength. A stranger to all fashions and to all fads, imbued with sane doctrine, pure and unalloyed, broad and generous, the liturgy, having become the principle food of the Christian soul, will transform the private devotion, give it a new impetus, a new intensity, while at the same time keeping it in its proper place.

Heart and Soul of the Belgian Liturgical Movement
Beauduin’s nascent commitment to the liturgy came to flower during 1908–1910. Sometime prior to 1909, Beauduin was said to have burst into the class he was to teach and to have exploded, “I’ve just realized that the liturgy is the center of the piety of the church!” In 1909, Beauduin presented a paper on the liturgy at Malines and in November, the journal Questions liturgiques (later Questions liturgiques et paroissales) began publication with Beauduin as editor. In June of 1910, the first Liturgical Week was held at Mont César. The goal of the early liturgical movement was “to restore Christian spirituality [and] the means proposed was the restoration of the parochial High Mass on Sunday, with full participation.”

From 1909 until 1921, Beauduin was the heart and soul of the Belgian liturgical movement. Such activity was not welcomed in all quarters and Beauduin’s critics were many. In response to his critics, Beauduin wrote his only monograph, La piété de l’église (Liturgy, the Life of the Church, English edition, 1926), published on the eve of World War I. In a memorable chapter entitled “The Sad Consequences of the Present Condition,” Beauduin enumerates the results of the failure to maintain the liturgy as the center of true Christian piety: individualism, abandonment of prayer, deviations of piety, the secular spirit and the lack of hierarchical life. Later in the book, Beauduin gives his goals for the liturgical movement:

Active participation of all Christian people in the Mass by understanding and following the rites and texts.
Emphasis on the importance of the High Mass, Sunday services and liturgical singing by the faithful.
Preservation and the reestablishment of Sunday Vespers and Compline as parish celebrations.
Acquaintance and active association with the rites of the sacraments received and assisted at, and the spread of this knowledge to others.
Fostering a respect for and confidence in the church.
Restoration of the Liturgy of the Dead to a place of honor and combating the dechristianization of the cult of the dead.

Behind these goals for liturgical renewal lay Beauduin’s own reflection on his experience of and attitudes toward the liturgy prior to his “awakening”:

You’ll excuse my frankness, but the missal was for me a closed and sealed book. And this ignorance extended not only to the variable parts [of the Mass], but even to the unchanging parts and principally to the canon . . . Even the great and perfect acts of worship, the principal end of the Mass, of participation in the sacrifice in communion with the body of the Lord, the spiritual offering of our good acts . . . in short, none of the great realities that the eucharistic liturgy constantly puts into act, nor one dominated my eucharistic piety. . . . Visits to the Blessed Sacrament had a more vital role in my piety than the act of sacrifice itself.

In 1921, Beauduin was appointed to serve as professor of fundamental theology at Sant’ Anselmo. These years saw the awakening of Beauduin’s awareness of the Christian East. He developed plans for a biritual monastery of Benedictine monks (to be located at Amay) who, by their knowledge and love of both Latin and Eastern rites, theology and piety, would serve as a witness to the East and foster eventual unity. By 1926, he had received permission to begin a monastery with five novices.

Within a month of opening its doors, Amay received canonical status from the Congregation for the Oriental Church. Irénikon, a journal devoted to the study of the Eastern church, began publication the same year. Beauduin’s vision of the unity of the church extended westward as well; contacts with Anglicans during World War I had quickened his interest in and participation (by correspondence) in the Malines Conversations. Opposition to his openness to Anglicanism and to his work at Amay (both from Benedictine superiors and curial officials) resulted in Beauduin’s eventual ecclesiastical exile from Belgium.

Exile from Belgium
It was during the period of Beauduin’s professorship at Sant’ Anselmo that his influence was transported to the North American continent. A young American monk, Virgil Michel, came to Rome to study. He quickly absorbed the teaching of Beauduin and was inspired to begin the liturgical apostolate on his return to the United States.

From 1931 to 1951, Beauduin was forbidden to return to Amay or Mont César or to enter Belgium. During this period, he served as a chaplain to two convents in France. He traveled widely and wrote frequently. In 1943, he was among the founders of the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique in Paris. In 1944, Beauduin renewed an old friendship with the papal nuncio to France, Angelo Roncalli (later John XXIII).

Beauduin’s exile ended in 1951 and he returned to the monastery he had founded (low located at Chevetogne). There he lived in an active retirement, despite the crippling effects of rheumatoid arthritis, until his death on January 11, 1960.

At his death, Beauduin knew that his vision slowly was coming to fruition. Chevetogne was thriving; Roncalli had been elected pope and called a council; the liturgical movement was alive and well on all fronts. Although Beauduin did not live to see it, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury would visit both the pope and the ecumenical patriarch in 1960. Beauduin was, as his American biographer said, “a prophet vindicated.”

In that biography, Sonya Quitslund states: “Beauduin had an insatiable thrist for unity. At first envisaged in rather narrow lines and somewhat hesitantly, unity soon became the predominant passion of his entire life.” His commitment to liturgical renewal was part of this passion. In the liturgy, the faithful were united with one another, the congregation with the church and the church with Christ. Furthermore, Beauduin was aware that the purpose of the incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ and the descent of the Spirit was, and is, to lead humanity to the Father. Thus, unity with Christ in the liturgy serves to draw humanity closer to the one whom Christ called “Abba.” In this bosom, humanity would find its unity.

Beauduin’s contribution to the life of the church is substantial. Several of the journals he founded still are important means of research and communication. The monastery of Chevetogne continues to witness to Beauduin’s vision of ecclesial unity. The fullness of that vision still awaits its time.

Tribute from How Firm A Foundation: Leaders of the Liturgical Movement, (pp. 23–28) by Richard G. Leggett. Copyright © 1990, Archdiocese of Chicago, published by Liturgy Training Publications. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Irvin Udulutsch, OFM, Cap.

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Irvin Udulutsch, OFM, Cap.

February 19, 1920 – December 11, 2010

When a friar dies at the advanced age of 90, much of his life may be unknown to many of the friars, perhaps only his years of retirement and nursing home. A recent brief bio for a jubilee celebration omitted any reference to Irvin’s 13 years at St. Lawrence College (now Seminary), arguably his most productive years. The following is drawn from autobiographical notes he wrote in his last years, from his brother — Capuchin Bob Udulutsch, and from the testimony of many of us who worked closely with him and upon whom he had a major vocational influence.

Wilfred Matthias Udulutsch was born on 19 February 1920, to Michael and Sophia (Flock) Udulutsch in the picturesque village of Norwalk, nestled among the hills of the driftless (unglaciated) area of western Wisconsin. He was the second of ten children in a devout family of daily home prayer and Mass. In grade school he took lessons in piano and violin. Deeply influenced by his uncle, diocesan priest Joseph Udulutsch, whose ordination he attended in Milwaukee in 1934, and whose first mass he served in St. John parish in LaCrosse, he informed his parents he wanted to go to the seminary. Alumnus Joseph arranged for his entry to St. Lawrence College, Mt Calvary, Wisconsin, in 1934.

At St. Lawrence he took piano lessons from Capuchin Henry Barth, played violin in the orchestra, and trumpet in the band. He came with diocesan intention, but gradually fell in love with the Capuchins. He writes of an agonizing struggle through prayer, soul-searching, and walking the “vocation path” through the woods, before deciding to join his classmates in the novitiate.

At Easter break he went home and blurted out his decision to his mother, who promptly dropped the plate she was holding, obviously distressed. From visits to St. Lawrence, she had not taken a liking to “dirty, smelly monks.” This story became a family heirloom as the Udulutsch parents became part of the Capuchin family, reinforced through the entry of son Bob into the Capuchins 10 years later, for which, Bob relates, Irvin was a huge influence. In 1938 he was given the religious name Irvin as he entered novitiate at St. Felix Friary, Huntington, Indiana. Raymond Demers was novice director, with Felix Ley as assistant and Irvin’s spiritual director. Irvin reports that spiritually it was a good year. Since he was the only novice who played the keyboard, he became the community organist for sung prayer, a role he continued throughout his studies. He spent four years of college at Garrison, New York, professing perpetual vows in 1942. Capuchin Venard Kelly, in charge of music, took him on as student director. He also introduced Irvin to the Motu Proprio of Pius X on sacred music (1903) and other writings on the liturgical movement, which Irvin reports as having a profound effect on him.

In 1943, when he began theological studies at Marathon, Wisconsin, Mark Stier, director of clerics, asked him to finish a correspondence course in sacred music that Mark had begun. It included a two-week summer course at Stritch College in Milwaukee offered by the Gregorian Institute of America. Mark eventually handed over most of his music duties to Irvin. He was also active as secretary and publishing in the Round Table of Franciscan Research. He wrote on the kingship of Christ according to St. Lawrence of Brindisi, and on the doctrine of the Mystical Body, a comparison between St. Bonaventure and Pius XII. He was ordained in 1946, and began his first assignment in 1947 at St. Lawrence College.

He had enough to do. He handled the whole music department, including classes, choir, Glee Club, band, orchestra, and piano lessons. He taught a liturgy course in the college department, and provided music instruction at St. Francis Brothers’ School at Calvary Station. Over the years he developed great skill in forming a schola cantorum (for Gregorian chant) and a male chorus, providing characteristic leadership, energy, and enthusiasm. All the while he was imparting formation in the burgeoning liturgical movement in the Catholic Church. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in music through the Gregorian Institute in Montreal, Canada.

One of his premier achievements came about when the tradition of a seminary Passion Play was handed over to him by Lawrence Merten. He developed a cantata on the Seven Last Words (later published by McLaughlin and Reilly) with narrative parts adapted from the Latin chant, and original choral parts, including a closing anthem “We Adore Thee.” The music is polyphonic in style, very expressive, a considerable advance over the square Singenberger style still much in vogue. It was well received, and went on tour in several Wisconsin cities. In 1952 it received its largest performance at the Milwaukee auditorium, with sixty Catholic school students in acting parts, and a positive review and photo in the Milwaukee Journal.

He continued to publish liturgical music throughout his years at St. Lawrence, as well as private arrangements for the choir. In his later years at St. Lawrence, with the choir, he produced “Hymns for the Home”, long play records of music for Advent/Christmas and Lent/Passiontide, a very demanding achievement for both Irvin and the choir. And every year the choir smiled when he hauled out “Willie Take Your Tiny Drum” for the Christmas season, referencing his baptismal name. Through all those years, the choir was in many ways the public face of the seminary outside the campus.

He began attending the National Liturgical Conference in 1948, and subsequently became chair of the Midwest Seminary Music Educators Association. He was a contributor to a newly formed liturgical magazine called Musart. He networked with musicians such as Elmer Pfeil (St. Francis Seminary), Theophane Hytrek, SSSF, Theodore Marier, Eugene Lindusky, Francis Scholz (organist at St. Joseph Parish in Appleton), and many others. He taught summer school at Loras College in Iowa, eventually also at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He made his teaching services available to many communities of religious women. The thread through all of this was not only liturgical music, but the development of the liturgical movement and active participation in the liturgy, and its practical implementation in schools and parishes.

One of the characteristic images of Irvin, as one came into schola or choir practice, was of him sitting at the piano, a pencil clenched in his teeth, working out a new choral arrangement or accompaniment at the piano with his stubby fingers. One of his constant projects was the development of new liturgical music. His accomplishments eventually led to his selection as one of the major editors of a new hymnal, Our Parish Prays and Sings, published by Liturgical Press, which was the first liturgical hymnal in the United States organized primarily around the liturgical year and the sacraments rather than popular devotions. This hymnal became the template for other Catholic hymnals; it sold over a million copies. Some of his hymns, whether original or translated text, melody, or both melody and text, are still reprinted in hymnals. (The 1990 version of the Collegeville Hymnal still listed 7 acknowledgements.) His translation from the German for “O God, Almighty Father” passed into the general repertoire (appropriately used at his funeral).

Most of Irvin’s composing efforts were directed to developing vernacular hymns for the liturgical year and the action of Eucharist, anticipating the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. From these efforts he developed a privately published Choir Manual for St. Lawrence College, which served the student body well for many years. Imitating European developments, he introduced the missa recitata into seminary life, which consisted of a low mass, with vernacular hymns, and choral recited prayers summarizing the action of the Eucharist while the Mass was read in a low voice by the priest. This was pushing the vernacular about as far as it could go at that time, however, not without controversy.

In 1956, Irvin was chosen as an American delegate to the First International Liturgical Conference in Assisi, a watershed moment in the liturgical movement, and the first gathering providing for extensive international interchange. It was expected that several ready liturgical reforms (married diaconate, more vernacular in sacraments, etc.) would be announced at that time, but Pius XII, old and sick, contented himself with a radio address from Rome clarifying doctrinal aspects of the liturgy. These reforms had to wait until Vatican II. But Irvin came back with renewed vision, particularly from accounts of what was already being done in some countries of Europe. (This writer, as fifth year student music director, was overly challenged to substitute for him during September of that year.)

Probably the best testimony to Irvin’s Calvary influence comes from many of his former students: Capuchins, diocesan priests, deacons, and lay people who later engaged in liturgical leadership in their parishes and dioceses. Their strongest affirmation is that they were ready when the liturgical reforms came about following Vatican II. Irvin had prepared them for such changes through formation in the principles underlying the new liturgy. That was his great gift.

Another testimony is the cascade of Capuchin musicians and liturgists directly influenced by Irvin and then influencing others. With Venard Kelly as an early influence upon him, Irvin began a parade of people influencing and inspiring one another: Giles Soyka, Myron Kowalsky, Ken Smits (Irvin was chief sponsor of his graduate education in liturgy), Peter Kutch (whose music education outside the seminary Irvin fostered), Edward Hagman, Bill Cieslak, Edward Foley, and Michael Bertram. In all his teaching years he shared generously with student and friar assistants, enabling them to develop their talents, sometimes quite unexpectedly when he had to take a last minute Sunday help-out. He organized the first meeting of a provincial liturgical commission (modeled after dioceses) in 1968, which still endures and has made a lasting contribution to provincial celebrations, initial formation, and in other ways.

Irvin’s last years at St. Lawrence became more difficult. The school was changing and the demands of choir upon students were harder to maintain. The planning of the new chapel (1958) found him at loggerheads with other friars. (Compromises and mistakes were etched in brick and mortar, stone and wood; the new chapel lasted only twelve years, becoming an auditorium when the present chapel was built.) In 1960 the provincial minister, Gerald Walker, asked him to become professor of liturgy and music for the theology students at St. Anthony in Marathon. He found this difficult, experiencing it as going from a larger post to a smaller post.

But Irvin became more qualified for this position through summer school at Notre Dame University (1961-1967), obtaining a master’s degree. He learned from some of the best European scholars in liturgy, and handed on this learning to the students of theology. He also had the challenge of preparing students for the shift from Latin to English in the celebration of liturgy, which he did well. He relied even more upon students (like this writer and Peter Kutch) to manage the music program. He was also faculty adviser for the Round Table of Franciscan Research.

In 1967 he was elected a definitor (the term later changed to “councilor”) with Rupert Dorn as provincial minister. He was given the task of organizing the renewal process in the province, leading to a special renewal chapter (in two parts) in 1969. He threw himself into this task with his customary energy, setting off an endless round of committees, meetings, and papers. The renewal process turned out to be long and difficult, with implementation stretched over many years.

There was speculation that Irvin would be re-elected at the chapter of 1970, perhaps even given the newly created post of provincial vicar. But a much enlarged group of electors had other concerns about younger representation (former friar Allen Gruenke) and representation from brothers and minorities (Booker Ashe). Rupert Dorn was easily re-elected but was given the highly unusual result (Rupert calls it “weird”) of a whole new slate of councilors. Irvin placed well in a number of the ballots, but did not get re- elected.

He was bitterly disappointed. Shortly after chapter he invited the author (in between studies in Canada and France) to go with him on a private retreat at the provincial cottage near Westboro. The days were spent in quiet, the evenings in long discussion as he poured out his soul. My recollection is that he needed to get things out of his system before he could move on. In addition, both of us proved we were not very good cooks. This retreat was a good preparation for his next challenge.

In 1970 he was appointed to an expanded position of director of formation in a time of great change, with residence at St. Francis Friary in Milwaukee. He was part of the process of closing St. Anthony Seminary, Marathon, and moving the friar students to St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee. He took over organization and funding of continuing education, and established it on a system of budgeting and banking. (This writer can testify to what an improvement this was, after going broke the year before in Paris when requests for funds from a local friary of our province were not answered). In those years there were more friars in graduate degree programs than ever before or since (18 in 1970), as a response to the call of outgoing provincial minister Gerard Hesse in 1967.

Irvin also solidified the team system of formation directors at all levels of formation. He concluded a long discussion of the appropriate age for entering novitiate with the establishment, with Al Veik, of a pre-novitiate in Milwaukee in 1972. With Werner Wolf he developed a Capuchin Associate Program for graduates of St. Lawrence College. (The full scope of formation responsibilities and progress at that time can be found in comprehensive reports on the provincial formation program in the Messenger, Nov.1970 and Jan. 1973.) Those were busy and energetic years for Irvin, who stood up well to the challenge of change in laying good foundations for the future of initial and ongoing formation. Keith Clark, who succeeded him as director of formation, testifies to a smooth transition, with philosophy and structures of formation well in place.

In 1975 Irvin began his pastoring years at St. Elizabeth Parish in Milwaukee. This was a challenging multi-cultural inner city parish, still undergoing change and diminishment. He also continued pre-novitiate involvement. He coordinated the transfer of the former parish convent into St. Conrad Friary as a Capuchin residence.

In 1978 he faced up to his addiction to alcohol and went for treatment to Guest House, Rochester, Minnesota. The writer visited him there (disclosure, also scouting it out for himself, which came two years later, and Irvin returned the visit). I found him on the front drive trying to re-master, with some difficulty, the art of riding a bicycle. He seemed to be at peace. In later years we shared now and then on our continuing experience of sobriety.

Irvin’s time at Guest House was followed by many years of parish ministry, interspersed with sabbatical time and semi-retirement. He was an associate pastor with Jerry Higgins, Capuchin, at St. Jude in Mahtomedi, Minnesota from 1979 to 1984. Upon leaving St. Jude, he was given funds for a trip to Europe to complete his work on a family history. He visited the family places of both his parents and was able to trace members of his family back to the late 1500s.

From 1984 to 1988 he was associate pastor at St. Patrick Parish in St. Paul. After a sabbatical year at St. Anthony Retreat Center, he became administrator of Sacred Heart Parish, Spruce WI, and St. Wenceslaus parish in Klondike (1989-1991) in the Green Bay Diocese. After a year of semi-retirement at St. Anthony Retreat Center, he became pastor of St. Agnes Parish, Callon (outside Wausau) from 1992 to 1995. His last pastoral assignment was as associate pastor with his brother Bob at St. Mary Parish in Kaukauna (1995-2006).

This writer touched base with him from time to time during those pastoral years. Irvin always had something to share about his latest initiative in the liturgy and the administrative life of the parish. Pastoral ministry energized him and he never stood still. Life was always unfinished; there was more to do. In several of his assignments, he was also spiritual assistant to Secular Franciscans, a post to which he brought his usual dedication. Spanning many years, he served on the liturgical commissions of the dioceses of Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Green Bay.

One of the highlights of his last years was being invited, as a 1946 ordination “classmate” of John Paul II, to concelebrate mass with John Paul II in the pope’s own chapel during his 50th year of priesthood (1996). This left a lasting impression upon him, and was one of the favorite stories of his last years.

In 1995 he suffered a heart attack, which slowed him down and prompted the move to be with his brother Bob in Kaukauna, where he proved an able associate. In 1998, as a complication of diabetes, his lower left leg was amputated, and he was fitted with prosthesis. He managed this limitation quite well.

In 2006 his weakening health called for transfer to St. Paul Home in Kaukauna for the rest of his years. During that time his interests narrowed; attempts to bring up things from the past did not interest him. He renewed and revived a devotional life and was dedicated to concelebrating daily Mass. He was generous in providing sacraments to other residents when called upon. At the same time he maintained a steady resistance to some elements of his own health care. He was somewhat stubborn to the end. Alert till just a few days before he died, he suffered an invasion of infection that his weakened condition could not survive. He passed away on 11 December 2010, at St. Paul Home.

A unique feature is that a special casket was ready for his body, made by his brother Bob in previous years. Bob began this project as a casket for himself, but secretly hoped it could be for Irvin. With the help of friends, it was a labor of considerable wood-working skill and challenging complexity, adorned in Franciscan manner on the theme of Franciscan joy and poverty. (Bob has a special brochure on the casket.)

Irvin’s wake service was held at St. Fidelis Friary on 14 December, with Ken Smits presiding and inviting testimony from the participants. Some parishioners from Kaukauna remembered him well. His funeral liturgy was celebrated at St. Joseph Parish Appleton, on 15 December, with John Celichowski, provincial minister, presiding, Bob Udulutsch and pastor Jim Leary concelebrating, and Bill Cieslak preaching. He is buried in the Capuchin cemetery at St. Lawrence Friary, Mt. Calvary.

Irvin was a person of great initiative, drive and vision. He could set out a project and see it all the way to the end, and he could inspire others. The other side of these gifts is that sometimes he could be quite stubborn in his positions, whether right or wrong. He also had a capacity to argue strongly in favor of his positions, especially with those who worked closely with him. At the same time, he was in countless ways the soul of the liturgical movement for many whom he touched and trained. May he not be forgotten.

Tribute prepared by Ken Smits, Capuchin.

Mary Teresine Haban, OSF

2011-10-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Mary Teresine Haban, OSF
January 15, 1914 – April 9, 2010

On Friday, April 9, 2010, toward the end of Easter Week, our Sister Teresine Haban slipped quietly into eternity to meet her risen Lord. Her passing from this earthly life into everlasting life was surely an “Alleluia” moment – the culmination of a life of loving commitment and service to God and others.

Teresine was born as the seventh of twelve children on January 15, 1914, in Columbus, OH, to Stephen and Anna (Kollar) Haban. At her Baptism, she received the name of Eva Rosella.

Musically gifted, Teresine began playing the piano at the age of eight. She probably inherited this gift of music from her father who used some of his earnings to buy various musical instruments for his children. When he purchased a piano at an auction, he learned that his little daughter, Eva, could play it. From that time her parents gave her piano lessons as a birthday gift each year until she graduated from high school.

Teresine attended Saint Mary’s Grade School and High School. On September 8, 1930, she applied for admission into the postulancy of the Sisters of Saint Francis of Mary Immaculate and was accepted. She became a novice on August 12, 1931, and was given her religious name of Teresine. Her religious vocation was a gift from God for her, one that she would cherish her whole life.

In 1942, Teresine received her Bachelor’s Degree from the College of Saint Francis. She went on to earn a Master’s in Music from the Chicago Music College. She pursued her studies in music at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where she was awarded her Doctoral Degree in Music.

Teresine’s first ministry was at Saint Clement School in Chicago. Later she was assigned to teach music at the College of St. Francis where she remained for 35 years, eleven of which she served as Chair of the Department of Music.

After leaving the College of Saint Francis, Teresine felt called to expand her music ministry. She accepted a position in the Music Department at West Chester State College. Because she would live at Immaculata College some eight miles away, she knew she would have to learn to drive. Her determination saw her through the achievement of this goal, and she enjoyed many side trips to the local parks and sites in Pennsylvania.

Teresine’s new position at West Chester State was both challenging and rewarding. She wrote: “The challenge became a wonderful source of satisfaction and a very real apostolate, transcending the teaching of music to a witnessing of Catholicity and religious life.”

Not only was Teresine a consummate teacher and instructor, she was also the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a scholarship award for piano study, an appointment as an associate of the American Guild of Organists and Outstanding Educator of America Award. She was active in liturgical education for over sixty years and served as lecturer, consultant and editor in the field of Catholic hymnody. [Teresine was a major contributor to the popular hymnal series Our Parish Prays and Sings, published by Liturgical Press prior to and immediately following the second Vatican Council.] During her ministry she became known as a composer, arranger, performer and adjudicator. To quote one news article: “She reads difficult music on sight much like the ease with which most adults read a newspaper, and transposes with accuracy and speed.” Teresine’s greatest priority, though, was her life as a Joliet Franciscan. Despite many of life’s challenges, changes, and struggles, she loved this Congregation. She loved and cherished what her vocation called her to be and to become. Her example of fidelity and loyalty will remain with us always.

Sister Teresine, as we leave OLA for your final resting place, we take with us our memories of you. We thank you for the gift you have been and are to your Joliet Franciscan Community. May your voice and your music echo through eternity. Amen. Alleluia.

Tribute prepared by the Sisters of Saint Francis of Mary Immaculate.

Guilford Young

2011-10-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

Guilford Young
November 10, 1916 – March 16, 1988

Archbishop Guilford Young was a man proud and passionate about his faith, dedicated to serving others and one who saw education as a gift and an opportunity. He loved young people and recognised them as the future of the country and the Church. He urged them to establish a vision, and to live it with purpose and dedication.

Guilford Young was born at Sandgate Brisbane on 10 November 1916 the son of a shearer Arthur Young and Mary Ellen Young. His father who was not a Catholic reared his family at Longreach Queensland but later the young lad Guilford was schooled by the Christian Brothers at Rockhampton. He began priestly studies for Rockhampton diocese at Springwood NSW and then proceeded to Propaganda College Rome. He was ordained priest on 3 June 1939 at the Lateran Basilica.

After appointments at Rockhampton Banyo seminary and the Apostolic Delegation at North Sydney, Guilford was appointed Auxiliary Bishop to Archbishop McGuire of Canberra and Goulburn on 15 July 1948 and became pastor of Yass. He was then aged 31 and the youngest Bishop in the church. He became Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese on 8 August 1953 when Archbishop McGuire retired and Auxiliary Bishop to the new Archbishop Eris O'Brien on 16 November 1953 until his transfer as Co-adjutor Archbishop at Hobart on 1 December 1954. At Yass also he gave considerable thought and ministerial attention to the aborigines of the district. Yass was often the focus in those days for large gatherings of laity and youth under his leadership.

Guilford Young was appointed as Archbishop of Hobart on 20 September, 1955 by Pope Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (Pius XII). As one of the Council Fathers he was imbued with a vision and an enthusiasm for the Church in the Modern World and this was highlighted in his concern for social justice. He was particularly vigilant and outspoken on issues of educational justice for Catholic schools.

Guilford's years in Hobart were distinguished by his leadership in the implementation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and his contribution to the liturgical renewal of the Church, both at the local level and through his appointment in Rome, first to the Consilium for the implementation of the Council's reforms, and later to the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.

Guilford was awarded the Order of the British Empire – Knights Commander on 3 June 1978 for Services to the Church. He died in Melbourne on 16 March 1988 and is buried in Hobart.

Tribute prepared by Guilford Young College.

Percy Jones

2011-10-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Percy Jones
1914–1992

Percy Jones was a monumental figure in the development of both Australian church music and music education. He came from a family of influential musicians. His father Percy was bandmaster of the prizewinning St Augustine's Orphanage Band and a music teacher at both Geelong Grammar and Geelong College. His sister Dorothea was a noted singer, and his brother Basil became director of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music.

Jones showed an aptitude for music at an early age, and by the age of ten had come to the attention of Percy Grainger. Whilst still at school he decided that he would study for the priesthood. In 1930, Archbishop Daniel Mannix sent him to study at the Propaganda College and the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music in Rome, where he completed his Doctorate in Music. He was ordained as a priest in 1937. His nine years in Europe included visits to the Abbey of Solesmes to study Gregorian chant.

Jones returned to Melbourne in 1939, and with his comprehensive musical and liturgical expertise was appointed by Mannix to several distinguished positions in the church. He was Diocesan Director of Music for the Archdiocese of Melbourne from 1940 to 1975, and Director of St Patrick's Cathedral Choir from 1942 to 1973. Through his teaching and performing, and as director of the Catholic Hour on Melbourne radio from 1940, he worked towards a renewal of liturgical music-making.

Jones published several major hymnals, including the Hymnal of St Pius X (1952) and the Hymnal of St Pius X: New Edition (1966), as well as numerous smaller collections of liturgical music that served the changing needs of the time. He was an advisor to the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) from 1964 to 1975, playing an international role in the musical and liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council. On his retirement in 1979, he was made a Foundation Fellow of the Melbourne College of Divinity, in recognition of his contribution to the ecumenical movement.

During the 1940s, Jones began collecting Australian folk songs. He went on collecting tours in Victoria and NSW and copied down words and music that people sang to him. He published his arrangements of the now well-known Click Go the Shears and Botany Bay in Burl Ives' Folio of Australian Folk Songs. During the 1950s, he was a driving force in the establishment of the Victorian Schools Music Association, the National Music Camp Association, and the Australian Youth Orchestra. He was also a Vice-Director of the Melbourne University Conservatorium from 1950 to 1972.

Tribute prepared by the National Library of Australia.

Albert Edwin Lynch

2011-10-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

Albert Edwin Lynch
December 10, 1900 – August 23, 1976

A Catholic priest and musician, Albert Edwin Lynch was born on 10 December 1900 at Collie, Western Australia, eldest child of Ernest Edwin Lynch, a miner from India, and his Victorian-born wife Elizabeth, née Stewart. Raised as an Anglican and educated at state schools, young Albert received his first musical training from the redoubtable Sister Monica at Saint Joseph's Convent, Boulder, before taking a job as a clerk. In the early 1920s his talent as a violinist earned him a place in orchestras supporting silent movies and enabled him to perform solo recitals on the wireless. Joseph Nowotny became his mentor. The Rivervale Progress Association sponsored the first of a series of concerts to raise the £1000 needed to send Lynch to Belgium in 1923 to study under Emile Marchot at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles for three and a half years. During this period he was converted to Catholicism. Back in Perth, he led a fifteen-piece orchestra at the Ambassadors Theatre, Hay Street.

In 1930 Lynch began training for the priesthood at the Pontifical Urban College of Propaganda Fide, Rome. He also studied the Palestrina school of polyphonic music, as well as Gregorian chant. In the following year he performed Schubert's Ave Maria before Pope Pius XI. Lynch was ordained priest in Saint John Lateran Basilica on 16 March 1935. In the Benedictine abbey at Solesmes, France, he encountered the revival of plainsong stimulated by Pope Pius X's liturgical reforms. Appointed curate of Palmyra, Perth, on 6 July 1935, he returned to Western Australia in October. In 1938 he formed an all-male choir at Saint Mary's Cathedral, Perth, which he conducted for fifteen years. In conjunction with Christian Brothers' College, Saint George's Terrace, he established Western Australia's first Catholic choir school. As diocesan director (from 1938) of Gregorian chant, he traveled zealously throughout the State, assisting convent schools to establish plainsong choirs, and organizing examinations and competitions. He served on the music examinations board of the University of Western Australia, and collaborated with the Benedictine Abbey Nullius of New Norcia and its musicians, notably Dom Stephen Moreno and Dom Eladio Ros. Lynch was chaplain (1938-42) of Aquinas College, Manning, and, later, of other institutions. Founding parish priest (1952) of Applecross, he dedicated the parish to Saint Benedict and ministered there until he retired in 1973.

Following the Second Vatican Council's directives regarding use of the vernacular, in the 1960s Lynch had begun to write church music with English lyrics. For Pope Paul VI's visit to Australia in 1970, he wrote music for the Mass in Saint Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, and Mass of the Unsung Saints for a service held at Randwick racecourse where he conducted the choir. His compositions were used at the International Eucharistic Congress in Melbourne in 1973.

Lynch died on 23 August 1976 at Applecross and was buried in Karrakatta cemetery. He bequeathed his violin, viola and bows to the University of Western Australia, his piano to the Applecross parish school, and his records of polyphonic music and Gregorian chant to the archbishop of Perth.

Tribute from the Australian Dictionary of Biography, prepared by Clement Mulcahy.

Mary Dolores Depner, SCL

2011-10-17T14:58:00.000-07:00

Mary Dolores Depner, SCL
December 7, 1928 – August 15, 2011

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth mourn the loss of Sister Mary Depner, 82, who died on August 15, 2011, at St. Vincent Hospital in Billings, MT. Sister Mary had been visiting in Billings from Leavenworth, KS at the time of her death. She served the people of God as a Sister of Charity for 64 years. Her cheerfulness and her grateful attitude were a blessing for all those with whom she lived and worked.

Mary Dolores Depner was born on December 7, 1928 in Billings, MT, the seventh of nine children born to Martin A. and Katherine Gerber Depner. Mary attended Fratt Memorial Grade School and graduated from Billings Senior High in 1946. She entered the religious community of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth on August 27, 1947 and, as Sister Martin de Porres, made her profession of vows on September 8, 1949. She later returned to the use of her baptismal name, and was known as Sister Mary.

Mary was an accomplished musician, an excellent teacher, and a gifted organist. She received a Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Saint Mary, Leavenworth, KS. Mary spent over 30 years teaching music in elementary and secondary classrooms across the west and Midwest. In 1974 she returned to her hometown where she taught in the parochial schools, was a school librarian, a liturgist, cared for her elderly mother for 21 years, and in May, 2004 retired as organist/pianist at Saint Patrick’s Co-Cathedral after 18 years. She belonged to the Billings Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and had an innate love for the organ, calling it the “King of the Instruments.” She delighted in her organ studies with Dr. Fred Binckes at Rocky Mountain College. Mary retired to the Mother House in Leavenworth, KS, in November, 2010.

Survivors include her brothers Arnold, Medford, OR; Earl, Monument, CO; Art, Spokane, WA; Ed, Redmond, WA; and sisters Patricia Gomm, Portland, OR; and Rita Leader, Billings, MT; niece Sister Carol Depner of Grand Junction, CO, also a Sister of Charity; many nieces, nephews, friends, and her SCL Community.

A vigil will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 18, at St. Patrick’s Co-Cathedral. The Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at noon on Friday, Aug. 19, also at St. Patrick’s. Interment will follow in Holy Cross Cemetery.

Tribute prepared by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, KS.

Lawrence J. Madden, SJ

2011-10-17T14:34:00.001-07:00

Lawrence J. Madden, SJ
May 18, 1933–May 30, 2011

Father Lawrence Joseph Madden, SJ, 78, died on May 30, 2011 at Georgetown Univesity, Washington, DC. He was a Jesuit for 59 years and a priest for 46 years.

Lawrence was the son of Lawrence J. Madden and Maria Agnes Scally, born on May 18, 1933 in Philadelphia, PA. Following graduation from Saint Joseph's Preparatory School, Philadelphia, he entered the Society of Jesus on July 30, 1951 at the Novitiate of Saint Isaac Jogues, Wernersville, PA., where he pronounced his First Vows on July 31, 1953. After pursuing Juniorate (College) Studies in the Humanities at Wernersville from 1953 to 1955, Lawrence studied Philosophy and English from 1955 to 1958 at Loyola Seminary (Fordham University), Shrub Oak, NY from which he received a B.A. degree in 1957 and a M.S. degree in 1959.

From 1958 to 1961, Lawrence, a Jesuit Scholastic, taught English, Mathematics and Religion at Scranton Preparatory School, Scranton, PA., before being sent to study Theology from 1961 to 1965 at Woodstock College in Maryland, where he was ordained to the priesthood by Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, Archbishop of Baltimore, on June 14, 1964. Lawrence completed his Tertianship at St. Robert's Hall, Pomfret, CT, from 1965 to 1966 and made his Final Profession in the Society of Jesus at Georgetown University, Washington, DC on November 6, 1971.

Following graduate studies at the Liturgical Institute of the Theological Faculty at the University of Trier, Germany from 1966 to 1968, where he received the S.T.D. degree in 1971, Lawrence then served as Professor of Pastoral Theology (1968-1971) and Superior of the Jesuit Community (1969-1971) at Woodstock College in Maryland and Professor of Pastoral Theology (1970-1971) at Woodstock College in New York.

In 1971, Lawrence was sent to Washington, DC where he was to remain for the next forty years, engaged in various ministries in the area. From 1971 to 1981, he held the offices of Director of Campus Ministries and Professor of Pastoral Theology at Georgetown University as well as Vice-Superior at Campion House (1972-1981). From 1981 to 2000, residing at Holy Trinity Rectory, he served as Director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy, Spirituality and the Arts, Parochial Vicar (1981-1993) and Pastor and Superior of the Holy Trinity Jesuit Community of Holy Trinity Church (1993-2000).

After a Sabbatical at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA. from 2000 to 2001, Lawrence returned to Washington, DC as the Director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy from 2001 to 2011 at Georgetown University, where he also held assignments during those years as Professor of Theology (2003-2004), Professorial Lecturer in Theology (2004-2011), and Editorial Director of EnVisionChurch, a website devoted to liturgy, spirituality and the arts (2009-2011) until his death.

The American Institute of Architects’ Interfaith Forum on Religion Art & Architecture (IFRAA) presented the Elbert M. Conover Award to Lawrence J. Madden, SJ, on May 12, 2011 at the AIA’s National Convention in New Orleans. The award is given on occasion to non-architects for their contributions to religious art and architecture.

Lawrence served as an advisor to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy and on the governing committee of the North American Academy of Liturgy. An author and frequent lecturer, he edited The Awakening Church: the State of Liturgy in the U.S. Twenty-five Years after the Second Vatican Council’s Reforms, published in 1991. He has recently co-authored Simply Fred, A Tribute to Frederick R. McManus, priest, peritus, and promoter of liturgical renewal: 1950 to 2005. The book is available from lulu.com/spotlight/jackshea .

Tribute prepared by The Georgetown Center for Liturgy.

Everett A. Diederich, SJ

2011-04-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Everett A. Diederich, SJ
January 5, 1920 - April 20, 2011

Everett Diederich, SJ, a former professor of theology and scholar-in-residence at Saint Louis University's Stroble Center for Liturgy, died on April 20, 2011. He was 91.

A Jesuit for 71 years, Fr. Diederich was born in Greenleaf, Kan., January 5, 1920. He entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Mo., September 1, 1939. He completed a B.A. in Latin and Greek and a Ph.L. at Saint Louis University and taught as a scholastic at Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wis. Fr. Diederich was ordained to the priesthood June 19, 1952, at Saint Mary's College in Kansas.

After tertianship in Decatur, IL., he completed an S.T.D. in Liturgical Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and did a post-doctorate at the Liturgical Institute of Trier, Germany.

In 1957, he began teaching dogmatic theology at Saint Mary's College. He continued this work at Saint Louis University when the Divinity School moved there in 1967.

A nationally known liturgist, Fr. Diederich taught many Jesuits how to put liturgical theory into practice in the celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments.

During those years he also provided his expertise to the province, helping with summer seminars on the liturgical changes of Vatican II and arranging and overseeing ordination Masses.

After the Divinity School closed, Fr. Diederich continued teaching theology at SLU for a short time before joining the faculty at Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, where he taught liturgical theology.

In 1980, Fr. Diederich began 15 years of pastoral ministry in a variety of capacities and locations. He served as pastor or associate pastor at Saint Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City, MO, Saint Francis Xavier (College) Church in Saint Louis, Saint Mary's Church in Salina, KS, Saint Matthew's Cathedral in South Bend, IN, and Holy Trinity Parish in Trinidad, CO. From 1988-1991, he served as the director of liturgy in the Diocese of Fort Wayne, IN.

John Foley, SJ, director of Center for Liturgy, reflected on the wonderful caring and influence of Fr. Diederich in the lives of those around him.

"Fr. Everett was a great friend and colleague to me during all my years as a Jesuit and certainly in our mutual work for Catholic liturgy," Foley said.

"His long life of service, teaching and kindness are illustrated by his last days at Jesuit Hall as people came in and out to pray with him, to sing to him, to care for him. There were former students, current students, penitents, Jesuits, Dominicans, co-workers, family members, friends, and more. His last 15 years at Saint Louis University bore witness to the beauty and fidelity of all his years."

In 1996, Fr. Diederich returned to Saint Louis where he joined in the work of the Stroble Center for Liturgy at Saint Louis University as a scholar-in-residence and chaplain to the Center's staff until the time of his death. He also served as a pastoral and sacramental minister at Saint Francis Xavier (College) Church.

Fr. Diederich was preceded in death by two sisters and three brothers. He is survived by several nieces and nephews.

Tribute prepared by Jeanette Grider, Saint Louis University.

Robert William Piercy, Jr.

2011-03-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

Robert William, Piercy Jr
1958 - 2011

Robert William, Piercy Jr., Age 52, of Chicago and formerly of Joliet, passed away peacefully, at his home, Wednesday March 17, 2011. He attended St. Mary Nativity grade school, DeLaSalle High School in Johannesburg, Africa, Joliet Catholic High and A.M. Barbe High School in Lake Charles, LA., where he graduated with the class of 1976. Bob received a Bachelor degree from National College of Education in Chicago. He was the beloved son of Robert W. and Rosemarie (Novak) Piercy, Sr.; Loving brother of Debbie (George) Shimek, Judy Piercy (Peter Jarjisian), Mary Ann Piercy, Tom (Sue) Piercy and Patty (Dan) Cushing. Proud uncle of Jeff (Kalissa), Terra (Tim), Collin, Megan, Erin, Emily, Tommy and dear great uncle of Amelia. Preceded in death by his grandparents and a niece Kathleen.

A musician, liturgist, author, and clinician, Bob recently worked as an editor for Liturgy Training Publications in Chicago, Illinois. Some of his past credits include serving the church as director of music at St. Julie Billiart Parish in Tinley Park, Illinois, and as director of music at Holy Family Parish in Shorewood, Illinois. He also worked for GIA Publications, Inc. as catechetical director. During his tenure with GIA, he created and collaborated on such works as Journey of the Sacred (with Rosemary Bleuher, Denise La Giglia, and Dennis Paul); When Children Gather: 20 Eucharistic Services and 20 Prayer Services (with Vivian Williams); Walking by Faith (with David Haas); Celebrating Our Faith; Give Your Gifts I (with Linda Baltikas); Give Your Gifts II (with Michael Schabert); Table Prayer (with Beth Thompson); and as an editor of GIA’s children’s hymnal, Singing Our Faith. He was a well-known author and lecturer to adults and young children, and a much sought-after speaker on rites and rituals of the Catholic church.

Visitation will be held on Monday, March 21, 2011 from 4-8 p.m. at the Fred C. Dames Funeral Home, 3200 Black Rd. (at Essington Rd.), Joliet. Visitation will continue Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at St. Julie Billiart Parish, 7399 W. 159th St., Tinley Park, IL., from 5 p.m. until remembrances at 6 p.m. with a Mass of Christian Burial to be celebrated at 7 p.m. A prayer will be offered Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 10 a.m. at the Fred C. Dames Funeral Home, Joliet, followed by interment in St. Mary Nativity Cemetery, Crest Hill, IL.

Robert Twynham

2011-03-24T19:53:00.001-07:00

Robert Twynham

Robert Twynham passed away on March 23, 2011, peacefully at home. He will be cremated, and a Memorial Mass is being planned for sometime after Easter; it will take place at his home parish, Corpus Christi Catholic Church, in Baltimore.

For almost 40 years, Robert Twynham served as Choirmaster and Director of Music at Cathedral starting in 1961 and was largely responsible for establishing the fine Sacred Music Program and the Cathedral Music Series that have benefited many in some profound and spiritual way. He was a musician of national and international standing, a composer and organ pedagogue.

He was born in Washington, DC. At the age of thirteen, he began his musical career as organist at the Walter Reed Hospital Chapel. His first organ teacher, Katharine Fowler, encouraged her gifted young student to pursue musical study that eventually brought him to the Peabody Conservatory (now known as the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University). A scholarship student, he studied with Paul Callaway and George Karkey, receiving at graduation the Artist Diploma and the Bach "Horstmeier" prize. He later went to Paris to study at the Conservatory with the Catholic Impressionist composer Olivier Messiaen.

Many of the service music settings sung for the past 50 years were written by Bob and are included in the major Catholic hymnals of the US. The choral piece performed by the Cathedral choir at the 50th anniversary concert was Bob's Magnificat. Bob had conducted a number of Magnificats and decided to compose his own. His choral work, originally commissioned for the Baltimore Choral Arts Society in 1980, had its world premiere on May 5, 1980. Since then, it has been performed across the country with rave reviews.

The first five movements are titled after the names for Mary that are found in the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen: Mystical Rose (Rosa Mystica), Morning Star (Stella Matutina), Refuge of Sinners (Refugium Peccatorum), Mirror of Justice (Speculum Justitiae) and Ivory Tower (Turris Eburnea).

Bob's wife Eileen is herself an accomplished musician. She drew poetic inspiration from the Marian images in the walls and windows of the Lady Chapel at the Cathedral. Eileen expanded these metaphors in five poems using historical documents about Mary. Bob set these five poems to music. Her English texts are juxtaposed with the Latin text of the Magnificat in what is termed a macaronic text. The result is amazing.

The sixth and final movement, Gloria Patri, is a joyous explosion of organ and choral mastery that typically leads the audience to a standing ovation.

Dr. Quentin L. Van Meter was a member of Robert Twynham's Choir of Men and Boys at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen while he was a fellow in Pediatric Endocrinology at Johns Hopkins from 1978-1980. Bob's Magnificat so moved Dr. Van Meter that he has spent the subsequent years carrying around the score, giving an original recording to the Choral Directors of symphony orchestras in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, as well as the Directors of the Roger Wagner Chorale, and the Westminster College Choir, in hopes of getting the work performed and perhaps recorded so that a much wider audience could enjoy it.

Tribute prepared by the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Baltimore.

Christopher Melvyn Trussell

2010-12-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Christopher Melvyn Trussell
February 15, 1937 – November 11, 2010

Christopher Melvyn Trussell was born on February 15, 1937, in Birmingham, England. He was the son of George and Mary (Cadman) Trussell. He attended the George Dixon Elementary and Aston Commercial Secondary schools in Birmingham. He became proficient as an organist and pianist, and was a member of the choir at the Church of Saint Germain in Birmingham.

In 1954 Christopher moved with his parents to South Africa where he was appointed Director of Music at the Church of Saint Cuthbert. While in South Africa, Christopher became an accomplished French horn player as a member of the Port Elizabeth Orchestra. He also conducted a performance of Handel’s Messiah, performed by members living in the ghettos of Port Elizabeth.

After living in South Africa for seven years, Christopher returned home to England and attended Trinity College of Music in London, studying composition, orchestration, and theatre. Having completed his studies, he was offered and accepted a position at Saint John’s School in Houston, TX, and thus came to the United States.

While living in Houston, Christopher became involved in writing television commercials, which led to a request to write of film score. Eventually Christopher moved to Hollywood to work on musical scores for the film industry. In 1967 he accepted the position of Director of Fine Arts at the Webb School, Claremont, CA. While there, he founded the Claremont Boys’ Choir, the Claremont Girls’ Choir, and many other groups still in existence today.

Christopher’s talent and hard work lead to many writing opportunities, including a film score for Warner Brothers and a score for a NASA documentary. The score he wrote for the movie Hot Potato was nominated for an Academy Award.

Christopher was received into the Catholic Church on December 24, 1983. After much soul searching and contemplation, in 1985 he moved to Spokane, WA, to follow a dream. There he pursued and simultaneously completed two master’s degrees at Gonzaga University: one in Religious Studies and the other in Spirituality. In his spare time he founded the Spokane Boys’ Choir and the Schola Cantorum. He also began work as a film and theatre critic.

In 1987 Christopher moved to Central Minnesota to pursue a Master of Divinity degree at Saint John’s University, Collegeville. On June 6, 1992, he was ordained to the presbyterate for the Diocese of Saint Cloud by Bishop Jerome Hanus, OSB, at the Cathedral of Saint Mary, Saint Cloud, MN. He celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving on June 7, 1992, at the Church of Saint Michael, Saint Cloud, MN.

Following his ordination, from 1992-1994 he served as associate pastor at the Church of Saint Joseph, Waite Park, MN. Also beginning in 1992, he joined the faculty at Cathedral High School (CHS), Saint Cloud, MN, where he served as a religion teacher and directed the Theatre Department. Additionally, he assisted in the diocesan vocation office and was a featured writer for the diocesan newspaper, the Saint Cloud Visitor.

During his tenure at CHS, Christopher directed over 150 productions, beginning with a production of The Music Man, which transformed the Theatre Department. He developed specialized areas of theatre, including: The CHS Repertory Players; Coffee House Productions; Mondays at Seven; and more. He established classes in all areas of “theatrical craft” that are now a regular part of the curriculum at CHS. Students have the opportunity to lean the technical aspects of theatre, including: lighting, sound, stage management, and costuming. A One-Act Play Festival, showcasing student’s own creations, was also developed. Due to his declining health, Christopher retired from CHS in 2009. His dedication, vision, leadership, and drive ignited a fire that burns brightly today in the CHS Theatre Department, and provides the foundation to assure that his legacy will continue into the future.

As a priest, Christopher was a passionate preacher and loved the liturgy. Standing before an assembly and presiding at the Eucharist came naturally for him, though he was cautious never to cross the boundaries and turn the liturgy into a drama. For over a decade he was part of the Campus Ministry Team at the College of Saint Benedict, Saint Joseph, MN. He also formed and directed the Diocesan Schola that sang for various diocesan liturgies. He was a gifted organist and took great pleasure in serving as accompanist at the annual diocesan clergy conference, where he and a couple of his brother priests would lead the music for the three-day gathering.

Always looking to the next project, Christopher founded The Cathedral Festival of the Arts, which for five years brought tremendous national performers to the Saint Cloud community. This weeks-long celebration of the arts took place in early September, surrounding the feast of Saint Cloud, and included performances by the James Sewell Ballet, the Tokyo String Quartet, as well as dramatic performances including: T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral; A Man For All Seasons; Galileo; and more. He also created and composed an original musical entitled Scrooge, based on the Dickens novel.

While Parkinson’s disease, time, a stroke, age, and hard work may have slowed him down, Christopher’s enthusiasm, positive energy, spirituality, and a sense of the next project kept him motivated. His presence in our community made it possible for thousands of students and residents to participate in theatre, music, and art. In 2009 Christopher was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award presented by the Paramount Theatre and Visual Art Center, Saint Cloud, MN.

Christopher Melvyn Trussell died on November 11, 2010. He was preceded in death by his parents and is survived by his son, Gavin Trussell, and two grandchildren, Alexander and Abigail, who reside in Lewis Center, Ohio. The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on November 17, 2010, at the Cathedral of Saint Mary, Saint Cloud, MN, Bishop John F. Kinney, presider.

John J. O'Brien, C.P.

2010-10-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

John J. O’Brien, C.P.
1941 – 2010

John J. O’Brien, C.P., a Passionist priest, died after a brief illness at the University of Connecticut Medical Center on October 15, 2010. He was 69 years old. Father O’Brien graduated from Cathedral High School in Brooklyn, NY in 1959. After earning an Associate’s Degree at Cathedral College, he entered the Passionist Community in 1961. He professed vows as a Passionist in 1962 and was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Edgerton Clark in 1969, having earned a Master’s Degree from St. Michael’s Seminary in Union City, NJ. In 1977, Fr. O’Brien earned a Master’s Degree in Liturgical Studies from St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.

Father O’Brien engaged in retreat ministry at the Passionist retreat centers in North Palm Beach, FL and West Hartford, CT from 1970 to 1978. After serving as a member of the itinerant preaching band, he was named pastor of St. Gabriel’s Parish in Brighton, MA in 1980. He served as formation director for Passionist students at the pre-novitiate and theologate levels from 1983 to 1990. For most of the past twenty years, Father O’Brien ministered in Massachusetts, at Calvary Passionist Retreat Center in Shrewsbury, St. Malachy’s Parish in Burlington, Sacred Heart Parish in Lexington, and as a professor of Theology at Anna Maria College in Worcester and Blessed John XXIII National Seminary in Weston. He earned his Doctorate in Theology from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in 2002.

Father O’Brien was the author of a number of publications in theology, including articles on liturgy for scholarly journals and entries in the New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, the New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, and the Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology. In 2005, he published a book on the renowned Catholic labor activist, Monsignor George Higgins, entitled George G. Higgins and the Quest for Worker Justice (Sheed & Ward). He was also an active member of a number of professional societies, including the North American Academy of Liturgy, the Catholic Historical Society, Pax Christi, and the International Merton Society.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at Immaculate Conception Church in Jamaica, NY on October 20, 2010, with interment at the Passionist monastery cemetery.

Tribute prepared by the Passionists.

James Field

2010-07-12T11:27:00.001-07:00

James Field
December 23, 1950 - July 12, 2010

Archdiocese of Boston—The Rev. James Field, pastor at Incarnation Parish in Melrose, died Monday morning after a two-year struggle with pancreatic cancer.

Father Field was a life-long educator and Xaverian Brother who worked at Notre Dame University and Malden Catholic High School before requesting a position at Incarnation Parish in Melrose in 2002.

Field had a self-professed passion for the liturgy and rituals of the Catholic church, and he focused much of his religious study on the history of Catholic traditions. Field tried to instill his fascination with the liturgy in his students and parishioners, making it a focal point of his religious program at Incarnation.

Field’s decision to carry on his ministry at Incarnation when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 became an inspiration to parishioners, who celebrated the 20th anniversary of Field’s ordination as a Catholic priest on Sunday, June 20.

Melrose Mayor Robert Dolan called Field’s death, “a loss for the entire community.”

“The way he faced his final illness with dignity and strength is an inspiration to us all,” Dolan said in a statement provided to the Free Press. “In addition, Father Field went beyond the boundaries of his parish and joined the other members of the Interfaith Clergy Association to confront discrimination, help the poor, and advance issues that are common among all people of faith, regardless of denomination. He truly walked in the way of love, and the city mourns the loss of this good and holy man.”

Field grew up in Marblehead, and was interested in studying scripture from the time he was in high school in the 1960s, when the Second Vatican Council created a new energy and enthusiasm in the Catholic Church.

After graduating from high school, Field became a member of the Xaverian Brothers — an international congregation with religious laypeople dedicated to the education of youth — and taught various subjects at a school in Connecticut. He then earned a graduate degree in liturgy from the University of Notre Dame, and became an administrator and liturgy teacher at the school.

Field moved back to the Boston area in the 1980s, and worked for several years as dean of studies and associate headmaster at Malden Catholic High School.

Field was ordained as a priest in 1990, and later requested to serve in Melrose when a position opened at Incarnation Parish. He was assigned to the church in 2002 by Cardinal Bernard Law.

When Field was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2008, doctors said the illness could leave him dead within weeks. Field returned to the parish with the diagnosis hanging over him, uncertain of how long he could continue his ministry at the church. In a recent interview with the Free Press, Field said it was a moment that challenged — but failed to overwhelm — his faith.

“Faith prepares you for anything,” Field said. “[The diagnosis was] a time of testing faith, certainly … but I don’t think of myself as an especially courageous person. I got great strength from my faith.”

As Field endeavored to carry on his duties over the last two years at the church, parishioners pulled closer to the ailing priest, sharing with him an energy that Field said, in part, helped to sustain him on his good days and bad.

“I draw such great strength from the community here,” Field said, “and just that hour on Sunday morning when I see them. I know their kindnesses to me, and I also know their struggles and their troubles.”

Sue Caffey, an Incarnation church member, said Field died early Monday inside the rectory at the church. A funeral liturgy is being planned for Friday July 16th at his parish with Cardinal Sean O'Malley as celebrant.

John D. Wright

2010-07-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

John D. Wright
October 20, 1944 – July 1, 2010

Homily for John Wright’s Funeral
Edward Foley, Capuchin
5 July 2010

It was not the e-mail I expected to receive. The only news I received about John by e-mail was from John ... most recently about him feeling good, getting stronger but not putting on weight; the upcoming family reunion that Becky had organized; and always that little sardonic touch, like his closing note at the end of the last e-mail noting that “my mental state is as normal as it ever was!”

It was not the e-mail I expected to receive. It was not the news I expected to hear. I certainly wasn’t expecting bad news. The last e-mails had been so filled with such good news: off the medication and lymphoma not active. If it was bad news, I expected it to be about a change in the white cells or the need to go back on the hellish medication. Instead it was unexpected news, “awful news” Mickey called it, of a heart attack and that he was gone.

In the aftermath of such unexpected news, such awful news, and the sad reality of the sudden death of husband and father, sibling and grandfather, colleague and friend, it is appropriate that we gather for this final sacred act in the presence of John’s body, in Eucharist, in sacrament, in liturgy. It is appropriate because the Eucharistic liturgy is where we, and unnamed multitudes before us, have come to face the unexpected. The shattering news of the death of the Lord, the sacrifice of the only begotten, the tragic and sudden end to the early life of Jesus, only to have that death, sacrifice, and awful news resolve into tales of resurrection for the Christ - and Christians who bear his name. But it is also appropriate that we bring this sudden, sad, and awful news to liturgy not only because liturgy is central to the life of the church, but also because it was central to John’s believing and knowing, working and ministering.

Symptomatic was Mickey’s comment yesterday that she doesn’t know where his rosary is, but she certainly knows where his breviary is, you saw it in his hands tonight. John had a passion for the liturgy and you know once he had a passion about something, look out ... he was in sales mode ... whether it was a product or an idea. He had an instinct for the church’s worship, a knack for knowing what was effective and what was not. A sixth sense for the liturgically authentic, sacramentally real, and a virtually flawless baloney detector [though he had a more vivid name for it] that could sniff out the sacramentally fraudulent, the liturgically shallow, the ministerially inauthentic in an instant, which is also about how long it took him to unload that detector on anyone within range ... to anyone who had ears to hear.

John also understood that liturgy was imperfect, something that became painfully clear during his doctoral work on the Prayer of the Faithful. It was in this very church, about a dozen years ago. He had planned a series of interviews with parishioners after Sunday Masses to discover what struck them most about the Prayer of the Faithful in the liturgy they just attended. To his horror, John discovered in the very first set of interviews, that the vast majority didn’t even know what the Prayer of the Faithful was, much less when it occurred or what it said. He thought his entire doctoral work had gone down the toilet and was very upset ... you remember how his voice got higher the more worked up he got? But eventually, after he calmed down, he discovered that he had unearthed an important piece of negative research: that sometimes in the liturgy of the church there are black holes, vacuums, dead zones, where grace does not abound, and angels do not rejoice.

John understood the liturgy of the church in all of its graces and all of its malpractice. He also understood the liturgy of life, the liturgy of the world: the daily crucifixions and resurrections; the gracious invitations and sometimes stingy responses; the signs of peace and acts of communion; the hymns and laments that took place at home, at work, on the road and around a table of friends. He understood the sacramentality of life: eucharist at a great restaurant; the chalice of life that he filled with a Bloody Mary; the baptism in a new job; the gifts of the earth and work of human hands daily offered in his own garden ... a most sacred place for John; the sacramentality of friendship, of parenting, of godparenting ...

John received all of the sacraments of the Church. Baptized a priest and ordained a priest, he chose to live the ministry of the baptized ... amazing enough, since for most of the baptized it is not a choice, but default mode, but for him it was a choice. But besides having received sacraments, John…as someone who made visible the invisible, who lived death and resurrection many times over, who knew the word of God and the word of People as a two edged sword in his own life…John was himself his own kind of sacrament as each of us are. For each of us makes visible in a unique way something of the mystery of God in Christ, something of the love of God in Christ, something of the dying and rising of God in Christ. So, in a sense  we have lost a most beloved, imperfect, irascible, loving, irreplaceable sacrament, and soon his visible form, that outward sign of an invisible grace, will be gone from our sight.

And in the suddenness of his going and the suddenness of the loss, there are undoubtedly so many things that each of us, if we had a final chance, would have wanted to say to him one last time: to speak of our love, to seek some final piece of advice, to offer a word of gratitude or regret. Undoubtedly, there were also things we yearn to receive one last time from him: gifts that now seem beyond giving, a final kiss, a last upbeat e-mail or wry comment, a closing word of gratitude or regret.

But John has now been taken up into the mystery of God and we believe that what could have been his final words and gestures, gifts and absolutions, affirmations and regrets, are now resolved and reconciled in Christ. So in Christ, this night, Wisdom speaks in the first reading proclaiming that John is taken up with the Just, refined like gold in the furnace. And in the twinkling of an eye, purgation gives way to illumination and grace and mercy are his. Through St. Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome, we are assured that nothing separates John from the love of Christ, nor us from John who now dwells eternally in the love of Christ. And lastly, in a Gospel true to his own name, St. John consoles us that we need not be troubled. For husband and father, sibling, grandparent, and friend has gone to prepare a place for us in the eternal liturgy that he now celebrates, the same unending liturgy that one day awaits us all.

The readings offer eternal reassurances, divine affirmations, and a fulsome promise, but admittedly, for us mere mortals, it does not always fill hearts so broken. And I know, Becky, of your particular and poignant sorrow, your lament that the grand-twins…Owen and Nora…will now not know their maternal grandfather. Ironically, it was a lament sounded by the first disciples who wondered aloud how those who would come after would know the young Rabbi, Jesus, after his death, resurrection and ascension. And the simple truth is that epochs later, this Jesus is known because his followers…his children, his spiritual grand daughters and sons...spoke his words, lived his deeds, shared his love, died his death, and participate in his resurrection. So now you and Erik, Mickey, and the whole family, with us all, need to become new sacraments, making visible all the good and grace, passion and poetry of your father, now more veiled and hidden from the world.

Poet Mark Doty has an essay about the death of a friend, which captures something of this sacramental mission made visible in the death of our brother John. Doty writes, “I believe with all my heart that when the chariot came for him, green and gold and rose, a band of angels swung wide out over the great flanks of the sea, bearing him up over the path of light [that] the sun makes on the face of the waters. I believe my love is in the Jordan, which is deep and wide and welcoming, though it scours us oh so deeply. And when he gets to the other side, I know he will be dressed in robes of comfort and gladness, his forehead will be anointed with spices, and he will sing -- joyfully -- into the future, and back toward the darkness of this world. ”

Becky, whenever you or any of us speak or act the love you know your father had for you and Erik and the twins; whenever you or any of us speak or act the passion you know your father had for family and friends and the liturgy of the world; whenever you or any of us speak or act the sacrament, the grace your father had to offer us all in the liturgy of his life—know that it is your father in Christ, singing back toward whatever darkness there is in this world, so that Owen and Nora, and all God’s children, will live in a home more graced, a city more reconciled, a church more inviting, and a world more sacramental.

This promise of John, in unison with the whole communion of saints singing back to enlighten our darkness, is one made sure through the very God in Christ who now holds John securely to himself and whose Spirit is our abiding comfort in this time of grief. Singing through tears, beating in broken hearts, loving in our loss, and eternally promising that John can never be lost to us but is newly found…through Christ our Lord…and the Church says: Amen!

Margaret Paluch

2010-06-28T09:54:00.001-07:00

Margaret A. "Mickey" Paluch
June 4, 1922 - October 8, 2009

The J.S. Paluch Company mourns the loss of Margaret A. "Mickey" Paluch, dedicated servant to the Church.

Mickey Paluch's personal lifelong commitment to the Church has been inspiring and remarkable. In keeping with her spirit, the J.S. Paluch Company, a major national religious publisher providing the Catholic church with worship aids, inspirational music, Sunday bulletins, calendars and computer software, shares its resources with parishes across the country.

The Paluch Family Foundation was established by Mickey in 1995 and funds liturgy, stewardship and vocations projects. In recognition of her devotion to vocation ministry, the National Religious Vocation Conference (NRVC) presented its John Paul II Award to Mickey in 1987. In 1989, the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors (NCDVD) bestowed its Stewardship Award on Mickey and, in 1995, established the Margaret A. Paluch Award in her honor. This award is given to individuals who make outstanding contributions to vocation ministry. Mickey had been a member of FATICA, an organization that supports vocation ministry.

In 1991, Mickey established the Endowment for the Margaret and Chester Paluch Chair of Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein in support of that effort. In 2007, Mickey received the Pope John Paul II Seminary Leadership Award from the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) Seminary Department in recognition of her distinguished service to Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States and Canada. Marianist Brother Bernard F. Stratman, executive director of the NCEA Seminary Department remarked, "In presenting the award to a lay woman, the department affirms the qualities of creativity, leadership and service of individuals who contribute to the development of effective priestly formation programs in the U.S. This award honors the memory and the legacy of Pope John Paul II." The most durable of Mickey's legacies can be seen in the lives of her children and grandchildren.

Tribute prepared by the J.S. Paluch Company.

John Joseph Wright

2010-05-27T13:10:00.001-07:00

John Joseph Wright
July 18, 1909 – August 10, 1979

Birth: July 18, 1909, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. Son of John Joseph Wright, a paper-factory clerk, and Harriet Louise Cokely.

Education: Boston College, Boston; Saint John's Seminary, Brighton; Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.

Priesthood: Ordained, December 8, 1935, Rome, by Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani, vicar general of Rome. Further studies, 1935-1939. Faculty member of Saint John's Seminary, Brighton, 1939-1943. Secretary to the archbishop of Boston, November 8, 1944. Privy chamberlain of His Holiness, December 17, 1944.

Episcopate: Elected titular bishop of Egea and appointed auxiliary of Boston, May 10, 1947. Consecrated, June 30, 1947, cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, by Richard Cushing, archbishop of Boston, assisted by Ralph Leo Hayes, bishop of Davenport, and by James Louis Connelly, titular bishop of Milasa and coadjutor of Fall River. Transferred to the diocese of Worcester, January 28, 1950. Transferred to the diocese of Pittsburgh, January 23, 1959. Attended the Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965. Attended the First Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 29 to October 29, 1967. Prefect of the S.C. for Clergy, April 23, 1969.

Cardinalate: Created cardinal priest in the consistory of April 28, 1969; received the red biretta and the title of Gesù Divin Maestro alla Pineta Sacchetti, April 30, 1969. Attended the First Extraordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, October 11 to 28, 1969; the II Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 30 to November 6, 1971; president delegate, August 2, 1971. Attended the III Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 27 to October 26, 1974; the IV Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 30 to October 29, 1977. Did not participate in the conclave of August 25 to 26, 1978, which elected Pope John Paul I, because of illness. Participated in conclave of October 14 to 16, 1978, which elected Pope John Paul II. He was very knowledgeable about St. Joan of Arc.

Death: August 10, 1979, of polymyositis, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America. Buried in the family plot, in Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline.

Cletus Madsen

2010-05-27T12:15:00.001-07:00

Cletus Madsen
December 1, 1905 - July 16, 2002

Music is so vital to our spiritual life that Saint Augustine wrote, “The one who sings, prays twice.” And while he is recognized for his contributions to liturgical music, Monsignor Cletus Madsen enriched Saint Ambrose University in so many other ways over nine decades—as an academy and college student, faculty member, chaplain, administrator, and board member.

Born December 1, 1905, in Burlington, Iowa, Cletus graduated from Saint Ambrose Academy in 1924 and from Saint Ambrose College in 1928. He received a licentiate in sacred theology from the North American College in Rome and was ordained to the priesthood in 1931.

In 1932, he began seven decades of nearly continuous service to Saint Ambrose University when he was appointed to the music faculty. “His influence in the liturgical movement and in building the status of Catholic music educators is etched in the history of those movements in this country,” says Father Ed Dunn, theology professor and former student and colleague of Msgr. Madsen.

Msgr. Madsen chaired both the music and fine arts departments until 1965, and served as chaplain of students from 1962 to 1965. In 1970 he was appointed a trustee of the college and to the board of directors in 1976.

After serving as pastor of Saint Wencelaus Parish, Iowa City, he returned to Saint Ambrose University at the age of 76 as assistant to the president in 1981 and remained in that position until 1998.

He received numerous accolades from Saint Ambrose, most notably an honorary doctorate in 1982, and in 1979 Madsen Hall in the Galvin Fine Arts Center was named in his honor.

Yet once a music teacher, always a music teacher. “Whenever we would put together an alumni band for homecoming,” says Bob Bosco '59, “Msgr. Madsen always loved conducting 'Ambrosian Oaks.'”

Msgr. Madsen died on July 16, 2002.

Tribute prepared by Saint Ambrose University and published in the Spring 2003 issue of Scene, a magazine of Saint Ambrose University.

Edward Schillebeeckx

2010-05-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

Edward Cornelius Florentius Alfonsus Schillebeeckx
November 12, 1914 – December 23, 2009

For the past three decades, the leadership of the Catholic church has displayed a particular intolerance of theological dissent. Some of the otherwise loyal priest-teachers who have been targeted by the Vatican have reacted to their very public rebukes by courting the press and liberal Catholic opinion. Hans Küng and Leonardo Boff, for instance, have become prominent examples. By contrast, the Flemish Dominican Father Edward Schillebeeckx, who has died aged 95, responded to being hauled over the coals by the Vatican in 1984 with characteristic understatement. Though second to none as a theologian in 20th-century Catholicism, he lived out his remaining years away from the limelight out of his enduring loyalty to the church – despite the rough justice handed out to him.

At issue was Schillebeeckx's questioning, in dense but academically influential writings throughout the 1970s, of a too-literal reading of the New Testament. To the Vatican's evident irritation, he queried the relevance to the modern age of church teaching on the virgin birth and resurrection. So did many others, but Schillebeeckx (pronounced Schill-e-bex) had been one of the leading theological lights at the great reforming Second Vatican Council (1962-65). So his efforts in Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (1974) and Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (1977) to build on the council's updating of Catholic thought by relating the gospel message to contemporary experience could not simply be overlooked. "I do not begrudge any believer the right to describe and live out his belief in accordance to old models of experience, culture and ideas," he once said, "but this attitude isolates the church's faith from any future and divests it of any real missionary power."

He was summoned to Rome in December 1979 to explain himself to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office that had run the Inquisition. He likened the experience to being a naughty schoolboy sent to the headteacher's study, but still went. Küng, under scrutiny at the same time, refused a similar summons, saying that he would not submit to a medieval trial. As a result, while Küng had his church licence to teach theology in Catholic universities removed by the Vatican, Schillebeeckx survived to continue as professor of dogmatic and historical theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.

Rome had not, however, finished with him. A fresh dispute arose over his comments that, in extreme circumstances, lay people could take on the place usually reserved for the priest in consecrating the eucharist. He was again called to Rome, this time in July 1984, when he was supported in person by the head of his religious order, Damian Byrne, the master-general of the Dominicans. His inquisitor was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI. On condition that he drop the reference to lay ministry from any subsequent publications, Schillebeeckx again avoided official censure.

It was a remarkable escape, given the climate of the time, with Pope John Paul II determined to assert his authority over all theological discourse. Küng claimed that Schillebeeckx was spared only because nobody on Ratzinger's team could read his texts in the original Dutch. Yet Schillebeeckx had hardly hidden his distaste for the new appetite for Roman centralism. "Rome puts the accent on restoring 'the Sacred' and hierarchical structures," he wrote. "It seems to me that they want to return to the ancien regime of sacrality without passing through the French Revolution."

His final, very public, act of rebellion came in 1989 when he joined other leading Catholic theologians in signing the Cologne Declaration, prompted by the pope's appointment of an unpopular and extreme traditionalist as the Archbishop of Cologne, the second wealthiest diocese in world Catholicism. The declaration spoke of popes "overstepping and enforcing in an inadmissible way" their authority over doctrine. It highlighted in particular the papal ban on Catholics using artificial methods of birth control. Though much reported, and applauded by many Catholics, the declaration did not appear to have any effect on either the pope or his successor.

Schillebeeckx was born in Antwerp, Belgium, of Flemish parents, the sixth of 14 children. He went to mass every day with his devout father and was educated by Jesuits. He chose to enter the Dominican order of preachers, with its unique synthesis of academic, practical and spiritual endeavours. He served briefly in the Belgian army until the Germans overran his homeland in the second world war, returning to his studies and ordination in 1943.

His time in Paris, in the immediate postwar years, shaped his thinking. Schillebeeckx came under the influence of nouvelle théologie and its leading proponents, the Dominican theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar. He carried their emphasis on engagement with the modern world into his academic work at Nijmegen and also into his role as a key adviser to the Dutch bishops. He was a key figure in drafting their pastoral letter in the run-up to the Second Vatican Council, rejecting the efforts of Vatican officials to restrict its remit and pushing the case for the far-reaching reform which eventually resulted. He attended the council as an adviser to the Dutch bishops and gave a series of influential briefings on the draft documents emerging from it.

For Schillebeeckx, the Second Vatican Council was the start of a reform process. The Dutch church largely shared this view and it began to experiment in the late 1960s with new structures that increased lay involvement and generated great enthusiasm in parishes. But such radicalism alarmed the incoming John Paul II when he was elected in 1978, and, as well as clamping down on theological dissent, he steadily replaced progressive Dutch bishops with men made in his own more traditional image.

Schillebeeckx bore in silence the pain of witnessing many of the reforms he had supported and promoted being undone. Yet his reputation throughout the Christian churches and beyond as a prophetic thinker could not be dented by papal disapproval. He greeted plaudits – including the Erasmus prize (1982) for his contribution to European culture, the first theologian so honoured – and admirers with humility and an old-fashioned courtesy.

He may just have allowed himself a wry smile when he looked back on a 1968 declaration, published in Concilium, the still flourishing progressive theological journal that he helped to set up, which insisted that the Pope "cannot and must not supersede, hamper and impede the teaching task of theologians as scholars". His own name was there among the signatories, as was that of the then Father Ratzinger.

Tribute prepared by Peter Stanford for The Guardian, UK, published February 24, 2010.

Austin Flannery, OP

2010-05-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

Austin Flannery, OP
January 10, 1925 – October 21, 2008

Austin Flannery, OP, who died aged 83 on October 21, 2008, added distinguished achievements as an editor, publisher and campaigner to his life's work as a preacher and pastor.

The eldest of the seven children of William K Flannery and his wife Margaret (nee Butler), Liam Flannery was born in Rear Cross, Co Tipperary, on 10 January 1925. When he joined the Dominican Order in 1943 he was given the name Austin, by which he was known for the rest of his life.

After a year at St Flannan's College, Ennis, the rest of his secondary education was at Dominican College, Newbridge, Co Kildare. He would tell of how, on arrival, he was amazed to meet priest-teachers who were affable, approachable and encouraging, and who fostered independent thought. Victor Davis, his English teacher, and one of the few lay teachers then in the college, had a lasting influence in that he insisted that students use the exact word to express what was in their minds, however difficult or long the search. This remained the guiding principle in Fr Flannery's speaking, writing, translating and editing.

First profession as a Dominican, in September 1944, led to studies in theology at St Mary's Priory, Tallaght, and then at Blackfriars, Oxford, before he was ordained a priest in 1950. After further studies at the Angelicum in Rome, he was sent to teach theology at Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick.

In August 1957, he began what was to prove his life's work when he was appointed editor of the monthly magazine Doctrine and Life. During the years of Vatican Council II (1962-1965) he focused on the council documents and how its decisions were to be implemented. Since then, the magazine retains an interest in the need for reform. Over the years, Fr Flannery founded three other magazines, Religious Life Review (1962), Scripture in Church (1970), and Spirituality (1994). His Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations is now the standard English-language version, often cited in footnotes simply as 'Flannery'.

Along with his sense of humour, his deep acceptance of others even if he did not share their outlook was at the heart of the success of the discussion-group he led. Often referred to as 'Flannery's Harriers', this group included Sean Mac Reamoinn, Jack Dowling, John Horgan, and Desmond Fennell among regular members, and would invite visiting writers or other experts to join their lively discussions.

A passion for justice led Fr Flannery to involvement with Kader Asmal, in founding the Irish Anti-apartheid Movement, and to a commitment throughout the Seventies and Eighties to campaigning to end apartheid in South Africa. His campaign on behalf of the Dublin Housing Action Committee led to his being dismissed in the Dail by the then Minister for Finance, Charles Haughey, as "a gullible cleric". This was in reaction to a late-night television programme, Outlook, in which he departed from the usual devotional format to involve Fr Michael Sweetman, and Michael O'Riordan, secretary of the Irish Communist Party, in discussing the housing crisis in late-Sixties Dublin. To the accusation of being a communist, he would retort that sitting down with Michael O'Riordan no more made him a communist than sitting down with Michael Sweetman made him a Jesuit.

Fr Flannery had a lifelong interest in modern religious art. In 1962 he organised a Dublin exhibition of contemporary German churches. He maintained friendships with the prominent artists of late 20th century Ireland, and in 1997 he introduced the work of the Korean Dominican artist, Kim En Jong, to Ireland and the English-speaking world.

All Fr Flannery's activities were born of his strong Christian belief and Gospel commitment, and he saw them as flowing from his vocation in the Order of Preachers.

This giant of compassion and of concern for truth and reform was laid to rest in the Dominican plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, on Friday, October 24. Predeceased by his sister Breda and brother George, he is survived by his sisters Phyllis and Sadie and his brothers Paul and Jimmy.

Bernard Treacy, OP, editor Doctrine and Life

Tribute from The Independent.

Paul John Hallinan

2010-05-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

Paul John Hallinan
April 8, 1911–March 27, 1968

As chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, Archbishop Hallinan dedicated himself to renewing the rites of the Church so they would express the peace and comfort that Christ spoke of. Archbishop Hallinan, best known in the American church for his unending work for liturgical reform and his outspoken support of civil rights causes, died at his residence Wednesday, March 27, at 5 a.m. The cause of death was complications from hepatitis and liver failure. He had been seriously ill for several weeks.

Paul J. Hallinan was born in Painesville, Ohio, April 8, 1911, the son of Clarence C. and Jane Hallinan. His mother died in 1952 and his father in 1955. His father lived the last three years of his life with Father Hallinan while he was Newman chaplain at Cleveland’s Western Reserve University.

The future archbishop entered Cathedral Latin School in Cleveland in 1924 and served as editor of his high school yearbook. After graduation, he went to the University of Notre Dame and graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1932. While at Notre Dame, he edited the yearbook and a humor magazine. During summer vacation he worked for the Painesville Telegraph.

Always interested in journalism, particularly the Catholic press, he once wrote: “We need lay spokesmen on diocesan papers, but even more we need Catholics raising their voices, in accents that a secular society can appreciate, in every worthy channel of communication: learned journals and popular magazines, books and lectures, classrooms and laboratories, government and community programs, all the arts and all the sciences. They must speak not specifically as Catholics but as highly skilled and accessible persons.”

He wrote articles, particularly on the liturgy, for many Catholic publications. He always said he could never remember ever wanting to be anything but a priest.

The archbishop attended St. Mary’s Seminary in Cleveland after conferring with his pastor, Msgr. William J. Gallena of St. Mary’s Parish, Painesville. He said, “Msgr. Gallena has been everything to me. He heard my first confession, gave me my First Communion and has been a friend and adviser all my life.”

Father Hallinan was ordained Feb. 20, 1937 at St. John’s Cathedral, Cleveland. His first assignment was at St. Aloysius, Cleveland (1937-1942). During World War II, he was a chaplain (captain) and served in Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines with the 542nd Engineer Amphibian Regiment. In June, 1944, he received the Purple Heart at Biak, New Guinea.

After army service, Father Hallinan returned to Cleveland and served from 1945-47 at the cathedral. In 1947, he was named diocesan director of the Newman Clubs and worked in the apostolate until 1958. He served as national chaplain of the Newman Federation from 1952-57. He was named a monsignor during this time.

On Sept. 9, 1958, he was appointed bishop of Charleston, S.C., and was consecrated in Cleveland on Oct. 28, 1958, by then apostolic delegate to the United States, Archbishop Ameleto Cicognani. He was installed Nov. 25, 1958.

Msgr. Hallinan learned of his appointment as bishop while preparing a lecture for one of the religion courses he taught at Newman Hall in Cleveland. He was appointed by Pope Pius XII.

In 1961, while still bishop of Charleston, he issued a pastoral letter on racial justice. The letter dealt with the admission policy of parochial schools. It said that Catholic pupils, regardless of color, would be admitted to Catholic schools as soon as it could be done with safety, but not later than when public schools were opened to all pupils. A year later Bishop Hallinan issued a pastoral on Christian Unity which said in part, “Never has this longing for Christian unity been more evident...We are growing more conscious that the Holy Spirit of God, brooding over our distressed world and our divided Christendom, is stirring now the souls of men in many places, providing the light and strength without which reunion remains an empty dream.”

When the Diocese of Atlanta was elevated to the status of an archdiocese on Feb. 21, 1962, Bishop Hallinan was named its first archbishop, and bishop of the Province of Atlanta that includes five dioceses.

He was installed on March 29, 1962 by then apostolic delegate, Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi, at the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta.

One of his first acts was to integrate the Catholic schools and hospitals within the archdiocese.

During his term as archbishop, several churches including Holy Cross, Holy Spirit, St. Thomas the Apostle, Smyrna, and missions at Cleveland, GA and Clarkesville, GA were opened. The new John Lancaster Spalding Catholic Center at the University of Georgia was finished and the old St. Joseph’s Boys Home at Washington, GA was transferred to Atlanta to new quarters and became the Village of St. Joseph for boys and girls. He also established The Georgia Bulletin, the weekly archdiocesan newspaper.

Archbishop Hallinan was also one of four Atlanta civic leaders who sponsored a banquet honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., after he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He said Dr. King was a “pioneer in a new dynamic of peace, expressed in the formula, ‘I will walk in liberty, O Lord, because I seek thy precepts.’”

But it was his work for the vernacular liturgy that brought Archbishop Hallinan the most praise and criticism.

In 1962, the archbishop was named to the Commission on the Sacred Liturgy by Pope John XXIII and worked untiringly for the Mass to be said in English or the native tongue of all countries.

In one of his last talks on the liturgy, the archbishop said, “Through the Sacred Constitution on the Liturgy, we are now emerging from a period of fixity and rigidity which was unnatural in the Church’s life.” In the talk, he again called for experimentation.

On the archbishop’s return from the second session of the Second Vatican Council he became ill in December 1963, with hepatitis and was hospitalized for almost seven months. He never fully regained his health.

However, he continued to serve on the postconciliar Commission on the Sacred Liturgy, as chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, and on the International Committee for an English Liturgy.

In July, 1964, he wrote a pamphlet, “How to Understand Changes in the Liturgy,” and about 50,000 copies were distributed across the United States and abroad.

His column, “Archbishop’s Notebook,” was widely quoted in the Catholic press especially when he discussed the liturgy. But the archbishop also spoke on many other issues, the war in Vietnam, on the need for open housing in America, on aiding the poor and the Negro, against capital punishment and abortion. He was also known for his support of increasing the role of the laity in the Church and called what it is thought to be the first Lay Congress in the archdiocese. He once said, “This is the day of the laity. They work for the sanctification of the world from within, as a leaven.”

The archbishop received honorary degrees from Notre Dame, Holy Cross, Western Reserve University where he received a Ph.D. in history. Duquesne University and Belmont College, N.C. He also was awarded the Father Edward Sorin Award by Notre Dame.

Tribute from the Georgia Bulletin, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Jane Klimisch, OSB

2010-05-25T07:32:00.001-07:00

Jane Klimisch, OSB
August 22, 1920 - May 24, 2010

Jane Julia Klimisch was born August 22, 1920, a few minutes before her twin, Clara, to Anton and Martha (Block) Klimisch on the family farm in the Sigel community near Yankton. She attended Klimisch School (District #48), Lesterville High School and then Mount Marty Academy where she graduated in 1938.

Jane entered Sacred Heart Monastery on August 28, 1938, was invested as a novice the following June, and received her baptismal name as her religious name. She made her first monastic profession in June of 1940 and final profession in June of 1943. She earned a BA degree from Saint Mary of the Woods, Indiana; a Master’s in Music Education from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago; and a Ph.D. in musicology from Washington University in Saint Louis.

Music and education were major ministries for Sr. Jane. She taught at Mount Marty College for over forty years, retiring with the rank of professor emeritus. She also served the college as academic dean and college archivist and established the Sacred Music Resource Center to collect and preserve important publications of Gregorian Chant.

Sr. Jane was a gifted musician who composed hundreds of pieces of liturgical music and served as monastery organist and choir director for 31 years. She continued as an organist until a few weeks before her death. She authored The One Bride, a book on the nature of religious life, and Women Gathering, the history of the Federation of Saint Gertrude. She also co-authored Travelers on the Way of Peace (volumes I and II) for the 75th and 100th anniversary of the monastery.

Sr. Jane was active in the Benedictine Musicians of America, the American Benedictine Academy, the American Musicological Society, the American Guild of Organists, and Delta Kappa Gamma.

Sr. Jane was a gentle woman of wisdom who loved her prairie roots, who never lost her child-like awe of the beauties of creation, and who was friend, mentor and spiritual companion to many.

Tribute prepared by the Benedictine Sisters of Yankton, Sacred Heart Monastery, Yankton, SD.

James Quinn, SJ

2010-04-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

James Quinn, SJ
April 21, 1919–April 8, 2010

The hymns of Father James Quinn, SJ, are found in almost every contemporary English language hymnal, taken from the collection New Hymns for All Seasons (1969) and his later work Praise for All Seasons (1994). They include such well known and frequently sung works as ‘Christ be beside me’, ‘Forth in the peace of Christ we go’, ‘I am the holy Vine’ and ‘The bread that we break’.

James Quinn was born in Glasgow on 21 April, 1919. He was educated at Saint Aloysius’ College and Glasgow University, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1939. After studying at Heythrop College, Oxfordshire, he taught at Saint Wilfrid’s School in Preston before being ordained in 1950. He also taught at Wimbledon College in South London, and served in Sacred Heart parish, Edinburgh.

In the 1960s, Fr. Quinn worked on the cause for the canonisation of Saint John Ogilvie who, in 1976, became Scotland’s first saint for more than 700 years and the only Scottish Jesuit to be canonised. He was an observer at the 1964 assembly of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Frankfurt and a consultant to the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order conference at Louvain in 1972.

A member of the Scottish Religious Advisory Committee of the BBC (1973-1976) and a participant in various ecumenical dialogues for the British Council of Churches, Fr. Quinn also served as a consultant to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (1972-1976). Between 1976 and 1980 he was spiritual director at the Beda College in Rome. From 1980, Fr. Quinn served as Secretary on the Scottish Commission for Christian Unity, being appointed seven years later as Episcopal Vicar for Ecumenism in the Archdiocese of Edinburgh.

In 1998, the Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians praised “Fr. Quinn's ability to articulate the orthodox aspects of Christianity in new and fresh ways”, commenting particularly on his texts “with Celtic influence”. Describing him as “one of the finest writers of hymn texts of our time”, his publisher, Selah, said the words of his hymns “help us better understand the mystery and presence of God in our world today.” Many were paraphrases of the psalms and other parts of scripture, as well as hymns for the Liturgy of the Hours and translations of such Marian prayers as the Salve Regina.

Fr. James Quinn, SJ, died on 8 April, 2010, at Saintt Joseph’s House in Edinburgh, where he had spent the past ten years. These years were marked by a gentle acceptance of the changes brought by age and illness, and though he stopped writing hymns he took to writing jokes – and sharing them with all who came to visit him! He remained intensely interested in developments in Church life and liturgy and subscribed to many journals that kept him informed and updated. His hymns are still being reprinted and republished, and remain a great resource for the Church, reflecting the importance of his theological and ecumenical work in Scotland and beyond.

Tribute from Independent Catholic News

Gregory Murray

2010-03-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

Dom Gregory Murray
27 February, 1905 - 19 January, 1992

DOM GREGORY MURRAY, OSB, MA, FRCO, organist and composer, enhanced the music of the Roman Catholic Church, and latterly that of other denominations, almost by stealth. His music is sung every Sunday in thousands of churches throughout the English-speaking world: a case of everybody knowing the tune but few knowing the name of the composer.

His influence through such simple music as 'A People's Mass' (with sales of over two million copies), his psalm tones, organ music and hymn tunes reached far, although he had more or less withdrawn from public life half a century ago.

Anthony Gregory Murray was educated at Westminster Cathedral Choir School when Sir Richard Terry was Master of the Music, and St Benedict's, Ealing. In 1923 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and read for the historical tripos at Cambridge University, graduating in 1929. He was ordained in 1932 for Downside Abbey and spent most of the rest of his life there except for periods at Ealing during the war and as parish priest of Hindley, Lancashire, from 1948 to 1952. He was parish priest of St Benedict's, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, from 1952 to 1987, a position he combined with his domestic duties.

Dom Gregory Murray was a brilliant organist, regular broadcasts from the Compton organ at Downside Abbey led to the folk tale among musicians that the abbey was permanently hooked up to the BBC. He was particularly noted for his skill at improvising. Those with acute hearing and their wits about them would frequently detect a musical quotation from another work, not necessarily sacred in nature.

He was an authority on Gregorian Chant, publishing two books on the subject. It was a measure of his honesty that, once he had changed his mind about the rhythmic basis of plainsong, the second more or less contradicted the first. He disowned his 'Gregorian Rhythm: a Pilgrim's Progress' (1934) in the October 1957 edition of 'The Score', later giving his reasons in 'Gregorian Chant According to the Manuscripts' (1963). Two of his hymn tunes were published in the widely esteemed 'Hymns Ancient & Modern (New Standard)'.

Outside of music his interests encompassed the Gospel of St Matthew, football, cricket, tennis and chess. He complained during his last illness that the greatest privation of being sick was his inability to play the latter four, especially football. The sharp wit of his early years had mellowed to a delightful humour which he retained to the end.

His over-riding interest as a musician was to provide music that would enhance the Roman Catholic liturgy (when the Church of England later took to his music with enthusiasm he was delighted). His reflections on the place of music as a servant of the liturgy are recorded in 'Music and the Mass' (1977). He wrote for the old Latin liturgy, but as a keen vemacularist he seized the opportunities offered by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and continued composing until a few months before his death. He was always threatening to stop writing, once describing music to his publisher as "a bore and a chore", but he never did and his 'Chorale Prelude on Marienlied' was published on the day his death was announced.

His seven books of Short Organ Interludes for Liturgical use (published by Rushworths Music House Limited in Liverpool) are a blessing for parish organists:

FIRST BOOK: Interludes I - XIV
Downside Abbey, Bath (November 22 1935)

SECOND BOOK: Interludes XV - XXVIII
Downside Abbey, Bath (March 12 1937)

THIRD BOOK: Interludes XXIX - XLII
Downside Abbey, Bath (March 12 1946)

FOURTH BOOK: Interludes XLIII - LVI
St Benedict's, Hindley (February 27 1952)

FIFTH BOOK: Interludes LVII - LXX
Downside Abbey, Bath (February 12 1986)

SIXTH BOOK: Interludes LXXI - LXXXV
Downside Abbey, Bath (March 19 1987)

SEVENTH BOOK: Interludes LXXXVI - C
Downside Abbey, Bath (June 01 1987)

Tribute based on an obituary in “The Times” dated January 30 1992.

Richard Hillert

2010-02-22T06:35:00.001-08:00

Richard Walter Hillert
March 14, 1923–February 18, 2010

Richard Walter Hillert was Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus at Concordia University, River Forest, Illinois. His career as a teacher at Concordia spanned five decades, from 1959 to 1993. During this time he taught classes in music theory and composition, music literature, 20th century music, orchestration, organ and piano instruction, comparative arts and liturgical worship.

He served in various capacities in the music department, including as chair in 1964-65 and from 1986-89, as coordinator of the Master of Church Music program, and as associate editor of the journal Church Music (1966-80).

Richard Hillert was born in Clark County, Wisconsin, near the small town of Granton, on March 14, 1923. There he attended parochial and public schools and later enrolled at Concordia Teachers College (now Concordia University), River Forest, where he received the Bachelor of Science in Education. He served as teacher and music director for parishes in St. Louis, Missouri, Wausau, Wisconsin, and Chicago and Westchester, Illinois. He received both the Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees in composition from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He later attended Aaron Copland's Tanglewood, the Berkshire School of Music, where he studied composition with the Italian composer, Goffredo Petrassi.

It is for his work as composer and teacher of composition that Richard Hillert is best known. His compositions and publications include an array of pieces of liturgical music and hymns for congregation, choral motets and hymn anthems, psalm settings, organ and chamber works, concertatos and cantatas, including major settings of The Christmas Story According to St. Luke and The Passion According to St. John, and most recently The Seven Words from the Cross. He edited eleven volumes of the Concordia Hymn Prelude Series. He wrote liturgical pieces and hymns and settings and served as music editor for Worship Supplement (1969). He was a member of the Liturgical Music Committee of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (1966-1978) and was the music editor of Lutheran Book of Worship (1978).

Among his most frequently performed liturgical works for congregation is Setting One of the Holy Communion, which appears in Lutheran Book of Worship and Lutheran Worship (1982) and the most recent Lutheran Service Book (2006). Worthy Is Christ, with its antiphon, "This Is the Feast of Victory," was written as an alternate Song of Praise for inclusion in Setting One. It is now widely published in at least 30 recent worship books, appearing along with his hymns in North American, Canadian, and international publications.

The list of original hymn tunes is extensive and many of them have involved direct collaboration with a number of distinguished hymn poets of the day. These include Jaroslav Vajda, Martin Franzmann, Fred Pratt Green, Henry Lettermann, Gracia Grindal, Herman G. Stuempfle, Jill Baumgaertner, Susan Cherwien, and Don Saliers.

Liturgical texts have been chosen primarily from the biblical psalms, the ordinary and proper readings from Old and New Testaments, and words from the historic liturgy of the Western church.

Among other compositions are symphonic works such as Symphony in Three Movements, Variations for Orchestra, Suite for Strings, chamber works for small orchestra and ensembles including Alternations for Seven Instruments, two Divertimentos, as well as many works for keyboard, instrumental solos and songs. The latter include Sonata for Piano (1961), a violin sonata, and two sonatas for flute and keyboard. Major organ works include Prelude and Toccata, Ricercata, Passacaglia on Innocent Sounds, Partita on Picardy, Partita on Atkinson, and Fantasy on a Solemn Ostinato. There are also concert works with sacred texts, such as Five Canticles from the Exodus (1958), Te Deum for two pianos, percussion and wind instruments (1962), The Alleluiatic Sequence (1980), and Seven Psalms of Grace for baritone solo, choirs, and chamber orchestra (1998).

Extended choral works, many written for the choirs of Concordia University, conducted by Thomas Gieschen, include the cantata, May God Bestow on Us His Grace (1964), Motet for the Day of Pentecost for choir, vibraphone, and tape recorder (written for the round-the-world tour in 1969), Motet for the Time of Easter for double choir, percussion, and harp (1971), and Agnus Dei for three choirs and percussion.

Richard Hillert authored scholarly articles and reviews for periodicals such as Church Music, CrossAccent, Currents in Theology and Mission, and other professional books and journals. His compositions have been recorded on more than 20 compact discs. He received an honorary Doctor of Sacred Music from Valparaiso University, and honorary Doctor of Letters from Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska, and from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. He was an honorary lifetime member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. Many of his former students throughout the land have careers as practicing church musicians, as teachers in elementary, secondary, and higher education, as music editors and publishers, and as composers.

He and his wife, Gloria Bonnin Hillert, lived in Melrose Park, Illinois. Her career has been as a professor of anatomy and physiology at colleges in Springfield, Illinois, Winfield, Kansas, and in the Chicago area. Richard is survived by children Kathryn Brewer, Virginia, and Jonathan Hillert; and five grandchildren.

Tribute provided by Morning Star Music Publishers.

Richard Proulx

2010-02-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

Richard Proulx

1937-2010

Click here to view a YouTube tribute to Richard Proulx

A native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Richard Proulx began piano studies at age six and benefited from the unique musical training then fostered in that city's parochial schools, where twice daily solfege and choral singing were emphasized. He attended MacPhail College and the University of Minnesota with further studies undertaken at the American Boychoir School at Princeton, Saint John's Abbey-Collegeville, and the Royal School of Church Music in England.

Proulx's organ studies were with Ruth Dindorf, Arthur Jennings, Rupert Sircom, Gerald Bales, and Peter Hallock. Training in choral conducting was provided by Bruce Larsen, Donald Brost, and Peter Hallock; and extensive seminars with Donald Bryant, Robert Shaw, and Roger Wagner. He also studied composition with Leopold Bruenner, Theodore Ganshaw, Bruce Larsen, and Gerald Bales.

During 1980-1994, Richard Proulx was Organist/Music Director at the Cathedral of the Holy Name in Chicago, where he did much to strengthen the cathedral's outreach to the city is serves by establishing an extensive and innovative music program. As hoped by visionary Cathedral Rector, Bishop Timothy J. Lyne, the excellence of this broadbased liturgical music program quickly became a model for cathedrals across the country. Joseph Cardinal Bernadin, Archbishop of Chicago, provided great support for liturgy and the liturgical arts, especially liturgical music. The concert series, Music for a Great Space, involved the cathedral choirs with many of the finest instrumentalists in the Chicago area. The choirs toured the Midwest in 1982 and 1991, and in Europe in 1988. Proulx was also responsible for the planning and installation of two new mechanical-action organs for the cathedral: Casavant II/19 (Quebec, 1981) and Flentrop IV/71 (Holland, 1989).

Before coming to Chicago, Proulx served for 10 years (1970-1980) at Saint Thomas Church, Medina/Seattle, where he directed three choirs and chamber orchestra, established a tradition of liturgical handbell ringing, and was organist at Temple de Hirsch Sinai. Previous positions included Saint Charles Parish, Tacoma; Saint Stephen's Church, Seattle; and 15 years (1953-1968) at Church of The Holy Childhood in Saint Paul.

Richard Proulx was a widely published composer of more than 300 works, including congregational music in every form, sacred and secular choral works, song cycles, two operas, and instrumental and organ music. He served as a consultant for such hymnals as The Hymnal 1982, New Yale Hymnal, the Methodist Hymnal, Worship II & III, and has contributions in the Mennonite Hymnal and the Presbyterian Hymnal. Proulx was a member of The Standing Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church and was a founding member of The Conference of Roman Catholic Cathedral Musicians. He conducted choral festivals and workshops across the country as well as in Canada, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Proulx was appointed composer-in-residence for 1994-1995 at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City and was a Visiting Fellow at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin. He served on summer faculties of the Montreat Conference, the Evergreen Conference, and Saint John's University School of Theology, Collegeville.

In 1991, Richard Proulx founded The Cathedral Singers, as an independent recording ensemble. The group has sung a number of live concerts in the Midwest and has produced over twenty recordings of a great variety of choral music.

In the field of commercial music, Proulx composed the 1971 theme song for Union Pacific Railroad, as well as an orchestral score for a documentary film, "The Golden Door". Two arrangements sung by The Cathedral Singers were featured in an episode of "ER" on NBC and the singers are heard in a New Earth Video, "Mount Shasta: Meeting of Heaven and Earth." Proulx’s organ setting of Veni Creator is heard in the 1997 movie, "The Devil's Own".

Richard Proulx received a number of prestigious awards. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a commission for a new opera in 1989; the same year he was presented the Gold Medal of the Archdiocese of Chicago by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. In 1994, he received an honorary doctorate from General Theological Seminary in New York City and also the BENE award from Modern Liturgy Magazine as "the most significant liturgical composer of the last twenty years". He also was named the 1995 Pastoral Musician of the Year by the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. In 1998, Richard Proulx received the Pax Christi Award from Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. In 2006. Proulx was named Composer of the Year by the American Guild of Organists who also commissioned a new anthem Works of the Great Spirit for the 2008 AGO national convention in Chicago. Proulx's Concerto for Organ and Strings was programmed at that same convention. In May 2007, Chicago A Cappella honored him at the ensemble's 2007 Gala in recognition of his lifetime achievement in the field of sacred choral music. In October 2008, the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC) presented its McManus Award to Proulx. This award honors those who have made significant contributions to liturgy in the United States; Proulx was the first musician to receive the award. In 2009, he received a second honorary doctorate from the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, MN.

A rare combination of talents as composer, conductor, music editor, and organist, together with wide experience across denominational lines, gave Richard Proulx a unique perspective of both the opportunities and the challenges found in liturgical music-making in our time; he remained committed to the enriching and balancing role of the arts in people of all ages.

Tribute prepared by Michael Silhavy, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Niels Rasmussen, OP

2009-12-18T14:59:00.000-08:00

Niels Krogh Rasmussen, OP

1935 – 1987

On 29 August, 1987, the world of liturgical scholarship suffered a great loss through the sudden death of Fr. Niels Krogh Rasmussen, OP, at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. At the time of his death he was fifty-two years old.

Niels Rasmussen was born and raised in Denmark. During his student years he bacame a Roman Catholic and later joined the Dominican Order in the paris Province. Early in his career he became a pupil of the renowned liturgist, Pierre-Marie Gy, OP, who served as Director of the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie at the Institut Catholique de Paris. Niels studied paleography at the Ecole Nationale des Chartres, hagiography and codicology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, and liturgical studies at the Institut Catholique de Paris. From this last institution he received the doctorate on 28 January 1978 with the defense of the dissertation “Les Pontificaux du hautmoyen âge,” which treated the evolution of pontificals in the ninth and tenth centuries.

His teaching career in liturgy began in 1968 and included the following institutions: University of Aarhus (Denmark), Institut Catholique de Paris, La Salle University (Philadelphia), Saint John’s University (Collegeville), The Catholic University of America, and finally the University of Notre Dame where he was granted tenure in 1985. From that time until his death he was Coordinator of the PH.D. Program in Liturgical Studies there.

His writings were extensive and scholarly, often bridging the fields of theology and medieval history. Some of his later publications show his deep knowledge of Renaissance and Baroque liturgy as well. Besides his work in the pontificals, he will perhaps be most remembered for his revision and English translation of Cyrille Vogel’s major work in French which serves as a brilliant introduction to medieval liturgy, Medieval Liturgy: And Introduction to the Sources, revised and translated by William G. Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen, OP (The Pastoral Press, 1986).

Niels Rasmussen was known and respected as a liturgical scholar not only in the United States but throughout the world. His death came as a great shock to many. They may be comforted by the words of his mentor, Pierre-Marie Gy, preaching at a Eucharist offered for Niels in Paris shortly after his death: “Perhaps we can ask Jesus that the secret of those last moments of the earthly life of Niels might be in some way assumed into the agony of Gethsemani, saved by it. Lord Jesus, let your words of mercy for those who put you to death, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ be even more true for Niels.”

Tribute prepared by Gerard Austin, OP, and published in Fountain of Life: In Memory of Niels Krogh Rasmussen, Pastoral Press, 1991.

Kevin Donovan, SJ

2009-12-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

Kevin Jean-Marie Donovan, SJ
September 26, 1931 - August 21, 2008

Liturgist, musician, incomparable pastor

“A unique spirit has been taken from the world – not just another Jesuit liturgist but an extraordinary human being” – just one of an enormous number of reminiscences of and tributes to one of the most remarkable characters to grace the English liturgical scene in the past hundred years. A further selection:

“He was magnificent.” “I loved him.” “A great gift from God to us.” “A finer Christian I have yet to meet.” “For me, he was Christ in this world.” “For my first example of a member of the Society of Jesus, no better person could there have been. His wit, humanity, as well as his enormous wisdom will stay with me always, not least because he would send one off on a tangent to do some extremely interesting work and then, forgetting what he had suggested, come up with another interesting line.” “He filled all our hearts and we were all blessed to know him.” “Kevin’s special gift was his extraordinary, sometimes child-like enthusiasm (‘I’m re-reading Congar; you know, it’s wonderful stuff’): he was one of life’s encouragers.”

“The one thing that seems to me to stand out very clearly was his intellectual brilliance. He could master and shine in almost any subject he took up to the extent it was difficult for him to know in what he should specialise. There was a time when he was fascinated by botany and acquired extensive knowledge of plants and their names. We felt he could turn his hand to almost anything.”

“He was a truly charismatic figure, an original in the true sense: irreplaceable in his combination of learning – which he bore so lightly –, of pastoral instinct which few could match; and a puckish humour which could transform a situation in a moment. But for me most of all will be the memory of his sheer humanity and vulnerability. I will miss him very much.”

“A musician deep to the core, a suggestive homilist never preaching down to anyone, gifted with a dry (dare I say, British) sense of humour and an indomitable urge to reach out to, and genuinely care for, others, are only a few of the qualities I was gifted to experience.”

For many, their principal memory of Kevin will be the wild hair, wild beard, playing a flute (most often) or guitar (occasionally) and wearing open-toed sandals… His informal repertoire included unforgettable performances of Alouette, gentille Alouette and Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song (“Daylight come and me wanna go home”), but he could also take his part in a polyphonic choir when the occasion arose. Others will recall the characteristic handwriting with its flourishes and Greek epsilons for lower-case e’s, the way he would sometimes call himself “Kev the Rev”, the inimitable body language, the laugh, the eyes....

“Liturgically, of course, he was brilliant: no one ever proclaimed a Gospel text as meaningfully; people used to go to Mass twice to hear him preach again. He would produce newspapers and books from nowhere, and even his trusty wooden flute. His facility with the sung Mass in Latin was magnificent”, and he even occasionally presided at Eucharist in the Tridentine Rite in recent times (for example, at the Latin Mass Society AGM Mass in 2006 – he said that if they were going to do that sort of thing, at least he could help them to do it well).

“In Kevin’s case it wasn’t ‘twice’ that those who sing pray, but more like ten times, he put so much meaning into the sung texts, whatever language they were. His rendition of Huijbers’ Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead as the paschal flame entered the darkened church will remain long in the memory of those who were lucky enough to hear it.”

He was extraordinarily widely-read, and he had the ability to retain much of what he read. And yet he often said how little he felt he knew, how much he had not read. He loved words, and would go through phases of using a particular word frequently – for example “rebarbative”, which he would enunciate with great relish – before moving on to another favourite.

An unlikely phenomenon as a Jesuit, he was not organised enough to be an academic in the strict sense of the word. While he was certainly very erudite, he carried his learning very lightly, and never talked down to anyone. He allied the academic aspect of his work to a remarkable pastoral sense. When confronted with a pastoral problem, his response would be “What is the most loving thing that we could do?”

Kevin was a bridge-builder. He seemed to have a particular ministry to the homeless and the housebound. Kevin would talk to anyone, and frequently did. He could often be seen in conversation with sellers of the Big Issue and gentlemen of the road and, because of Kevin’s shaggy appearance and perhaps the famous old duffle coat, it was not always easy for an outsider to tell who was in need and who was not. On one occasion, sitting on a London park bench chatting to two American friends (Virgil Funk and Nancy Bannister), they were approached by a policeman who asked “Is this man bothering you?”

“For all his abilities with people, beneath the bravura, the humour, the warmth and the magnetism, he was in himself quite a shy person. He had more than a tinge of self-doubt, and had to cope with a life punctuated by emotional highs and lows. I vividly remember asking how some talk had gone, and he said it was ‘Another sickening success’ – as if he himself could not believe in the gifts which everyone else could see.” “With all this, we were also aware of a searching Kevin, the one not always bien dans sa peau, and this made him all the more impressive as he wrestled with the Lord.”

His room was always a riot of papers, piles of books and heaven-knows-what-else. You were lucky if you could see any furniture at all. And Kevin would lose his diary and address book with monotonous regularity – as often as three times a year.

He was a man of enthusiasms, always in search of the little-known and the unexpected, and would delight in tasting wine made from a grape he was not familiar with, or trying out a new cheese or type of olive or Real Ale. At one time he went so far as to carry a piece of obscure cheese in a bag on a leather thong around his neck for several weeks in order for it to mature at body temperature. He had to give up drinking beer when it was discovered that it was giving him gout, and eventually in his final years the intake of wine also had to be diminished because of its effect on his system – a sore trial for a man with the French love of the grape in his blood.

Kevin Jean-Marie Donovan (he himself pronounced it “Dunnervern”) was born on 26 September 1931 (inexplicably, the funeral order of service printed 29 September) at Montrécourt-par-Saulzoir, near the French border with Belgium, between Valenciennes and Cambrai. He never knew his father, Denis John Donovan, who died when Kevin was only ten months old. His mother, Marcelle Félicie Caudrillier, was a short but very feisty blonde lady who had an enormous influence on Kevin’s life. She brought up her only child in England single-handed, and he felt her loss very deeply when she died. Her sparkling and very French élan and an artistic flair combined with a lively sense of fun were all characteristics that she passed on to her son. They always spoke in French, and Kevin was therefore completely bi-lingual in both languages. (It was not uncommon to find him reading the abstruse scholarly tomes of liturgical theologians such as Louis-Marie Chauvet in the original French.) Kevin had an affinity for languages, and had more than a smattering of German and Italian, in addition to the Latin and Greek that he studied at school and university.

He was educated first at the Salesian Prep School (St Joseph’s) in Burwash, Sussex (1940-43), and then at St John’s College, Beaumont, in Berkshire, run by the Jesuits (1943-49). He entered the Society of Jesus straight from school at the age of 18, commencing his formation at Manresa House, Roehampton, and continuing at the newly-acquired Jesuit novitiate at Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, where he took his first vows. His philosophy studies were at the old Heythrop College in Oxfordshire (1952-55) and at Roehampton, and he then trained as a teacher in the mid 1950s. He moved to Campion Hall, Oxford, to study Classics, and obtained a 1st Class Honours Degree in Greats. He then returned to Beaumont College to teach Classics for two years, and also trained a fife and drum band for the Combined Cadet Force. (In addition to playing the flute, he had been an accomplished pianist, and could find his way around the basic guitar chords without difficulty.) He then returned to Heythrop for his theology studies.

Kevin was ordained a priest on 1 August 1965 at the Jesuit Sacred Heart Church in Wimbledon by the retired Archbishop of Bombay, Thomas Roberts SJ. He then moved to Paris to study liturgy at the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie. Among his teachers were Joseph Gelineau and Pierre Jounel, and his classmates included Italian Jesuit Eugenio Costa. Kevin and Eugenio both took the opportunity to study harmony and counterpoint privately alongside their other studies. During this time they lived in the Jesuit house in the Rue de Sèvres, next door to the church of Saint-Ignace where they sang in the choir (directed by Gelineau) every Sunday at Mass.

It was here also that Kevin made the acquaintance of Christine Barenton and her excellent children’s liturgical choir named Mini-Hosanna. He went off on their first summer camp with them in 1968, and was finally able to invite the choir to perform in Wimbledon just a few years ago. They remember with love and affection “his gaiety, his humour and his superb sense of service”, and had been planning to invite him to their fortieth birthday celebrations. The name of Christine’s group would years later inspire him later to name his RCIA group of child catechumens the “Mini-Cats”.

Right at the beginning of his time in Paris, in 1965, Kevin attended a large congress in Fribourg, Switzerland, organised by the group which would become Universa Laus a year later. Here he met many other young liturgists who would, three years later in 1968, be co-opted en masse into Universa Laus; the group included Louis Cyr (a Canadian Jesuit), Eugenio Costa, Nico Schalz and a number of others. Kevin, Louis and Eugenio all worked together on the simultaneous translation needs of the 1969 Universa Laus Congress in Turin. When Kevin was eventually elected to the Universa Laus Praesidium at Gentinnes, Belgium, in 1977 in succession to Joseph Gelineau, he received more votes than all the other candidates combined. He continued as a President until 1986, when he was succeeded by the present writer.

Returning to England in 1969, Kevin was appointed Professor of Liturgy at Heythrop College, then in the throes of moving from its Oxfordshire home to the north side of Cavendish Square, London. He became a key figure in the Pastoral Year course that was held there, which evolved into the MA in Pastoral Studies. It was at this time that he encountered the work of former Jesuit Bernard Huijbers, and Kevin was responsible for the English translation of Huijbers’ Great Litany that appeared in Sing the Mass (1975). (The same publication also includes an Entrance Chant by Kevin himself, also borrowed for use as an Intercessions Litany – very simple, just a few bare fifths and sustained chords under spoken text.)

From 1972 to 1973, Kevin was a member of the Consilium’s working group which produced a revised draft of the Ordo Poenitentiae. Doubtless he was invited to be part of this work because he was known and respected by the chair of the group, Fr Pierre Jounel, from his time studying in Paris.

His teaching time at Heythrop was briefly interrupted when he spent a year in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) teaching at St Ignatius College in Chishawasha from 1978 to 1979 in the wake of the independence of the Rhodesian Jesuit province. Returning to the UK in October 1979, he resumed his professorship at Heythrop, a post he held until his death. It was around this time that he first took up an interest in jogging and running, culminating eventually in his running no less than six London Marathons, the last in 2000 at the age of 68, despite suffering all his life from asthma.

He contributed a chapter on the Sanctoral cycle to the standard student textbook The Study of Liturgy (1978, rev. ed. 1992) and a chapter on influences on the post-Vatican II English liturgical scene to English Catholic Worship, published in 1979 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Society of St Gregory. His articles appeared in a number of journals.

In 1982 he moved to Stamford Hill to become parish priest in addition to his teaching work, and would frequently run into central London and arrive sweatily in the classroom to give his lectures. Stamford Hill was a highly multi-ethnic parish with 115 languages spoken by parishioners, a fact which Kevin made good use of at his first Pentecost there. Here, for the first time, Kevin could begin to put into practice on a systematic basis (if one could ever use that adjective of him) his own marvellous incarnation of liturgy with a truly pastoral dimension. He was not afraid to experiment, and his liturgies both in the parish and at Heythrop were always memorable. “Nobody else but Kevin could have made it not a gimmick but real prayer.” It was at this time that he became involved with Kevin Yell’s Epiphany Dancers, an ad hoc group with a strong ecumenical flavour which performed and enhanced prayer through liturgical dance in St James’s, Piccadilly and a number of other London churches. Kevin would boast that he was the first Catholic priest since the Reformation to have danced in Westminster Abbey.

In 1991 his service as parish priest in Stamford Hill came to an end. After a sabbatical year in Berkeley, California, from where he was able to explore some of the finer vintages of the Napa Valley, in 1992 Kevin became a member of the parish staff at the Sacred Heart Church, Wimbledon, where he became responsible for the pastoral care of one of the four subdivisions of this large south-west London parish right up until his death. He made a special point of visiting the housebound, and was for some years chaplain to the bottom year of the Ursuline Convent Primary School.

1993 saw Heythrop College move from its home in Cavendish Square, which had become economically unfeasible for the Jesuits, to the former Maria Assumpta College in Kensington Square. In anticipation of this move, Andrew Cameron-Mowat SJ and Kevin transformed the liturgical components of the MA in Pastoral Studies into an MA in Pastoral Liturgy, at that time unique in the British Isles. They first sketched out the new degree course together in the garden of a Jesuit community house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1992; and September 1993 saw the course commence, taught by Kevin and Robin Gibbons. Students in the early years included Ann Blackett Moynihan, Mags Shepherd, Lindsay Urwin (an Anglican bishop), and the degree attracted a very wide and ecumenical range of people.

Kevin and technology did not mix very well, and he would sometimes spend hours preparing a lecture on an old computer, only to find that he had saved it incorrectly or deleted it, or that he had left the relevant papers at home; and he would then prepare the lecture on the back of an envelope while sitting on the Victoria or District Line. It was a mark of his brilliance that he never said anything quite the same way twice. His handouts were famous for their misprints, some unrepeatable. When Andrew arrived at Heythrop in 1998, he supplied the organisational ability, taking care of paperwork and teaching modern liturgical theology and ritual, while Kevin took care of all the history, being a sort of “living tradition” in himself. He would make a point of attending as many of Andrew’s seminars as he could and his presence was invaluable, interjecting extraordinary insights or pastoral examples one after another. Old timers at Heythrop were always glad to see Kevin around the corridors and in the library; he would pick out wonderful and challenging passages from an enormously wide range of reading, and was never at a loss to discuss practically anything.

Kevin had lived life to the full, and for quite some time before his death he had talked about visions of mortality and feeling tired. In a letter dated as far back as 5 June 2007 to his friend Louis Cyr, who had had a long period of rehabilitation after a near-fatal heart attack, Kevin wrote:

“Someone recently gave me a good & thorough book by Gustave Martelet on Teilhard. A resumptive account to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death. Because it is so ‘dense’ I’ve only read parts of it - but one chapter I have read a couple of times is about death, approach of, passive diminution I think he calls it - it’s from Le milieu divin, which to my shame [I haven’t read]. Like yourself, I’m beginning to experience this passive diminution. Not as thoroughly as yourself, no doubt, but still - touch of rheumatics, and a number of tooth extractions, and a reasonable set of new ones. So I appreciated your own remarks on that subject. However, I’m pretty pleased with my own intimations of mortality – especially as they haven’t affected the flute playing – and indeed I’m getting back into some sort of shape. It’s useful in church – especially family Mass & baptisms – and I find that plainchant goes rather well with a flute – especially in a flattering acoustic.
Off to Lisieux (been re-reading her on suffering, Little Way, etc.) next month with a parish pilgrimage, which includes Joan of Arc, the Normandy landings, and Monet’s Water Lilies.”

He was a member of the international Jesuit Jungmann Society, and had been to their meeting in Montserrat in June 2008, where he seemed in very good form, if a little tired. Only days before his death, he had been on the phone with the present writer, planning a memorial Mass for Joseph Gelineau. On 21 August he presided at a wedding in Wimbledon. He collapsed at the reception from a heart attack and was pronounced dead on arrival at Kingston Hospital.

The funeral celebrations extended over two days. On the evening of 1 September a Mass was held at the Sacred Heart Church, Wimbledon, with music by the parish’s Family Mass music group, attended by a large number of people. On 2 September, an even larger gathering of about 1,000 people (including a coach-load from Stamford Hill) crammed into the same church for a Requiem Mass with choir and organ which included music by Duruflé, Gelineau, Fauré, preceded by a half-hour of some of Kevin’s favourite psalms with cantor/assembly and piano and followed by a most extraordinary reception and display of photographs. The clergy present included two bishops, and the presider was the Jesuit Provincial, Fr Michael Holman. The wonderful homily was preached by Fr Gerard J. Hughes, who had been preparing a talk at the same time as the homily. He arrived in Wimbledon to find he had brought the notes for the talk instead of the homily, and had to reconstruct it rapidly from memory on the spot, which he did brilliantly – a real “Kevin moment”. The size of the attendance was in itself a powerful memorial to a unique personality, and he will be sorely missed by a huge number of people. May he rest in peace.

Tribute prepared by Paul Inwood with special thanks for contributions from Andrew Cameron-Mowat SJ, Gerard J. Hughes SJ, Louis Cyr SJ, and many other friends

The photograph of Kevin was taken at the wedding on the day that he died, 21 August 2008.

Simon Bischof, OSB

2009-12-04T07:27:00.000-08:00

Simon Bischof, OSB
December 19, 1926 – February 23, 2009

Robert James Bischof was the third son of Nicholas and Tecla (Lauer) Bischof. He was born in Eden Valley, Minnesota, on December 19, 1926, during a snowstorm so severe that his father had to pull the doctor's car with a tractor to the farmhouse. There were nine children in his farm family. Robert attended Assumption Elementary School for eight years but delayed going to high school to help the family during the Great Depression. Robert entered Saint John's Preparatory School in autumn 1942 to study for the priesthood. He graduated in 1946.

Robert discovered his life-long interest in music while in the prep school. He sang in the glee club and took cello lessons from Father Gregory Soukup OSB, later headmaster.

After entering Saint John's University, Robert played with the University Orchestra. Father Paul Marx OSB encouraged Robert to join the school's football team. He did join because some sophomores taunted him by saying he could never earn an athletic letter in the sport. Father Dominic Keller OSB invited him to join the Dramatic Club. These contacts acquainted Robert with the Benedictines and fostered his desire to become a Benedictine monk. Abbot Alcuin Deutsch OSB accepted him into the novitiate of Saint John's Abbey in 1948 and gave him the name of Simon. He professed monastic vows on July 11, 1949.

In 1950 Brother Simon graduated from Saint John's University with a bachelor's degree in Philosophy. After four years of theological studies, he was ordained to the priesthood on June 4, 1955. Father Simon's first assignment was as associate pastor in Saint Augustine Parish, St. Cloud, from 1955 to 1965. After returning to the preparatory school as chaplain for two years, he served two years as the abbey's director of vocations. Father Simon resumed the pastoral work he so enjoyed at Saint Joseph's Church, St. Joseph, from 1969 to 1972 and Saint Boniface Church, Cold Spring, from 1972 to 1976.

He enriched his theological education by attending summer school at Saint John's School of Theology·Seminary from 1970 to 1975. From 1977 to 1978 Father Simon was pastor at Seven Dolors Parish, Albany. He served as chaplain at Saint Mary's Medical Center, Duluth, from 1978 to 1979 and was pastor of Saint Bartholomew's Church, Wayzata, for six weeks in 1979 until he suffered a heart attack.

Following recuperation, Father Simon eased back into pastoral ministry in Hastings where he was an associate pastor for a year at Saint Boniface Parish. From 1981 to 1983, he was pastor at Saint Francis Xavier Church, Lake Park, as well as pastor of Saint Andrew's Church, Hawley. From 1983 to 1992 he was pastor of Saint Benedict's Parish, Avon. As he had begun his pastoral ministry at Saint Augustine Parish in St. Cloud, so did he also conclude it there as pastor from 1992 to 2002. "A combination of déjà vu and always something new," he remarked. On July 1, 2002, Father Simon retired to the abbey after nearly fifty years of dedicated and energetic pastoral service.

In retirement his rich and sonorous voice was a welcome support at the daily monastic prayer he seldom missed. He was always willing to help in pastoral emergencies. He loved working with his friend, Mr. K.C. Marrin, in the production of The Saint John's Cross that Casey designed for the abbey's sesquicentennial in 2006. Father Simon reflected on his long life saying: "Parish life, my ministry to parishes, has been a real high point of my life -- helping people, listening to people, being concerned about people." To be sure, Father Simon remained a people person all his life.

Father Simon died on February 23, 2009, in the retirement center at Saint John's Abbey. He is survived by his sisters, Sister Loraine Bischof OSB, St. Cloud; Sister Margo Bischof OSB, St. Joseph; his brother, Mr. James J. Bischof, Watkins; and the community at Saint John's Abbey. The monks, family, and friends, will celebrate the Mass of Christian Burial on Friday, February 27, 2009, 3 p.m., in Saint John's Abbey Church. Interment in Saint John's Cemetery follows the service.

Tribute prepared by Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN.

Jerome M. Hall, SJ

2009-12-03T21:46:00.000-08:00

Jerome M. Hall, SJ
January 31, 1950 – March 11, 2009

A Mass of Christian burial was offered for Jerome M. Hall, SJ, at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church on March 16. Fr. Hall, a noted liturgist, died after a brief illness at Georgetown University Hospital on March 11. A Jesuit for 42 years and a priest for 31 years, he was 59.

At the time of his death, Fr. Hall was on the faculty of Washington Theological Union as professor of theology and he also served on the formation faculty of Theological College, the Catholic University of America. In addition to his teaching, he had written and spoken extensively on liturgy.

“He certainly was very passionate about it,” said Fr. Daniel Ruff, SJ, pastor of Old St. Joseph’s Church, Philadelphia. “He loved the liturgy and he loved teaching and talking about it.”

Fr. James Conn, SJ, who entered the Society of Jesus at the same time as Fr. Hall, remembered him as “natively gifted intellectually and artistically.” Fr. Hall, he said, was a noted musician, both for voice and guitar and had sung in operas and directed musicals during his time at Georgetown University. He shared his gifts with young Jesuits preparing for ordination and conducted the choir for ordination, according to Fr. Ruff. “He was devoted to helping those soon to be ordained to learn their roles as presiders at liturgy,” Fr. Conn added.

Fr. Hall, son of James A. Hall and Marie J. Wassel, was born in Baltimore, Jan. 31, 1950. Following graduation from Mt. St. Joseph High School in Catonsville, Md., he entered the Society of Jesus Sept. 7, 1966.

Fr. Hall studied at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, N.Y., and Fordham University, and later at Weston School of Theology and Georgetown University. He also earned a Master of Arts degree in music (voice) at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he later received a Ph.D. in liturgical and sacramental theology.

He is the author of We Have the Mind of Christ: The Holy Spirit and Liturgical Memory in the Thought of Edward Kilmartin, a Pueblo Book published by Liturgical Press, in 2001. The book came out of research for his doctoral dissertation when he met with Fr. Kilmartin, a Jesuit and expert on theology of the Eucharist.

Before ordination, as a Jesuit scholastic, Fr. Hall was assistant director of campus ministries at Georgetown University and a teacher at Gonzaga High School, Washington, D.C., from 1971 to 1972. Fr. Hall was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop William D. Borders of Baltimore, at the Loyola College Chapel June 4, 1977. He made his final profession in the Society of Jesus at Georgetown University Nov. 13, 1982.

Following ordination, he served as associate pastor at St. Ignatius Church in Baltimore, Md. where he also served from 1977 to 1979 as a chaplain at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and the Jesuit Arts Center. He was then assigned as a student chaplain from 1979 to 1989 at Georgetown University and from 1989 to 1990 was coordinator of campus ministries at LeMoyne College, Syracuse, N.Y.

After earning his doctorate he went to Rome in 1997 as professor of Liturgy and Liturgical Theology at the Gregorian University. He remained there until 2002 when he was appointed spiritual director and professor of theology at the Washington Theological Union. At the time of his death, Fr. Hall was also on the formation faculty of Theological College, Catholic University. In addition, he was a weekend assistant at St. Andrew by the Bay Church in Arnold, Md.

Tribute prepared by The Society of Jesus.

David H. Tripp

2009-12-03T21:05:00.000-08:00

David H. Tripp
March 4, 1940 – December 16, 2007

David H. Tripp was born on March 4, 1940, in Lambeth, London, England, and adopted by the late Roger and Alma Tripp. He had lived in Northern Indiana since 1991, coming from England.

Rev. Tripp received a BA from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds. He taught at Lincoln Theological College, Queen's College, Birmingham, England, The University of Notre Dame and Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

While with the Methodist Church of Great Britain, he was a circuit minister from 1966 to 1988 and a superintendent minister from 1988 to 1991. From 1991 to the present he served three churches in the United Methodist North Indiana Conference, and, most recently, the Rolling Prairie United Methodist Church.

He was author of Renewal of the Covenant in the Methodist Tradition, published in 1969 in London, and editor of Calvin Washington Ruter's Brief Sketch of his life and itinerant labors, which will be published in 2008.

He is survived by his wife, Rev. Diane Karay Tripp, a daughter, a son and six grandchildren.

Tribute prepared by the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, IN.

Conrad Kraus

2009-06-17T12:29:00.001-07:00

Conrad L. Kraus
April 29, 1933 – May 13, 2009

Msgr. Conrad L. Kraus, 76, died May 13, 2009 in Collegeville, Minn., where he was participating in a sabbatical study program.

Born April 29, 1933 in Erie, he was the son of the late Leonard J. and Adele Shelton Kraus. He attended Sacred Heart School and was a 1951 graduate of Cathedral Prep. He studied at Gannon University from 1951-53 and at the University of Detroit from 1953- 56, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture. He studied at the School of St. Philip Neri in Boston from 1962-63, completing his seminary studies at St. Mary Seminary and University in Baltimore from 1963-67.

Following ordination, he later continued his studies at Carnegie Mellon University, Fordham University, and The Catholic University of America. He served in the U.S. Army from 1958-60.

He was ordained as a priest on May 27, 1967 at St. Peter Cathedral in Erie by Bishop John Whealon. His home parish was Sacred Heart in Erie.

From 1967-69, Msgr. Kraus served as an assistant pastor at St. Andrew Parish in Erie. He was then assigned as assistant at St. Brigid Parish in Meadville until 1972 where he also served as Catholic campus minister at Allegheny College. From 1972-74 he served in campus ministry at Villa Maria College in Erie while residing at Sacred Heart.

From 1974-75 he was assigned to studies at Fordham University, where he earned a master’s degree in religious education. In 1975 he was appointed as assistant pastor at St. Patrick Parish in Erie and in 1977 at St. Joseph Parish in Sharon. From 1978-83 he served as assistant at St. John the Baptist Parish in Erie.

In 1983 he was appointed by Bishop Michael Murphy to serve as director of the diocesan Office of Worship, a position he held for 25 years until his retirement in 2008. He resided at St. Peter Cathedral from 1983- 89, briefly at St. John the Baptist and then was appointed parish administrator at St. Anthony Parish in Cambridge Springs from 1989-92.

Following a return from sabbatical studies, he resided at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Girard from 1993-2001, at which time he was appointed pastor of St. Michael Parish in Emlenton while continuing as director of the Office of Worship. He retired in May 2008.

Msgr. Kraus was named a prelate of honor with the title of “monsignor” in 2000 by Pope John Paul II.

He served for many years in the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions and was nationally recognized for his understanding of liturgical celebrations.

Msgr. Kraus volunteered his time and talent to Emmaus Ministries in Erie, particularly at Emmaus Soup Kitchen and his annual valentine-making project with the students at the Neighborhood Art House.

His final endeavor was a project on the work of the Novy Dvur Trappist Monastery in the Czech Republic.

Tribute prepared by the Diocese of Erie and published in “FaithLife,” May 24, 2009.

Dominic Richard Braud, OSB

2009-01-06T15:58:00.000-08:00

Dominic Richard Braud, OSB
April 30, 1928 – January 1, 2009

Son of the late Earl N. Braud, and Juanita Philips Braud, Father Dominic was born April 30, 1928, in New Orleans, LA. He made his profession as a Benedictine monk of Saint Joseph Abbey, Saint Benedict, LA, on August 11, 1956. He was ordained to the priesthood May 27, 1961. He celebrated his Golden Jubilee of Monastic Profession in 2006.

Father Dominic was a Professor at Saint Joseph Seminary, Saint Benedict, LA, Novice Master, Choir Director, and composer of liturgical music sung throughout the country. He was also manager of the Christian Life Center, Subprior, Guestmaster and for many years the Director of the Oblates. He was a talented singer and taught the community how to joyfully praise the Lord through his life and through song.

Father Dominic's body was received at Saint Joseph Abbey on Tuesday, January 6, at 5:15 P.M. followed by the singing of Vespers. The Funeral Vigil was held at 7:15 P.M. in the Abbey Church. The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Wednesday, January 7, at 11:15 A.M., at Saint Joseph Abbey followed by burial in the Abbey Cemetery.

Tribute prepared by Saint Joseph Abbey.

Eugene A. LaVerdiere, SSS

2008-12-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

Eugene A. LaVerdiere, SSS
April 7, 1936 - November 20, 2008

Father Eugene A. LaVerdiere, SSS, a leading American Scripture scholar of the post-Vatican II era and the Senior Editor of Emmanuel magazine, died November 20 at about 12:00 Noon at a nursing home in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, following a prolonged illness.

Two of his siblings, Sister Claudette LaVerdiere, MM, and Brother Gary LaVerdiere, SSS, were with him at the time. He is also survived by a second brother, Peter, of San Diego, California.

Father LaVerdiere wrote extensively on the Gospel of Luke and also on Mark. He loved to say, with a wide smile on his face, "My home is in Luke, but I have a nice condo in Mark!" He published scores of books and articles during a long and distinguished teaching and lecturing career that took him to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and to every part of the United States. A special focus of his study and writing were the various meal narratives in the Gospels and in other New Testament works. His most significant and popular book according to many people was published in 1994 and entitled Dining in the Kingdom of God: The Origins of Eucharist According to Luke. It was published by Liturgy Training Publications in Chicago, IL.

A graduate of the famed École Biblique in Jerusalem, Father Eugene taught at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, the Jesuit School of Theology and the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, and Fordham University, New York City. For many years, until his retirement in 2005, he served as the National Secretary of the Pontifical Missionary Union for the Clergy and Religious and as a consultant for mission education of clergy and seminarians for the National Office of The Society for the Propagation of the Faith in New York City, where he collaborated closely with Auxiliary Bishop William J. McCormack.

Prior to moving to Cleveland three years ago, Father LaVerdiere lived at Saint Jean Baptiste Church and served as the local Superior of the Blessed Sacrament Community at Saint Jean's. He was also a Provincial Consultor of the American Province of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament and the Director of Formation. His uncle, Father William LaVerdiere, S.S.S., was a popular Pastor of the church from 1944-1958.

The wake will be on Monday, November 24, at Saint Paschal Baylon Church, 5384 Wilson Mills Road, Highland Heights, Ohio, from 3:00-6:00 p.m., followed by the Funeral Mass at 7:00. Burial will be on Tuesday, November 25, and is private for the family and the members of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. A Memorial Mass for Father LaVerdiere will be celebrated at Saint Jean Baptiste Church, 184 East 76th Street, New York, NY 10021 (212-288-5082) at a date and time to be determined.

Father LaVerdiere accepted the effects of a debilitating neurological condition with grace and equanimity. Commented many a colleague and friend, "Even in illness he is teaching us." Requiescat in pace, Father Eugene!

Tribute prepared by the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, Cleveland, OH.

José Ardazabal, SDB

2008-12-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

José Ardazabal, SDB
1933 - 2006

Rev. José Ardazabal, SDB, from the "Centro de Pastoral Litúrgica de Barcelona", directed for the CPL the collections "Biblioteca Litúrgica", "Dossiers CPL", "Phase" and "Misa Dominical.” He wrote numerous liturgical books including "La Eucaristía", "Vocabulario básico de Liturgia", "El ministerio de la homilía."

Born July 4, 1933 in Azkoitia, Guipúzcoa, España, he was a Salesian priest, studied Theology in Turin, earned a doctorate in Liturgy from the Pontifical University of San Anselmo, and spent time in Germany. Professor of the "Facultad de Teología de Cataluña", and the Salesian Seminary of Martí-Codolar, he taught liturgy extensively to priests, religious, and lay Catholics in Spain, Latin-America, and Portugal.

Fr. Aldazábal knew fully the richness of the liturgy, and knew how to explain it in a simple way through both the written and the spoken word. With these three qualities, he was able to offer a superior celebration that helped a great number of people and places to know, prepare, and love more the Christian celebrations, their sense and meaning. Throughout his life, he maintained a constant interest in keeping current with the various aspects that affected the liturgy. In later years he would write in a small notebook references on liturgical articles from many magazines, so nothing would escape him. To him, great thanks, and best wishes: ¡Que viva en Dios!

Tribute written by Josep LLigada, published in “Misa Dominical” by the Centro de Pastoral Litúrgica in Barcelona. Parts translated by Sr. Marilú S. Covani, SP, Office of Worship, Diocese of San Bernardino.

Franz and Terese Mueller

2008-12-03T21:47:00.000-08:00

Franz and Terese Mueller

Life in the Catholic Youth Movements of Germany in the 1920’s and early 1930’s stimulated intellectual, liturgical, social, and spiritual growth. In that world, Franz and Therese Mueller, with fresh doctorates in economics and sociology from the University of Cologne, gave birth to their first three children, daughters Mechthild, Hildegard, and Gertrud. These gifted parents laid a solid foundation for their family on the rocks of the domestic church, the parish church, the universal church, human society at large, the whole created world and the reign of God. But exuberance turned to struggle. In the mid-1930’s, they made a Nazi-enforced move from Germany to St. Louis, Missouri, where Franz became professor of sociology at St. Louis University.

Embracing Their New World
Helping give birth to a liturgical movement in the United States proved a prolonged task. Gone were the open and invigorating student social movements. Far away were the theological and liturgical giants: Guardini, Herwegen, Parsch, and Casel. But familiar values and resonances of a possible church rushed in from new giants (Huelsmann, Hellriegel, Reinhold, Ellard, Day, Maurin, Bethune, Vitry, Michel, and Diekmann) and new places (Holy Family parish and school, St. Louis, staffed by the liturgically aware sisters of the Most Precious Blood from nearby O’Fallon).

During the Muellers’ first St. Louis years, it was the local Catholic Worker people who “made us feel that we had something to give.” Later, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin were houseguests of the Muellers whenever their paths crossed. One of the things Therese Mueller came “to give” was the baptismal garment. For even in these early years in the United States, through lectures, articles, and examples, she worked to bring the baptismal garment to the American church.

In mid-November 1938, William Huelsmann, pastor of Holy Family, invited Franz, Therese, and their daughters to meet Virgil Michel. Michel’s Orate Fratres and other liturgical, educational, philosophical, and social projects needed no introduction for Franz and Therese. Michel told Therese that the Orate Fratres staff in Collegeville considered her writings a real “find.” When Michel hurried off to board a train, the family quickly knelt down on the sidewalk for his blessing. A few days later, Michel died. With their newborn son Reinhold, the Muellers moved to Minnesota not long after.

Franz Mueller took a position in the department of economics at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He taught, wrote and published, served for two decades as a chairperson and gave generous leadership for almost 30 years. Mueller’s articles, monographs, pamphlets, and letters to the editors cover topics such as the future of the local church, the parish in an industrial society, a comparison of the social philosophies of individualism and socialism, the principle of subsidiarity, married saints, the theological use of sociology, liturgy and sociology, person and society according to Thomas Aquinas, beauty and sentimentality in Christian art and the social teachings of Vatican II.

The six Muellers increased to seven in St. Paul when son Francis was born. Each daughter attended the school for liturgy and spirituality run by the Ladies of the Grail, Loveland, Ohio, and each daughter lectures on liturgy and the home. Mechthild Ellis designs and crafts liturgical vestments. Hildegard Kerney is a member of her diocesan liturgical commission and works with Hospice. Gertrud Mueller Nelson lectures on education, art, and Jungian psychology. She has published liturgical clip-art volumes and the book, To Dance with God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration. Reinhold teaches history at the University of Venice, Italy, and Francis practices family medicine and serves as a medical director for Hospice.

The Fullness of Catholic Life
When the children were young, despite a long-standing commitment not to become a two-income family, requests for Therese’s insights and words on liturgy and family came from all sides. Godfrey Diekmann asked her for many articles for Orate Fratres/Worship for more than two decades. Church bulletins sought her recipes related to religious customs, patters for baptismal garments, words and ideas. Both the College of St. Catherine and the College of St. Thomas employed her for part-time teaching. Parishioners of the Church of the Nativity, the Muellers’ home parish in the St. Paul years, know her as a Eucharistic minister, resource person on Christian home life, dedicated friend and faithful community builder. She served for several years on the archdiocesan speaker’s bureau, giving presentations on the liturgical seasons. Since the early 1970s, Therese has served as a staff member of the archdiocesan ministry for engaged couples. She is known as a kind and wise teacher of young people preparing for marriage.

In 1941, Therese delivered a paper, “The Christian Family and the Liturgy,” at the second National Liturgical Week. After the paper, a respondent said: “We are thankful to Mrs. Mueller for her estimation of the sacramental dignity and the mystical beauty of the Christian family.”

Therese has authored three books: Family Life in Christ, Our Children’s Year of Grace, and The Christian Home and Art. Forty-plus years ago, in The Christian Home and Art (Kansas City MO: designs for Christian Living, 1950), she did more than lament the secularization of Christmas, she met it head-on. In her books, talks, classes, and articles, Therese Mueller brought the Advent wreath to the American home.

She introduced families to the Exsultet of the great paschal Vigil: “One Exsultet 20 years ago in my home parish has never been excelled. To me it was the very ‘discovery’ of this great hymn; and this experience rings through each Exsultet I have heard since—and perhaps if God wills, through the one I want to pray at my life’s end.”

She acquainted people with customs appropriate to Sunday observances, including dress, decorum, and dinner. She opened families to the domestic meaning of the feasts and the seasons of the church year (the incarnational focus of exchanging gifts at Christmas, for example, the “most admirable exchange”). She offered ideas to celebrate more actively the sacramental life (the yearly anniversary letter from baptismal and confirmational godparents to their goddaughters and godsons, for example). She endorsed a healthy veneration of saints (including a “saint-of-the-month study club at home”).

Therese mirrors the empathic power of a woman, a wife, a mother. She witnesses the careful naïveté and encompassing creativity of a Christian for whom distance between faith and practice vanishes. She never loses the critical eye of a behavioral scientist: Recalling a rural vacation of her childhood on which she participated with delight in the custom of finding 40 species of wild herbs and flowers for a special blessing on the Feast of the Assumption, she asks, “Are we of the city too proud to admit our poverty?” Rural or urban, the domestic church remains the center of gravity for Therese.

The roster of leaders in the liturgical movement in the United States has too few laypersons and almost no married persons and parents. Franz and Therese Mueller, by word and example, brought all they could to the movement and in doing so gave it an essential dimension.

Tribute reprinted from How Firm a Foundation: Leaders of the Liturgical Movement Franz and Terese Mueller by James A. Wilde © 1990 Archdiocese of Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications. 1-800-933-1800. www.ltp.org All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Patrick Cummins, OSB

2008-12-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

Patrick Cummins, OSB
1880 - 1968

Patrick Cummins, OSB, was a monk of Conception Abbey in Missouri; esteemed seminary professor for 48 years; rector at Sant' Anselmo College, 1920–1925; helped chart a course of integrating liturgy and life at Conception Abbey and Seminary; musician and composer; author and translator; one of the first associate editors of Orate Fratres and of the American Benedictine Review. He knew the Divine Comedy from memory in both Italian and English, translated it into English terza rima and taught to every young man who came to the monastery or seminary the poem's keystone, the line in Canto 17 that the choice of what and how one loves determines one's direction in life. His obituary noted: "Through his 68 years as a professed monk, he remained man among men, man of God, scholar, lover of wisdom, believer in people and in the day."

Tribute reprinted from "How Firm a Foundation: Voices of the Early Liturgical Movement" © 1990 Archdiocese of Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications. 1-800-933-1800. www.ltp.org All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Norbert Gertken, OSB

2008-12-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

Norbert Gertken, OSB
February 28, 1885 - December 1, 1957

Father Norbert Gertken, OSB, was born in Richmond, MN, February 28, 1885. He made profession as a monk of Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville, on July 11, 1906 and was ordained a priest on June 13, 1911. He was one of the 10 children of the Gertken family who entered religious life. He died on December 1, 1957.

After making vows, Norbert taught piano, organ, and brass at Saint John's College (University) in Collegeville, MN. From 1908-1935 he taught piano and directed the college band and orchestra. He directed the student choir from 1920-1935 and from 1922-1945 taught Gregorian chant. He also gave Gregorian chant workshops in schools, college, and seminaries as well as parishes in the Diocese of Saint Cloud, the Diocese of Crookston and the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Tribute prepared by Saint John's Abbey Archives.

Innocent Gertken, OSB

2008-12-03T14:33:00.000-08:00

Innocent Gertken, OSB
May 10, 1877 - July 17, 1953

Father Innocent Gertken, OSB, was born in Richmond, MN, on May 10, 1877. He made profession as a monk of Saint John's Abbey on August 15, 1898 and was ordained a priest on June 11, 1903. He died July 17, 1953.

After making vows in 1898, Father Innocent began teaching music at Saint John's College (University) in Collegeville, MN. He was one of the 10 children of the Gertken family who entered religious life. Father Innocent taught music for 50 years, he held at one time, every post in the music department. Father Innocent was an abbey organist from 1903-1946.

Tribute prepared by Saint John's Abbey Archives.

Patrick Byrne

2008-12-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

Patrick Byrne
1931 - 2002

Msgr. Patrick Byrne of Lindsay, Ontario, (Peterborough Diocese) Canada died yesterday at the age of 71.

Father Byrne was editor of the National Bulletin for Liturgy from 1972-1987. In addition to that work, Pat edited with a very critical eye many liturgical publications for the National Liturgy Office of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (English Sector).

Even after he retired from active ministry, Pat continued to be active in liturgy in Canada. Pat will be missed by those who knew him and relied on his sound liturgical judgement.

Pat was a member of the North American Academy for Liturgy and Societas Liturgica. Pat received the Spirit and Truth Award at the CPL Conference 2001.

Tribute prepared by Sr. Donna Kelly, cnd, Director, National Liturgy Office, Canada.

Tributes from his colleagues:

“Here is a man whose charm, consistent good will, and scholarship taught us all about the heart of liturgy. We will remember so much.”

“His contributions through the National Bulletin over the years have helped good liturgy in Canada, the United States and, I am sure, worldwide. May he have the joy and peace of life with the risen Christ!”

“I knew Pat when we were both studying (and playing) at Notre Dame; his class notes became the basis for many issues of the National Bulletin and were invaluable to me as a student and for years beyond. He continued to be a gracious presence with a twinkle in his eye at various meetings over the years.”

Jane Marie Perrot, DC

2008-11-29T21:50:00.000-08:00

Jane Marie Perrot, DC
November 12, 1916 - December 12, 1998

Sister Jane Marie Perrot, DC, a member of the Daughters of Charity for sixty-three years, died peacefully at Villa St. Michael in Emmitsburg, MD, on December 12, 1998. She was eighty-two.

Sister Jane Marie was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, on November 12, 1916. She joined the Daughters of Charity when she was nineteen and professed solemn vows in 1940. Her academic degrees suggest that her life's work combined business and music: she earned a BS from St. Joseph College, Emmitsburg, MD, a master's in education from Boston University (1950), and a master's in music from the Catholic University of America (1952).

After her early assignments in Connecticut, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, during which she taught business education, music, and even prom etiquette (how long your white gloves should be!), as the Second Vatican Council was taking place (1962-65), Sister Jane Marie went to the Daughters of Charity Emmitsburg Provincial House for two years to serve as director of music for the entire community. As the post-conciliar liturgical reform was being implemented, Jane Marie taught music at St. Joseph College, Emmitsburg, until its closing in 1973. In these two key positions, she was instrumental in forming the Eastern Province of the Daughters of Charity in community with her love for music and liturgy.

In August 1973, she became the executive director of the National Catholic Music Education Association, serving until the association dissolved itself in October 1976. In 1975 she conducted the Emmitsburg Community Chorus at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for the canonization of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. She was told that she was the first woman–ever!–to conduct a choir for a Eucharistic liturgy presided over by a pope in St. Peter's Basilica. In 1977, after the NCMEA closed shop, she joined the founding staff of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians working with Rev. Virgil C. Funk, Bill Detweiller, and Rev. William Saulnier. She served NPM as the staff music consultant, the Convention coordinator for the first National Convention (Scranton, 1978), where she first conducted the Hallelujah Chorus at the close of an NPM Convention. She also established and staffed the advertising and exhibit department for NPM. She continued on the NPM staff until 1983, when health problems forced her into retirement. She celebrated her departure by conducting the Hallelujah Chorus at the St. Louis Cathedral with 4,000 musicians singing their hearts out. At that St. Louis Convention, Sister Jane Marie was given the NPM Pastoral Musician of the Year Award.

I remember Jane Marie at the first NPM Convention in Scranton in 1978. We prepared for 600 people; 1,700 people showed up. She was serving as the convention coordinator, with no office, one phone, and all those people coming at her at one time. I'll never forget the look on her face as she held on to her patience–by a thread–in the midst of total chaos. What a look!

Nor will I forget the plan she developed one year later, during the Second NPM Convention in Chicago, when the fire marshal was going to close the Convention down. She created a mythical authority person to match the inaccessible fire marshal; pulling herself up to her full stature, she also dressed down the toughest Chicago union dock foreman–she knew how to handle difficult situations.

Any NPM member who ever met her will remember her for her kindness and joy. She was an excellent general musician, but her great love was the music of the liturgy. She embraced the changes of the Second Vatican Council, both in theory and in her heart, and became an unswerving advocate for the renewal of Church through musical liturgy. But no one associated with NPM and Sister Jane Marie can forget the incredible experience of Sister conducting the Hallelujah Chorus, first in Scranton, then in Detroit, and gloriously at the St. Louis Cathedral, leading in dynamic fashion the great song of praise of 4,000 musicians singing from the depths of their faith. Everyone at NPM who ever met her will remember her in their prayers.

Tribute prepared by NPM president, Fr. Virgil Funk, published in Pastoral Music, February-March, 1999, pg. 10. Reprinted with permission.

Peter Mazar

2008-11-29T21:17:00.001-08:00

Peter Mazar
1953 - 2002

Peter Mazar, editor at Liturgy Training Publications and, for a time, at World Library Publications, died on Monday, April 22, 2002, from complications following surgery related to cancer. After a difficult year in which Peter suffered the loss of his father, the fading health of his mother, and cancer surgery for his partner, Barry, he was diagnosed with fast-moving lymphoma. He was forty-nine years old.

Peter served as an editor at LTP for about fifteen years, shaping some of the key annual publications on which many communities rely for liturgy preparation and liturgically based education. Among them were the Sourcebook for Sundays and Seasons, At Home with the Word, and Children's Daily Prayer. He was the author of two books about decorating the church and preparing liturgical and seasonal decorations for classrooms.

The Mass of Christian Burial for Peter was celebrated at St. Monica Church in Chicago on April 27, 2002.

Tribute prepared by NPM staff, published in Pastoral Music, June-July, 2002, pg. 10. Reprinted with permission.

William J. Leonard, SJ

2008-11-29T20:20:00.000-08:00

William J. Leonard, SJ
1909 - 2000

Rev. William Leonad, SJ, died on February 11, 2000, at the age of ninety-one, in Weston, MA. Born in Dorchester, MA, Father Leonard, a priest of the Society of Jesus, joined the Jesuits in 1925 and was ordained to the presbyterate in 1937. From 1939 to 1973, apart from service during World War II as a U.S. Army chaplain, he taught theology at Boston College and founded the Summer School of Social Worship on that campus. Father Leonard was deeply involved in the liturgical movement, served as secretary of the Liturgical Conference during the 1950s, and was an adviser at the Second Vatican Council.

In retirement, he became an archivist for the U.S. liturgical movement and founded the Liturgy and Life collection at Boston College Library, collecting books, magazines, and other publications related to liturgical renewal (more than 25,000 volumes). In 1993 he published his autobiography, The Letter Carrier, an image drawn from his adolescent job and served as metaphor for a life devoted to bringing the Good News.

His life was celebrated at a funeral Mass at St. Ignatius Church on February 16.

William Ferris

2008-11-29T19:51:00.000-08:00

William Ferris
1937 - 2000

William Ferris preferred to be known as a composer who conducts rather than as a conductor who composes. He directed a professional chorus, but he was also delighted to be known as the director of music for Mt. Carmel Church in Chicago. He loved choral music, but he also served as organist at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago and at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Rochester, NY. He was a performing musician who taught composition and choral music at the American Conservatory of Music from 1973 until his death. He was the first American composer to teach at the Vatican and to receive a papal knighthood granted by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He collapsed with a massive heart attack and died during a rehearsal of the Verdi Requiem with the William Ferris Chorale on May 16, 2000. His funeral was celebrated at Mt. Carmel on Saturday, May 20.

Educated in Chicago schools, William Ferris sang in a boy's choir and began to write his own motets while he was still in grade school. He studied piano and organ at DePaul University and the American Conservatory, taking private voice lessons with Leo Sowerby, who became his mentor. He was inspired by the Robert Shaw Choral to found his own chorus, which he did in 1971. He used the Chorale to champion the works of living composers, including Ned Rorem, Dominick Argento, Stephen Paulus, William Matthias, the Chicago priest-composer Edward McKenna, Vincent Persichetti, and William Schuman.

William Ferris's published compositions include two operas, a dozen orchestral works, fifteen chamber compositions, and more than sixty choral pieces.

Mr. Ferris's connection to NPM goes back to the 1993 National Convention in St. Louis, MO, for which he conducted the premiére performance of Carl Johengen's Veni Creator Spiritus. After that performance he became a sought-after workshop leader, sharing his skills in choral conducting with members of the Association. His final appearance at an NPM Convention was in Indianapolis in 1997, when he conducted the William Ferris Chorale in the Quartet "Riches Ancient and New" at the Cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul.

Tribute prepared by NPM staff, published in Pastoral Music, August-September, 2000, pg. 11. Reprinted with permission.

Bernardus Maria Huijbers

2008-11-29T19:01:00.000-08:00

Bernardus Maria Huijbers
July 24, 1922 - April 13, 2003

Bernard Huijbers, a native of Holland, was a leading composer of contemporary liturgical music and an innovative theoretician of the place of music in ritual action. His collaboration with Huub Oosterhuis, the well-known Dutch poet and liturgist, led to the publication of about two hundred compositions, and the English-language translation of his work The Performing Audience introduced many of us to the notion of Christian ritual music.

Born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on July 24, 1922, Bernard entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained to the presbyterate in 1954. After completing his music studies, he served as senior master of school music and choirmaster at St. Ignatius College, Amsterdam, until 1969. In these years he was among the participants who constituted the association Universa Laus, an international study group for liturgical singing and instrumental music, during its first formal meeting at Lugano, Switzerland, in 1966. From 1969 until he left the Jesuits and the priesthood, he served as composer, choir director, and liturgical team member at St. Dominic Parish in Amsterdam. After his departure from the Society of Jesus, he continued to compose for the liturgy and to speak and write about liturgical and theological matters. Many of his theological perspectives developed out of the work of a fellow Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

In 1961, Huijbers was among the founders of the Student Work Group for a Vernacular Liturgy in Amsterdam, which evolved into the independent Foundation for a Vernacular Liturgy, through which Huijbers and Oosterhuis initially released their joint composiitons and texts. In the years after 1961, Huijbers composed at a steady–even prolific– rate: Eleven collections of the Huijbers/Oosterhuis material have been released, and several of those collections have been translated into English and published by Oregon Catholic Press.

Bernard Huijbers believed that liturgial music must be simple, that the assembly must be viewed as a ''performing audience," and that the music must bring life to what it celebrates–beliefs that he worked to incarnate in his music. After his departure from the Jesuits, Bernard married his wife, Annelou, and they settled in Espeillac, in the south of France. Following a long battle with cancer, Bernard Huijbers came home from exile a few minutes before midnight on Palm Sunday April 13, 2003.

Shortly after the Second Vatican Council, Bernard set Huub's version of Psalm 126 to music, and Tony Barr translated it into English: "Home from our exile! God, make our dreams come true: Be here among us! Then lead us home, bring us to life, just as the rivers, deep in the desert, flow once again as the new rain appears."

Tribute prepared by NPM staff, published in Pastoral Music, June-July, 2003, pg. 14. Reprinted with permission.

Shawn G. Sheehan

2008-11-29T17:44:00.001-08:00

Shawn G. Sheehan
1912 - 1990

Shawn Sheehan was born in Brockton, MA, in 1912, graduated from Holy Cross College in 1933, and was ordained a presbyter for the Archdiocese of Boston in 1940 by Richard J. Cushing, an auxiliary bishop at the time. He received his Ph.D. from Catholic University of America in 1944, delivering his doctoral thesis on medieval church teachings on war and peace. As a church historian, he taught at seminaries in Little Rock and Boston, always specializing in pastoral liturgy. Through writings and action, he demonstrated the liturgy-and-life relationship, climaxed by his ministry in later years as a courageous and zealous pastor in an inner-city parish of Boston.

Rev. Shawn Sheehan was a leader in the Catholic liturgical and social justice movements, a constant witness for that unified vision of Christian renewal that marked the American liturgical movement: not only a renewal of worship, but a linking of worship with the whole of life. His vision took him to the board of directors of The Liturgical Conference, serving as president from 1956-1959, and to the freedom marches in Selma. He joined the farm workers in their quest for a decent life, and he worked for world peace in the time left over from pastoring urban parishes.

Jan Vermulst

2008-11-25T22:09:00.000-08:00

Jan Vermulst
1925 – 1994

Jan Vermulst was born in 1925 at rural Stiphout, the Netherlands. After his musical education and orgain training at Tilburg conservatory, he studied the theory of composition with Oscar van Hemel.

Before the Second Vatican Council he mainly composed sacred choral music in Latin. One of his first motet cycles received an award in 1954 at the Maastricht composition competition.

In the early sixties, the opportunity emerged to create liturgical music in the vernacular language and Jan Vermulst took advantage of this opportunity, composing very quickly and with great skill. His music was well received and performed in many churches.

At that time an American music editor invited him to compose in English for the U.S. Catholic church. He wrote a Mass setting and various hymns, resulting in an uninterrupted and fruitful cooperation. The “People's Mass Book,” psalms, motets, and the “Mass for Christian Unity” are today still sung with great enthusiasm.

Jan was invited to the United States to give choral and organ presentations, to speak as a panel member, to be on a music jury, and to give organ recitals in Louisville, Cincinnati, Portland, and Rutherford.

The total of his religious compositions, national and international, amounts to more than 300 works, published by some ten music publishers. Also, his secular choral songs, with very attractive folksong arrangements from many countries, must also be mentioned.

Jan’s music ministry as choirmaster and organist at the parish of Our Lady at Helmond, the Netherlands, has to a large extend contributed to the fact that most of his compositions genuinely testify to an artistic usefulness, eminence, smooth melody construction, without extreme or artificial ‘tour de force’.

Jan Vermulst was a man with a generous Burgondian streak, affable and friendly and always willing to give well-founded advice to choirs and choral directors. He died on February 4, 1994, at Helmond after a lifetime dedicated to music as composer, choral director, organist, and teacher.

Tribute prepared by the Jan Vermulst Foundation.

Thomas Carroll

2008-11-24T22:10:00.001-08:00

Thomas Carroll
August 6, 1909 – April 24, 1971

Thomas Carroll was born in Gloucester, MA, on August 6, 1909, the son of Thomas J. and Catherine (Smith) Carroll. He came from a family of seven children and has six sisters. He graduated from Gloucester High School in 1928 and went on to study Greek, Latin, and Philosophy at Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA. After graduation in 1932, Thomas decided to become a Roman Catholic priest. He studied at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, MA, and was ordained on May 20, 1938, by auxiliary Bishop Francis J. Spellman. He celebrated his first Mass at St. Ann Church in Gloucester.

Father Carroll's first assignment in the Boston archdiocese was as Assistant Director of the Catholic Guild for the Blind. While serving as Assistant Director of the Guild, he also served as an auxiliary chaplain at Avon Old Farms Convalescent Hospital in Connecticut and at the Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania from 1944 to 1949. In 1944, he was appointed chaplain to St. Raphael’s Hall in Newton, MA. In 1947, he became Director of the Catholic Guild for the Blind. In 1961 he published a book entitled “Blindness: What it is, What it Does, and How to Live with It.” In 1963, he founded the American Center for Research and Blindness in Newton.

In addition to his responsibilities as Director of the Catholic Guild for the Blind, Father Carroll was very active within the Archdiocese of Boston and the National Liturgical Conference. A pioneer in the U.S. liturgical movement, Father Carroll served as president of the National Liturgical conference from 1946-1949. He was also a member of the board of directors for the Sacramental Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Boston from 1947 to 1965; a delegate of the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy in 1956; and founded the newsletter “The Mediator.” He is remembered for his leadership role in the second phase of the American liturgical movement: the years of the National Liturgical Weeks, culminating in Vatican II's promulgation of the Constitution on the Liturgy.

Father Carroll died suddenly on Saturday, April 24, 1971, at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Brighton. He was 61. The Most Rev. Thomas J. Riley presided at his funeral Mass on Wednesday, April 28, at St. Ann Church in Gloucester, MA. Interment was at Calvary Cemetery in Gloucester, MA. He was survived by his six sisters.

Tribute prepared by staff at the Boston Archdiocesan newspaper "Pilot."

Chrysogonus Wadell, OCSO

2008-11-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

Chrysogonus Wadell, OCSO
1930 - 2008

Fr. Chrysogonus Waddell, OCSO, passed from this life and entered the life eternal on November 23, 2008, the solemnity of Christ the King. Born in 1930 to parents serving in the military and stationed in the Philippines, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1949 and entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani on August 2, 1950.

Fr. Chrysogonus was ordained to the priesthood on May 31, 1958. He studied music composition with Vincent Persichetti at the Curtis Institute of Music and pursued further theological studies in Rome at the College of San Anselmo. Blessed with many talents and an exuberant spirit, Fr. Chrysogonus returned the gifts generously and tirelessly. His musical compositions are known and played throughout the world.

Following in the tradition of his fellow Cistercian, Thomas Merton, Father Chrysogonus lived in a hermitage away from the abbey for nearly thirty years. He was choirmaster at the abbey for a number of years. In addition to his compositions, Father Chrysogonus published many scholarly works and translations of monastic and liturgical texts. A widely-recognized chant scholar, and consultor on chant and translations to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), he traveled frequently, presenting at musicological and Cistercian conferences.

Humble and faithful, humorous and devout, he sought the face of the Lord with zeal and tenacity. May his song in heaven be jubilant and eternal!

Tribute prepared by Gethsemani Abbey with additional information from Alan Hommerding of World Library Publications.

Aloysius John Wycislo

2008-11-24T21:53:00.000-08:00

Aloysius John Wycislo
June 17, 1908 – October 12, 2005

Aloysius John Wycislo was born on June 17, 1908, to Simon and Victoria Czech Wycislo in Chicago, Illinois. He attended St. Mary Elementary School in Cicero, Illinois; Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary (high school) in Chicago; Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois; and Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (master’s degree in social work). He was ordained a presbyter on April 7, 1934, by Cardinal George Mundelein at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Illinois. On December 21, 1960, he was consecrated a bishop and served as auxiliary bishop to Cardinal Albert Meyer of the Archdiocese of Chicago. On March 8, 1968, Pope Paul VI named him eighth bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay. He was formally installed in the Diocese on April 16, 1968. On June 17, 1983 (his 75th birthday), Bishop Wycislo submitted his letter of resignation to the Holy See. He died on October 11, 2005. His Episcopal motto was: “Caritati Instate” (Be Steadfast in Charity).

FULL BIOGRAPHY

Associate Pastor, St. Michael Church, Chicago, June 1934 to June 1939. While there, he organized a youth center with hopes of resolving youth delinquency problems.

Assistant Archdiocesan Supervisor, Catholic Charities of Chicago, 1939 to 1943. Appointed by Cardinal Samuel Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago, to begin graduate studies in social work at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., in preparation for assignment as assistant archdiocesan supervisor of Catholic Charities.

Field Director, Catholic Relief Services, New York, 1943 to 1948. Served in the Middle East, India and Africa. This was the era of World War II, and then-Father Wycislo and his staff of 125 people were responsible for resettling between 600,000 and 700,000 war refugees.

At the end of the war, Wycislo moved his headquarters to Paris where he supervised civilian relief efforts and organized the movement of Displaced Persons and Refugees in the Middle East, Italy, Germany and Austria from 1945 to 1955. He also organized relief and development programs in France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania during that same period.

During his years with Catholic Relief Services, Bishop Wycislo was named a Knight Chaplain of the Order of Malta and Knight Commander with Star of the Holy Sepulchre. He has received honors from Poland, Spain and France.

Assistant Executive Director, Catholic Relief Services, New York, 1948 to 1958. He traveled to missions in South America and Central America, then to the Far East, China and the Philippines. He organized Relief and Rehabilitation programs in South America and Central America between 1955 and 1958.

Vatican Observer to the United Nations in New York, 1954 to 1956.

Pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Chicago, April 1959. Assigned by Cardinal Albert Meyer of the Archdiocese of Chicago to serve as pastor to one of the larger parishes in the city. In December of that year he was appointed Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Pope John XXIII.

Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, October 1960. Appointed Bishop by Pope John XXIII and consecrated a Bishop by Cardinal Albert Meyer on December 21, 1960, at Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago. Bishop Wycislo felt it was unfortunate that his mother didn’t live to be present for his consecration as a Bishop. She would have been extremely happy because, on the day of his first Mass as a priest, she told him that she had prayed every day since his baptism that he would become a priest.

September 1962 – Cardinal Albert Meyer of the Archdiocese of Chicago asked Bishop Wycislo to direct the Chicagoland observance of Poland’s millennium of Christianity. Bishop Wycislo handled all the preparations including arrangements for the presence of the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefen Wyszynski, who served Poland during the Communist occupation period and was imprisoned from 1953 to 1956 for his religious position within the church.

Second Vatican Council, 1962 to 1965. Bishop Wycislo was a Council Father from the first session of the Second Vatican Council, which opened Oct. 11, 1962, to the concluding liturgy for the entire Council, Dec. 8, 1965.

In addition to attending all the sessions, he served as a member of the American Bishops’ Commissions on the Lay Apostolate and on the Missions and the Oriental Church. He met and became friends with Karol Wojtyla, then archbishop of Krakow, Poland, and who became Pope John Paul II.

Bishop of Green Bay, 1968 to 1983. On March 8, 1968, Bishop Wycislo was appointed by Pope Paul VI as Bishop of Green Bay, which had been without a bishop since the death of Bishop Stanislaus Bona on Dec. 1, 1967. The Pope’s representative, Archbishop Luigi Raimondi, installed Bishop Wycislo to that office on April 16, 1968, in a ceremony at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, Green Bay.

The installation of Bishop Wycislo was the first such ceremony to be conducted entirely in English rather than Latin. It was also the first such ceremony to be televised live. WBAY-TV aired the special program and also set up a wide screen television in its auditorium to accommodate the overflow of invited guests.

Bishop Wycislo’s experiences with the Second Vatican Council involved a very close relationship with Cardinal Albert Meyer, one of the shining intellectual lights of that council. In the statement regarding Bishop Wycislo’s appointment as Bishop of Green Bay, Cardinal John Cody, who succeeded Cardinal Meyer in Chicago, characterized Bishop Wycislo as a “zealous pastoral Bishop” whom the priests and people of the Green Bay Diocese will be fortunate to have lead them in development according to the spirit of Second Vatican Council.

This statement proved true. In those first days of the “new Church” in this part of Wisconsin, there was some pain, a bit of trial, but always progress. Bishop Wycislo’s tenure was characterized as a pastoral and people-centered leadership. His reputation as a builder “was not in brick and mortar, but in people.” (Father Orville Janssen, biographer, In His Vineyard)

The Permanent Diaconate (the order of deacons) was established as one of the first such programs in the nation. In addition, lay persons began participating in policy-making decisions through the Diocesan Pastoral Council, and new boundary lines were drawn within the diocese for administrative purposes. The new geographical division, called the vicariate system, is led by vicars who are appointed by the Bishop. Each vicar works with a council of lay persons from each parish.

Under the leadership of Bishop Wycislo there developed a strong thrust in areas of social concerns. To fund the growing ministries that were beyond the scope of services offered by the traditional departments of Education and Catholic Charities, Bishop Wycislo initiated a Diocesan Services Appeal, an annual fund-raising effort, in 1970.

In an epilogue to his Chrism Mass homily in 1983 (the year of his retirement), Bishop expressed the great dignity of the priesthood in these words: “Come to think of it, Christ came to that Upper Room only twice; once on Holy Thursday, when He left to the Apostles, together with the Eucharist, the sacrament of ministerial priesthood; after His resurrection again when He said to His first priests, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained.’ Come to think of it, three extraordinary gifts -- the Eucharist, the priesthood and the power to forgive sins -- the singular intensity of these sends me to my knees in awe of the responsibilities entrusted to me, a priest.”

Many of Bishop Wycislo’s achievements are recognized in the works that implement the directives of the Second Vatican Council in the Diocese of Green Bay. They include:

• Change of the Priests’ Association to the Presbyteral Council and Senate; provision for retirement plans and health insurance for all priests; and a formal Ministry to Priests program.
• Establishment of the Permanent Diaconate and encouragement of all forms of lay ministry.
• Division of the diocese into geographical regions (vicariates) for administrative purposes.
• A stronger thrust in the areas of social concern, e.g., development of the Seafarer’s Ministry for the port of Green Bay; resettlement and immigration services; commissions for youth and scouting; ministry to the deaf and handicapped; pro-life concerns; and a ministry for American Indians.
• Development of the Green Bay Plan, a series of catechetical instructions that were widely used as an exemplary model.
• Televised coverage of a weekly Sunday Mass and other worship services of the Church.
• Initiation of liturgical reforms that help to make the worship more meaningful.
• Rewriting of marriage guidelines; family counseling services established; development of a task force on human sexuality.
• Initiation of a grassroots evangelization program called RENEW, which aided parish members in understanding their faith.
• Ecumenical Commission activity to promote Christian unity.
• A Justice and Peace Commission, helping to clarify Christian values in these issues.

Retirement. Bishop Wycislo spent most of his retirement years teaching and celebrating the Sacraments. He formally taught at St. Norbert College in De Pere, and he informally taught through his numerous speaking engagements at parishes, schools and clubs. He is the author of many books, most recently “Saint Peter: Fisherman, Apostle, Missionary” (2004).

Death. Bishop Wycislo died on Tuesday, October 11, 2005, at age 97, after a brief bout with double pneumonia. As recently as two weeks prior to his death, he was giving presentations and working on his books. During his hospitalization five days prior to dying he remained alert and in good spirits. And through the simple gesture of elevating his hands, Bishop Wycislo communicated to those who were at his bedside that he was ready to enter eternal life.

Tribute prepared by the Diocese of Greenbay, WI.

Clarence Rufus Joseph Rivers

2008-11-22T22:18:00.000-08:00

Clarence Rufus Joseph Rivers
September 9, 1931 - November 21, 2004

The Reverend Dr. Clarence Rufus Joseph Rivers, a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, died on Sunday, November 21, 2004, the Solemnity of Christ the King, in his home. Fr. Rivers, a pioneer in the American Church, was a famous liturgist and composer whose music was used at the first official American mass in English after the Second Vatican Council in 1963. In 1966 he received the annual award of the Catholic Art Association for excellence in music. The first African American priest of Cincinnati, Rivers had a national reputation as the father of black Catholic liturgy and the dean of black liturgists. He traveled the country and the world teaching about the drama of worship and the power of the African American religious experience as well as his own music.

Clarence Rufus Rivers, Jr. was born on September 9, 1931 in Selma, Alabama to Clarence Rufus and Lorraine Echols Rivers. At an early age, his family moved to Cincinnati where he became very involved in his parish church and school. Later, he transferred into the high school seminary after faithful prodding from his pastor to consider the priesthood.

Rivers was ordained a priest in 1956 and began teaching English and drama at Purcell High School while serving as associate pastor of St. Joseph Church. At Purcell he founded and directed the Queen’s Men, a Shakespearean theatre guild. He later did graduate studies in English at Xavier and Yale universities, theatre at The Catholic University of America, and liturgy at L’Institut Catholique de Paris. He completed a PhD in African American culture and Catholic liturgy at the Union Institute in 1978. He was also a consultant with the Martin Luther King Fellows of the Colgate Rochester Divinity School who were studying black religion and culture around the world.

Rivers considered himself a “professional liturgist” and artist in the strictest sense; not a liturgiologist. His whole career was spent implementing a vision of liturgy that he often called “the drama of worship.” He believed that worship was a drama and all involved, especially the assembly, were its actors. His academic pursuits were all directed toward enhancing his practical ability to design and produce effective worship. Rivers was a liturgical impresario who saw liturgy as that place where believing people (maybe even un-believing people) should encounter God and the affective experience of metanoia and conversion.

Clarence had a deep passion for the traditions of the Roman Church and always encouraged students never to ignore the rubrics, but to absorb them and breathe life into them with an artistic eye for the whole. He believed that the black religious experience had a great gift to offer the Western liturgical traditions: soul. He used his platform on the national liturgical scene to begin the work of synthesizing an authentic black Catholic liturgical tradition. This was the subject of his two seminal books Soulfull (1) Worship and The Spirit in Worship and numerous articles.

A founding member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, he received its prestigious Berakah Award in 2002. Rivers also served as the first director of the National Office of Black Catholics Department of Culture and Worship and the editor of its journal, Freeing the Spirit. Rivers also founded his own firm, Stimuli, Inc. through which he collaborated with his closest associates to form a team that traveled the country teaching and producing effective liturgy.

Composition was an important part of Rivers’ work. Beginning even before the Second Vatican Council with God is Love, some of his other music includes: An American Mass Program, Mass Dedicated the Brotherhood of Man, Glory to God, Glory, Resurrection, Black Thankfulness, Hail Mary, Anamnesis, and Anaphora of the Lion and Lamb. His music was performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and featured on CBS. He made numerous television appearances himself including as the narrator of an ABC civil rights documentary called “We Shall Be Heard.”

Clarence was a man full of life. He had an impeccable sense of style and a collection of Converse All-Stars that is unparalleled. He always referred to people as ‘Your Grace’ and told them that they were deserving of such a title because they were “peers in the realm of God and co-Heirs with the Christ!” Clarence loved William Shakespeare, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and the poetry of the Negro Spirituals. No one would ever see him preside at the Eucharist without what he considered the appropriately lavish vestments and his distinctive jewelry. He was never afraid to shock, cajole, embarrass, or sweet-talk a congregation into singing and had an insatiable appetite for grand pomp and ceremony. He loved African American culture and never let anyone box it in with preconceived ideas. He was a man who loved the Church even when it often painfully seemed as if it did not love him.

At the time of his unexpected death, Clarence was working on a number of projects: to have all his music recorded together and a single volume of the scores published in a book worthy of the Kingdom of God that they pointed toward. He also had been developing a vision for an institute that trained ministers as professional liturgists in the art of worship primarily through a method of practice, reflection, study, and more practice.

(1) deliberate misspelling, made in the original, for emphasis.

Tribute prepared by Jesuit Novice Eric T. Styles, styleset2001@yahoo.com

Mary Elizabeth Bagnell

2008-11-22T21:19:00.001-08:00

Mary Elizabeth Bagnell
January 10, 1921 – July 15, 2003

Mary Elizabeth Bagnell, respected and beloved throughout New England and New York for her many years of music ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, died Tuesday, July 15, 2003, at Catholic Medical Center, Manchester, after a year-long illness. She was 82.

She retired in 2002 as the director of music for the Diocese of Manchester and as organist and choir director at Saint Joseph Cathedral, Manchester. That same year she received an honorary doctor of music degree from Saint Anselm College in Goffstown during annual commencement exercises.

Composer, organist, choir organizer and director, lecturer and teacher, she was born Jan. 10, 1921, in Brooklyn, N.Y., the youngest of five children of Mary (Healy) and Edward Bagnell. During the Depression, with her brother James, Miss Bagnell developed a vaudeville act, complete with tap dancing and song, for downtown New York City venues. She later received an invitation to join New York’s Radio City Rockettes. An accomplished swimmer and figure skater, she performed on the ice at Rockefeller Center.

Miss Bagnell was a 1957 graduate of Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, Purchase, N.Y., where she received a bachelor of music degree. In 1966, she received a bachelor of sacred music degree, also from at Manhattanville. Later, in 1976, she was awarded a master of music degree in music education from Boston University’s School for the Arts, and she subsequently pursued doctoral studies in music at Boston University.

Following some 30 years with the Religious Sisters of Mercy in Brooklyn, she came to New Hampshire in 1971 and continued her music ministry throughout the region. Both in the Brooklyn and Manchester dioceses, she organized many major religious celebrations, sometimes involving choirs of as many as 150 or more. She frequently played the organ for services at Floyd Bennett Naval Air Station, Brooklyn - and visited wounded servicemen during the Vietnam War as they were airlifted home. In 1968, she received an honorary appointment from President Lyndon B. Johnson as a master chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy. Several times, she took her 100-voice glee club at McAuley to sing at the air station for services and concerts.

Shortly after her arrival in New Hampshire, she began teaching music at Saint Anselm College, where she revived the music program by organizing a college chorus, a concert band, a pep band and two folk groups. When the college introduced its new Humanities Program 25 years ago, she played a key role in developing its musical dimension, including a unit on the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. As a composer, Miss Bagnell wrote much of her work for the monastic community at Saint Anselm, with which she had long and close relationship. Her work includes Masses, Glorias and hymns.

In 1983, she began working for the Manchester diocese as director of music in the Office of Worship. She also has written compositions and commentary on liturgical music for several publications, including Concern and Tidings, Manchester diocesan newspapers, and for the Gregorian Institute of America, Oregon Catholic Press, Today’s Liturgy, The Brooklyn Tablet, and Worship magazine. She served as a liturgical music consultant for a number of U.S. bishops.

Over the years, Miss Bagnell served as organist and music director for several New Hampshire parishes, including Saint Peter’s, Auburn; Saint Raphael’s, Manchester; and parishes in Salem and Derry. She gave workshops for cantors, organists, choirs and choir directors throughout New Hampshire. In addition, she taught piano and organ to private students for many years. On major holidays, Miss Bagnell often visited local nursing homes, where she entertained patients with her music - and sometimes her baseball stories. She was a devoted, sometimes even an intemperate, fan first of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, then, after the team moved to Los Angeles, Calif., she transferred her loyalty to the Boston Red Sox.

Elmer F. Pfeil

2008-11-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

Elmer F. Pfeil
Died January 7, 1996

Fr. Elmer Pfeil, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, died on January 7. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1942 and in 1948 he was appointed professor of music at St. Francis Major Seminary, a position he held for the next thirty-three years. In those years he also served as the music director in Milwaukee's Office of Worship, where he published the fine music newsletter Gemshorn, and served as a consultant to the Music Subcommittee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. He was instrumental in launching NPM, contributing his "Commentary" to the early issues of Pastoral Music. Because of health concerns, Father Pfeil retired from active ministry in 1981. On September 17, 1995, St. Francis Seminary honored him as a distinguished graduate with its annual Annecy Award.

Tribute prepared by NPM staff, published in Pastoral Music, February-March, 1996, pg. 10. Reprinted with permission.

Joseph H. Schlarman, D.D.

2008-11-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

Joseph H. Schlarman, D.D.
Died November 10, 1951

On November 10 the Liturgical Conference of America lost one of its most encouraging friends in the person of the great shepherd of Peoria, Archbishop Joseph H. Schlarman, D.D. Because of his paternal interest in the liturgical apostolate our deep sadness is not without high gladness, and not without the conviction that he who on earth so understandingly blessed the efforts towards the “incorporation of all things in Christ” will in heaven continue to intercede for the realization of “the most pressing duty of Christians: to live the liturgical life, and increase and cherish its supernatural spirit” (Mediator Dei, n. 197).

Those of us who were privileged to participate in this year’s Liturgical Week at Dubuque will long remember the soul-stirring homily of Archbishop Schlarman on “Mary, the Mother of the Priest,” and will read with gratitude in the Week’s Proceedings (to appear early in 1952) this spiritual swan-song of one who loved the church and her liturgy, and whose motto was: “We learn in order to live, not merely to know. Doctrine must be translated into action, particularly sacramental action” (Archbishop’s preface to his Catechetical Sermon Aids).

Some years ago as a guest of His Excellency, I had an experience that I shall treasure for the rest of my life. Before retiring, the Bishop picked up from his library table one of the five volumes of Cardinal Schuster’s Sacramentary and said: “Let’s prepare our meditation for tomorrow.” With his famous red pencil in hand, he underlined the leading thoughts as he slowly read Schuster’s commentary on the next day’s Mass-text. Upon arriving in his private chapel the following morning, I found the Bishop kneeling on his prie-dieu with the Sacramentary, meditating, preparing for the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

His deep appreciation of holy Mass and his great love for the flock entrusted to his care have for years prompted the Bishop’s generosity (as announced weekly in the Peoria Register) to offer this Wellspring of all holiness and life, on Sunday (and holy days): for the diocese, as prescribed by canon law. On Monday: for the souls of the departed listed in the weekly column of the Register. On Wednesday (the week-day on which Judas betrayed Jesus): for the return of lapsed Catholics, particularly in the diocese of Peoria. On Thursday: for the living and departed benefactors of Guardian Angel Orphanage. On Friday: for the dispossessed millions, homeless, and hungry. On Saturday (Priests’ Saturday—Our Lady’s Day): for the living and departed priests of the Peoria diocese, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and for priests throughout the world.

Behold a great priest who in his days pleased God!

The concluding words of his last pastoral (Thanksgiving clothing drive), read in all the churches of Peoria on the day following his death, beautifully reflect the charity of the noble high priest of Peoria, a charity born of sincere love for the Mystical Body, the Church, and her sacramental life-streams, the liturgy: “While we thank God for a roof over our heads, beds to sleep in, warm clothing, and food, let us not forget the millions of homeless, shivering, and hungry people—our brothers in Christ.”

One is compelled to think of the words of the apostle of charity, St. John: “He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall close his heart to him, how does the charity of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”

In the light of the approaching Christmas solemnity it may be appropriate to quote the late Archbishop’s liturgical comment on this blessed feast (Catechetical Aids, p. 3): “The spotlight falls upon the altar where the whole work of redemption—the annunciation, the birth of our Lord, His passion and death, the resurrection and ascension—re-appears, is made present. The spotlight on the 25th of December is thrown on the birth of Christ, and the Nativity shines forth as present during the Mass. We are not merely reminded that Christ was born nineteen centuries ago. The Nativity as belonging to the plan of God is present in the circle of time and is present upon the Altar as part of the great Mysterium currens per anni circulum (the Mystery, re-appearing in the circle of the year).

Officers and members of the Liturgical Conference of America humbly pray that the heavenly “spotlight” of full redemption may fall upon the Church-loving soul of Archbishop Schlarman and grant him the joys of an eternal Christmas with Christ and His holy Mother and with St. Joseph, his patron.

He loved the Church!

Tribute written by Martin B. Hellriegel, President of the Liturgical Conference, published in the January 1952 edition of Worship, volume 26, no. 2, pg. 83. Reprinted with permission.

Eugene Walsh, SS

2008-11-16T18:18:00.000-08:00

Eugene Walsh, SS
1911 - 1989

Sulpician Father Eugene Walsh was a preacher, teacher, theologian and writer who spent most of his life in seminary work. In the wake of Vatican II, his passionate love of people, his commitment to life-giving liturgical celebration and his compassion for humaneness caught fire with the priestly people of God. His legacy of written material still speaks truth today.

Mary Perkins Ryan

2008-11-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Mary Perkins Ryan
April 10, 1912 – October 12, 1993

Mary Perkins Ryan, editor, writer, religious educator, was born in Boston, April 10, 1912, the daughter of Charles Perkins and Elizabeth Ward Perkins. Charles was an architect; Elizabeth's interests and abilities were in art and music. In addition, she had a keen concern for liturgical matters. Mary was raised with three other siblings. Anna, Eleanor, and Francis, in a thoroughly Catholic home.

Mary's elementary and secondary education took place in Boston and Connecticut. Early in life her academic accomplishments were unusual. She graduated from high school at the age of fourteen and thence continued her education with the unique opportunity of study in Europe. Her college years were spent in New York City at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. The Religious of the Sacred Heart who owned and staffed the college were very clear on their mission with young women: to train them to take an active role in church and society. Mary would not fail them.

In 1933 Mary left Manhattanville with a B.A. degree and was employed as a secretary at Sheed and Ward which had recently opened an office in New York. This first employment which Mary identifies as a mistake, pointed out clearly to her that secretarial work was not her forte. At the end of this unsuccessful employment Mary returned to Cambridge, having left evidence, however, of her editorial skills. These skills opened the door in subsequent years for placement in the editorial department of the publishing company.

While at home Mary intended to spend time in writing short stories but instead spent four months in a sanitarium and several more months resting at home in recovery from tuberculosis. It was after this unexpected hiatus in her writing that Mary encountered Fr. Leonard Feeney whom she had previously met at Sheed and Ward. He encouraged her to write and when asked "About what?" He defined a need among Catholics for better understanding some of the routine Catholic practices and the reasons for them. Out of this conversation grew Mary's first book, “At Your Ease in the Catholic Church” (1938).
Mary eventually returned to Sheed and Ward and was given different responsibilities more fitting to her natural charism, editing and writing. It was while on assignment with the publishing company in 1940 at St. Mary Abbey in Newark, New Jersey that she met Father Michael Ducey. In the course of conversation the priest asked Mary if she had ever prayed the breviary, at that time usually prayed only by priests and religious. Mary's positive response prompted a public position in the first Liturgical Week Conference in Chicago in 1940. Her role was to lead the discussion following a presentation by Dr. Jerome Kerwin (1941), "Lay participation in the divine office". Here also was her initial step into the liturgical realm. The proceedings of almost every subsequent National Liturgical Conference thereafter note Mary's attendance either as a presenter or a respondent in the recorded discussions. She appears among such giants in the liturgical field of the time as Hillenbrand, Diekmann, Mathis, and Fred McManus.

John Julian Ryan, a 1921 Harvard graduate and teacher at Holy Cross in Worchester, Massachusetts, was introduced to Mary by mutual friends. They were married in 1942 and made their home in Cambridge. While assuming her new role of spouse and eventually mother, Mary never lost her interest in liturgy. In fact, she seems to have communicated this same interest to her husband. Both she and John attended the National Liturgical Conference for a number of years. He was actively involved in the recorded discussions as is noted in the proceedings from 1946-1950. In 1953 John and Mary were both Members of the Board of Directors of the Liturgical Conference. Mary continued in this position until 1963.

Five sons were born to Mary and John: John Jr., Peter, Tom, Michael and David. The responsibilities of motherhood and childcare did not deter Mary from her interest in church matters. She addressed the National Liturgical Conference on the subject of Liturgy and the Family Arts (1947); in the decade of the 40's she wrote Mind the Baby (1949) and edited The Sacramental Way (1948). A theme that was to penetrate most of her writing was her search for the integrity of the Christian life and the sacramentality of everyday experience. She had hoped to be a bridge between the church and its meaning for the ordinary person. In 1948 John and Mary addressed the Liturgical Conference together and later co-authored two books. In addition Mary was a major contributor to Catholic Women's World, Commonweal, Worship and Catholic Home Journal.

In 1953 John Julian Ryan accepted a position at St. Mary College in Notre Dame, Indiana; the family relocated to Granger, Indiana. During their time there interesting liturgical developments drew Mary more deeply into the liturgical world of the Catholic Church. In 1947 Fr. Michael Mathis, CSC, had founded the Liturgical Institute at Notre Dame University, a time when the word of liturgical renewal ignited controversy and resistance. Liturgists from throughout the world would visit the campus and share their expertise with the Notre Dame community. Mary's involvement as a staff member with the Institute heightened her interest in the liturgical movement and she began searching for the causes of controversy and resistance. Through this searching Mary concluded that the lack of understanding and poor catechesis were in large part responsible for the resistance. "Religious education was the missing factor in the whole picture of renewal," she once noted to Mary Charles Bryce. How to resolve the situation proved a daunting task and one, which Mary undertook for a lifetime. The fortunate timing of her interest and the presence of Johannes Hofinger, Europe's celebrated leader of the catechetical movement, on the Notre Dame campus afforded Mary informal priceless learning opportunities and insights into the catechetical movement. There was a mutual exchange of gifts and skills. Hofinger was working on his classic piece, The Art of Teaching Christian Doctrine (1957) and Mary offered him the assistance of her editorial skills. She in turn, availed herself of access to one of the great leaders in catechesis. Mary began to articulate the close connection which she saw between liturgy and catechesis, as was evidenced in issues of the liturgical journal, Orate Fratres (later Worship). It was during this period also that she completed “Beginning At Home” (1955).
In September of 1956 Mary had an unusual privilege of attending a Liturgical Congress at Assisi, Italy. Attendance was by invitation only. At this gathering of 1400 priests and some 50 laypersons Mary was the only married woman present.

Mary will be remembered for her abundant writings and her editorial skills which she exercised earnestly as the founding executive editor of the Living Light, a, catechetical journal published in the spirit of Vatican II and as editor of Professional Approaches for Christian Educators (PACE), the first catechetical journal to address both the profession and practical aspects of religious education. In addition to her professional life, Mary was mother, wife, mentor, and good friend to many.

Tribute prepared by Mary Lou Putrow, Tablot School of Theology.

Leon Roberts

2008-11-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

Leon Roberts
1950 - 1999

Leon began his piano studies at the age of six with a local teacher he knew as "Mr. Ben." His grandmother, Mrs. Mary Bookman, became a religious mentor in the musical growth of her grandson. Being from a family of devout Baptists, Methodists and Pentecostals, he gained an integrated understanding of faith.

He first learned skills of directing congregational worship at his mother's church, the First Apostolic Fire Baptized Holiness Church of Coatesville. It was there that he also had a deep personal encounter with Jesus Christ. His talents and strong faith in God were reflected in the musical groups that he formed and directed such as the "Voices of Love" and the "Jubali Movement of Southern Pennsylvania."

Leon was equally talented during his years in the Coatesville Area School District as a member of the various choral groups such as the Meistersingers and the many theatrical and musical productions.

In 1968, Leon came to Washington, DC, to attend Howard University where he received a Bachelor's degree in Music Education. Later, he completed course work for the Liturgical Studies Certificate from Georgetown University. While at Howard University, he was a co-founder, pianist and composer for the 100-member Howard University Gospel Choir. Additionally, during this period, he directed the Mount Zion Baptist Church Young Adult Choir and the Library of Congress Gospel Choir.

The defining event of Leon's career and life came in April 1977 when he was invited to direct the struggling Gospel choir of Saints Paul and Augustine Catholic Church in Washington, DC. Embraced and mentored by the church community, he converted to Catholicism and made his life's work the integration of the energy and emotion of African-American Gospel music with the traditions and rituals of the Catholic liturgy.

From 1977 until 1994, he was the Director of Liturgical Music at the Saint Augustine Catholic Church and an instructor of choir and music appreciation at the Saint Augustine Elementary School. From 1978 until 1983, he directed the Mackin Catholic High School Choir and the Archdiocesan-wide Gospel Choir at Saint James Cathedral in Brooklyn, New York. In 1982, he founded and directed the Archdiocesan Mass Choir for the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. He also was music director of the Bishop McNamara Senior High School Gospel Choir.

Leon was the co-founder and music chairperson of the REJOICE! Conference on Black Catholic Liturgy. In 1989, the REJOICE! Conference was held in Rome, Italy, and the Vatican where he spoke on "The Development of African-American Liturgical Music Since Vatican II."

He was an internationally recognized African-American composer, arranger, liturgist and recording artist. The following are among his works: "Mass of Saint Augustine," published by the Gregorian Institute of America and dedicated to his late sister, Claudette Shatteen; "I Call Upon You God!-The Mass of Saint Martin de Porres," published by Leon C. Roberts and Associates of which he was president; "He Has the Power" and "Deliver the Word," recorded by the Saint Augustine Gospel Choir; "God Has Done Marvelous Things," an artistic collaboration with David Haas and Roberts' Revival; "The Coming," recorded by Roberts' Revival and published by Oregon Catholic Press; and his most recent recording, "Come Bless the Lord," a live concert recording to be released in March 1999.

He was a major contributor to the first African-American Catholic hymnal, "Lead Me, Guide Me," which included twenty liturgical settings and was distributed nationally in 1987. In 1993, his psalm settings were published in the African-American hymnal of the Episcopal Church entitled "Lift Every Voice and Sing." And, he also worked with the late Sister Thea Bowman to produce her "Songs of My People" and "Round the Glory Manger."

Leon's liturgical music and seminars are famous around the world. He toured with various choirs throughout the United States, Italy, Japan and the Caribbean Islands. During his tour of Rome, Italy, he directed the Saint Augustine Choir at a special audience with Pope John Paul II. In 1990, his concert tour of Japan with Roberts' Revival received critical acclaim and resulted in appearances on ABC-TV, FOX-TV and a number of radio stations. On Christmas Eve 1991, he directed the Saint Augustine Gospel Choir in a special program on "The History of Gospel Music" on ABC's Nightline. From 1994 through 1996, he and Roberts' Revival performed annually in Hawaii at the BILAC, Big Island Liturgical and Arts Conference.

He was a clinician and lecturer for many organizations including the National Office of Black Catholics, the National Pastoral Musicians Conventions, the East Coast Conference for Religious Education, Notre Dame University, the Catholic University of America's Liturgical Studies program and many dioceses and archdioceses.

In 1994, Leon moved to Brooklyn, New York, to become the Florence Van Keuren Artist-in-Residence at the Concord Baptist Church of Christ. He served as the director for Concord's Gospel Chorus and the Male Chorus. He also was music director of the Union Theological Seminary Gospel Choir in Manhattan. In 1998, he was honored by the Office of Black Ministry of the Archdiocese of New York. During that ceremony at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, New York's Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor presented him with the "Special Achievement Award" for his many contributions to Black Catholic worship and the development of liturgical music.

On Friday evening, January 22, 1999, at Providence Hospital, Leon left his earthly home to be with his heavenly Father, after being diagnosed with stomach cancer just two weeks earlier.

Tribute prepared by GIA Publications, Chicago IL.

Robert Kreutz

2008-11-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

Robert Kreutz
March 21, 1922 - April 7, 1996

Robert Edward Kreutz was born on March 21, 1922, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He graduated from Aquinas High School in 1940. He studied composition at the American Conservatory in Chicago and at the University of California, Los Angeles. His first published composition was the Mass of the Compassionate Samaritan (1965). He collaborated with Willard Jabusch to produce the opera Francesco, which had its premiere at Orchestra Hall in Chicago in 1987. Mr. Kreutz is probaby best know among pastoral musicians for his contributions to Peoples Mass Book and for his Eucharistic hymn Gift of Finest Wheat which was first performed at the International Eucharistic Congress in 1976, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His compositions were always informed by his pastoral practice. For more than thirty years he served as a parish choir director in Lakewood, Colorado. Robert Kreutz died of heart failure on April 7, 1996, at the age of 74.

Jacques Berthier

2008-11-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

Jacques Berthier
1923 - 1994

Jacques Berthier was born at Auxerre, Burgundy, in 1923, to musician parents. His father, Paul, was a composer and student of Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum, and in 1907 founded the famous Little Singers of the Wooden Cross. He was master of the chapel and organist at the Cathedral of Auxerre for fifty years.

At first, Jacques was a student of his parents. He studied piano, organ, harmony, and composition with them. Soon, he began to compose melodies and original instrumental pieces.

After the war, he entered the César Franck School in Paris. There he became a serious student of composition under Guy de Lioncourt (the nephew of Vincent d'Indy) whose musician daughter he married. He also studied organ, the fugue, and counterpoint with Edward Souberbielle. He became acquainted with other musicians there, including Pere Joseph Gelineau. Gelineau asked him to compose a series of antiphons for his celebrated psalms. In 1955, Berthier was to compose his first works for the Taizé Community, which at that time consisted of only twenty brothers who sang beautifully in four equal voices.

In 1961 he was appointed organist at St. Ignace, the Jesuit church in Paris—a position he held until his death. He continued to compose and publish, receiving requests from various parishes. The brothers of Taizé once again approached him in 1975, asking him to compose simple repetitive chants for use by the increasing numbers of young people who came from all parts of the world each year to gather at Taizé.

Little by little, over a period of nearly twenty years, a vast repertoire of original and altogether new music was created and became known thought the world as "Music from Taizé." The concept for this unique form of congregational song was developed by the late Brother Robert, one of the early members of the community. He gathered and prepared the texts, sent them to Berthier with rather specific form guidelines, and the extraordinary Berthier compositional craft and creativity produced what may be the most widely sung contemporary Christian music in the world.

For a week in October of 1983, GIA editor Bob Batastini participated in the process with Jacques Berthier and Brother Robert to edit, and in some instances compose, the music for the second volume of the Music from Taizé. Berthier's genius was so evident in the way he, with a careful spontaneity, clothed text after text in eminently tuneful melody. Most impressive was his ability to sense the natural word accent of languages, such as English, which he did not speak. Jacques Berthier composed the "music from Taizé" for texts in more than twenty languages, reaching all parts of the globe.

At the same time as he was writing this vast body of work, Jacques Berthier continued to compose for traditional Catholic parishes as well as for large gatherings of people where the assembly plays an important role. He composed complete masses for monastic communities, collections of liturgical instrumental pieces for flute, oboe, and organ, as well as larger sacred works for concert performance. His style (other than the Taizé music) was quite personalized and almost always used the Gregorian modes.

On June 27, 1994, Berthier died at his home in Paris. For his funeral, which was celebrated at St. Sulpice in Paris, he had requested that none of his own music be sung. One observer suggested that perhaps he knew something that most of us fail to grasp.

Tribute prepared by GIA Publications, Chicago IL.

Brother Roger Schutz

2008-11-13T21:36:00.001-08:00

Brother Roger Schutz
1915 – 2005

Brother Roger Schutz was a dreamer, and he dreamed of ecumenism and peace. Born in Switzerland in 1915, he followed his father into ordained ministry in the Swiss Reformed Church. In 1940, he left Switzerland to live in France, his mother’s country, where he hoped to begin a community in which reconciliation among Christians would be the model for daily life—a community, he wrote, where “kindness of heart would be a matter of practical experience and where love would be at the heart of all things.”

He bought a house in the small village of Taizé, near Cluny, just a few miles from the demarcation line that divided France during World War II. There, with three friends and fellow theologians who took private vows, he worked to care for and hide refugees—especially Jews—from Nazi persecution. They asked the local Catholic bishop for permission to use the abandoned village church. The bishop forwarded the question to the papal nuncio in Paris—Archbishop Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII), who gave permission.

Denounced to the Vichy government, the group fled to Geneva for two years, but they returned to Taizé after the war. Brother Roger chose Easter Day 1949 as the date on which the little community made a public dedication to a life of celibacy, community of possessions, and simplicity of life.

Almost immediately the community began to attract pilgrims to their chapel, which they later replaced with a much larger building—the Church of the Reconciliation, built by young volunteers—because the number of young people visiting Taizé had increased notably at the end of the 1950s.

In 1955, members of the community asked the composer Jacques Berthier, who had earlier written some music for antiphons to the Gelineau psalm settings, to compose some music for the Taizé Community, which at that time consisted of only twenty brothers who sang beautifully in four equal voices. Berthier and the community went their separate ways until 1975, when the brothers once again approached him, asking him this time to compose simple repetitive chants for use by the increasing numbers of young people who came from all parts of the world each year to gather at Taizé.

Little by little, over a period of nearly twenty years, a vast repertoire of original and altogether new music was created and became known throughout the world as “music from Taizé.” The concept for this unique form of congregational song was developed by Brother Robert, one of the early members of the community. He gathered and prepared the texts, sent them to Berthier with rather specific form guidelines, and Berthier produced what may be the most widely sung contemporary Christian music in the world.

In addition to attracting young people (as many as 5,000 from seventy-five countries during some weeks in summer), the community of Taizé has drawn church leaders: Pope John Paul II, three archbishops of Canterbury, Orthodox metropolitans, the secretary general of the World Council of Churches, and the fourteen Lutheran bishops of Sweden among them.

Part of Brother Roger’s appeal to young pilgrims was his embrace of an approach to faith that was built on questioning and searching. He once wrote of the young people and other pilgrims to Taizé: “Most of them come with one of the same question: ‘How can I understand God? How can I know what God wants for me?’”

As he inevitably slowed down, Brother Roger ceded practical control of the community to others and named a successor—Brother Alois—but at the age of ninety, he remained the spiritual heart of Taizé. In the 1990s, he co-wrote two books with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Brother Roger was one of the honored guests at the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

On Tuesday, August 16, as the community gathered with 2,500 young pilgrims for evening prayer at 8:45 PM, a Romanian woman stood behind Brother Roger and stabbed him several times. The brothers carried him to the monastery, and a doctor came, but he died at 9:00. Ten thousand mourners gathered in Taizé for his funeral on August 23, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, celebrated the funeral Mass. Representatives of the Anglican Communion, the Conference of European Churches, and the German Evangelical Church proclaimed the readings.

In his announcement of Brother Roger’s death, NPM President J. Michael McMahon wrote: “Under the leadership of Brother Roger and thanks to the musical gifts of Jacques Berthier, the Community of Taizé has been a powerful witness to reconciliation and ecumenism. The community has also modeled a style of liturgical prayer that is strongly communal, biblical, contemplative, musical, and universal. The music and prayer of the community has been enormously influential in the liturgy of Catholic communities in the United States.”

We join in the prayer prayed at Taizé on the morning after Brother Roger’s death: “Christ of compassion, you enable us to be in communion with those who have gone before us and who thus can remain close to us. We confide into your hands our brother Roger. He already contemplates the invisible. As we follow in his footsteps, you are preparing us to welcome the radiance of your brightness.”

Tribute prepared by NPM staff, published in Pastoral Music, October-November, 205, pg. 8.

Omer Westendorf

2008-11-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

Omer Westendorf
February 24, 1916 – October 22, 1997

Omer Westendorf, one of the earliest lyricists for Roman Catholic liturgical music in English, died on October 22, 1997, at the age of eighty-one.

Born on February 24, 1916, Omer got his start in music publishing after World War II, when he brought home for his parish choir in Cincinnati some of the Mass settings he had discovered in Holland. Interest in the new music being published in Europe led to his creation of the World Library of Sacred Music, initially a music-importing firm that brought much of this new European repertoire to U.S. parishes. Operating out of a garage in those early years, Omer often joked about the surprised expressions of visitors who stopped by and found a wide range of sheet music in various states of “storage” (read disarray). Later, as World Library Publications, the company began publishing some of its own music, including new works with English texts by some of those same Dutch composers, for example, Jan Vermulst. In 1955 World Library published the first edition of The Peoples Hymnal, which would become the Peoples Mass Book in 1964, one of the first hymnals to reflect the liturgical reforms proposed by Vatican II. Omer also introduced the music of Lucien Deiss to Catholic parishes through the two volumes of Biblical Hymns and Psalms.

Using his own name and several pen names, Omer composed numerous compositions for liturgical use, though his best-known works may be the texts for the hymns “Where Charity and Love Prevail,” “Sent Forth by God’s Blessing,” and especially “Gift of Finest Wheat.” As he lay dying, his family and friends gathered around his bed to sing his text “Shepherd of Souls, in Love, Come, Feed Us.” NPM honored Omer as its Pastoral Musician of the Year in 1985. May he follow the Good Shepherd to eternal rest, as he taught us to sing:

To those refreshing waters lead us
where dwells that peace your grace imparts.
May we, the wayward in your fold,
by your forgiveness rest consoled.

Tribute prepared by NPM staff, published in Pastoral Music, December-January, 1998, pg. 8. Reprinted with permission.

Mary Luke Tobin, SL

2008-11-12T21:37:00.000-08:00

Mary Luke Tobin, SL
May 17, 1908 – August 24, 2006

Mary Luke Tobin loved the image of the door. In Jesus' declaration: "I am the door," Tobin found both mystery and invitation. After a lifetime of leadership in religious life and of activism on behalf of women, the poor and those afflicted by war and violence, the door of Tobin's own earthly life closed Aug. 24 in her room in the Loretto Motherhouse in Nerinx, Ky.

One of only 15 women auditors invited to Vatican Council II, Tobin watched church fathers open the windows to vent fresh air through the ancient institution. Although cautioned to listen, but not speak while in Rome, she later became one of only three women - representing half the Catholic world's faithful - allowed on the planning commissions for documents on the church in the modern world and on the laity.

In 1959, the doors between the Loretto Motherhouse in Nerinx and the Trappist Abbey in Gethsemani - 13 miles away - opened. Gethsemani's most famous monk, Thomas Merton, gave a few lectures to novices and visited the infirmary. The visits took place when Tobin, known then as Mother Mary Luke, led the Loretto community.

"Luke brought in wise, forward-thinking women and men who were luminaries in their own way," and who continued the renewal begun by Pope John XXIII, said former Loretto president Sr. Mary Ann Coyle, who knew Tobin since the 1960s. Besides Merton, Tobin asked Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane, Dominican Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, Redemptorist Fr. Bernard Häring and many others to lecture at Loretto. In 2004 she encouraged her community to invite Sacred Heart Fr. Diarmuid O'Murchu for dialogues on cosmology. It was all part of her lifelong habit of learning, Coyle said.

Tobin called her occasional meetings with Merton and their frequent correspondence "the door of prophetic friendship." Merton was eager to hear from her each time she returned from Rome. He also shared with her works he was not allowed to publish.

It was Merton's writings on racism, Vietnam and especially against the specter of a nuclear holocaust that opened yet more doors through which Tobin would pass as an antiwar activist; an international lecturer against rising militarism; an advocate for justice, peace and human rights around the world and frequently as a disgruntled shareholder.

The diminutive nun took on the Blue Diamond Coal Company, attempting to use Loretto's shares to challenge the firm's environmental, health, safety and labor practices. Tobin once walked into a Honeywell annual meeting carrying a plowshare.

She took part in nonviolent actions at Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, the U.S. Air Force Academy and Martin-Marietta in Colorado. She stood her ground at Nevada's nuclear test site, the U.S. Capitol and the nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. She was arrested at the Air Force Academy and in the Capitol Rotunda. Tobin joined picket lines in support of the United Farm Workers.

In 1979 Tobin founded the Thomas Merton Center for Creative Exchange in Denver, where Merton's spirituality and writings came to be known by many. She gave Merton retreats and cofounded a Buddhist-Christian dialogue/meditation group in Denver.

Following her years as president of Loretto (1958-70), the door toward ecumenical understanding beckoned. From 1972-78 she directed Citizen Action for Church Women United, an organization of mainly Protestant women who work ecumenically on justice, peace and human rights issues affecting women. Tobin represented the group on trips to Belfast and Asia during the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Vietnam.

Loretto Sr. Ann Patrick Ware, who roomed with her in New York much of this time, recalled the joy with which Tobin awoke at dawn, frequently singing a chorus of "Morning Has Broken."

Tobin often greeted Ware "with a burning question: 'You know I was just lying in bed thinking: If all the men on the planet suddenly got a virus that attacked only men, could women run the world? Would we be able to manage the subway system, for instance?"

The two nuns shared a love of good liturgy, but found the city a "liturgical desert," Ware said. "We would bravely attack the recitation of endless psalms by trying to change the overwhelmingly male language to something more suitable for a congregation of aging women. We would listen dutifully to the daily homilies - timeless gems that would as easily have fitted the 13th century as our own - and make up limericks about them on our way home from Mass," Ware said.

For many years Tobin was an adviser to the Women's Ordination Conference and a mentor to its president Ruth Fitzpatrick. When Fitzpatrick was in a quandary over an invitation to be ordained a priest in a secret ceremony in Czechoslovakia in 1963, she consulted Tobin. The nun did not tell her what to do, but assured her she'd know what to do at the proper time. Indeed when Fitzpatrick telephoned her Czech contact, she knew at once that "this was idolatry of ordination, not the renewed priestly ministry," she and the conference had long sought.

The trust Tobin put in lay leaders, such as Fitzpatrick, she also placed in religious women. Upon her return from Rome, "it was almost impossible for her not to let her thoughts flow directly from deep meditation on the Gospels to their message of hope and action for us women religious," said Coyle.

At the time nuns were so used to being obedient to the voice of God as expressed via church officials and superiors that "we'd lost track of the gifts and talents God had given us individually to make the world a more just one for all," Coyle said.

Tobin began the renewal of Loretto both in the classroom and at chapter sessions. The community's current president, Sr. Mary Catherine Rabbitt, was a novice when Tobin was attending the council. Rabbitt remembered Tobin's homecomings as full of hope for a renewed church.

"She took risks, accepted challenges, encouraged others to develop their own talents and always, always, kept current with the latest thinking in theology, ecclesiology, and all that was happening in her many peace and justice circles," Rabbitt said.

Sr. Maureen McCormack, a former Loretto president, had Tobin as a high school teacher and an instructor in the novitiate. McCormack remembered a marginal note Tobin had jotted on a paper the student was assigned on St. Paul's epistles. "How about making up for what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ?" Tobin asked the novice.

"She was always stretching us farther than we wanted or thought to go," McCormack said. "We who followed her in leadership positions were so fortunate to have access to her energy, her wisdom, boldness, encouragement and her laughter." She cited Tobin's ability to place things in a larger perspective with such questions as: "Is this the hill we want to die on? We knew she believed we were capable of handling any situation."

What few in the outside world knew or saw was Tobin's lifelong love and practice of dance. The daughter of a Kentucky couple who moved to Denver early in their marriage to be near the Nevada goldmine owned by her father, Tobin was born May 16, 1908, and christened Ruth Marie. She attended public schools in Denver and traveled to Nevada and California with her parents and older brother.

Since her father's work kept him far from home for long periods, he would indulge his only daughter with trips to the theater upon his return. It was these early experiences that drove her love for dance and her study of classical ballet. She managed a dance school while attending Loretto Heights College in Denver.

"I think the grace, freedom and lithe spirit of the dance infused everything she did," said Loretto Sr. Maureen Fiedler, whose community residence in Hyattsville, Md., is named the "Mary Luke Tobin House."

Fiedler, who divides her time between the Women's Ordination Conference and the Quixote Center, recalled a card Tobin sent her a few years ago when Fiedler was involved in an "uncertain venture." It read: "Go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is."

The greeting epitomized Tobin, Fiedler said. "She went out on the limb again and again for peace, for social justice, women's rights, church reform and for the freedom of all women religious." Up until recent years she danced after Sunday liturgies at Nerinx.

Loretto Sr. Cecily Jones, a friend of Tobin's for 57 years, frequently typed her texts, drove her to and from airports and celebrated "happy hour" with her each evening during their years in Denver. Jones, who has written a biography of Tobin, said she has often met sisters who reminded her how much Tobin did for the renewal of their congregations.

Notre Dame Sr. Mary Daniel Turner, who like Tobin, led the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said that Tobin's ability to lead rose from "a deep trust of herself and others and a belief that all things are possible."

She credited Tobin with "profound common sense and an exquisite sense of timing."

She was a mentor to many because she invested herself in "the signs of the times." Filled with hope, Tobin "saw frustrations, tensions, conflicts and obstacles as the raw material for creativity and action," Turner said.

Because she was a lifelong learner, she welcomed companions on the way, Turner added. Tobin often asserted that the Loretto community welcomed "co-members," preferring that term to "lay associates."

Not only did Tobin inspire renewal in countless communities of women, she also honed in on the leadership qualities she saw in others. Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister recalled the first conversation she had with Tobin - in an elevator at a meeting.

"She launched into the purpose of my life and the direction of my future, which she was not shy about defining. She never forgot that elevator ride, nor did I," Chittister said.

"I had the idea that she watched me all my life. I know for sure that I watched her."

In Tobin, Chittister saw passion and vision as the core of commitment. "You must see what must be done and care about what you're doing," Chittister said. Tobin became a light for other sisters, "because she carried her light inside herself." It was the light of a true disciple, the Benedictine said. "It wasn't external events that fired her; it was the unremitting conviction that the Gospel was now."

Only last month at the 50th anniversary of Leadership Conference of Women Religious in Atlanta, Chittister - in her keynote address - cited Tobin as a "bearer of the vision" and a leader who spoke for women in a woman's voice.

Although Tobin heard the applause of thousands in her lifetime, won regard for her 1981 book, Hope is an Open Door, and was awarded seven honorary degrees, she always deflected praise with lines like: "I didn't do it by myself," Jones recalled.

The Rev. Paul Crow penned Tobin a farewell letter in September 2004 when she was hospitalized and in danger of death. In it, he refuted her frequent claim: "Oh, I have done nothing important." The retired president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who knew Tobin 40 years, wrote: "Luke, for countless people of faith you have been a prophet of Christian hope in the midst of a divided, self-serving world. You have taught us that unity, justice and peace will eventually reign among God's people."

Tobin willed her body to the University of Louisville. A memorial service is scheduled for Oct. 7 at the Loretto Motherhouse in Nerinx, Kentucky.

Tribute posted on the NCR web site, Friday Aug. 25, 2006 at 12:27 p.m. CDT on NCRonline.org, written by Patricia Lefevere, a longtime contributor to NCR.

Additional Tribute
Prepared by NPM staff, published in Pastoral Music, October-November, 2006, pg. 17.

Sister Mary Luke Tobin, who played a leading role in the U.S. renewal of religious life—and, indeed, of the Catholic Church in the United States—during the past sixty years and was one of a handful of female observers at the Second Vatican Council, died at the age of ninety-eight on August 24 at the Sisters of Loretto motherhouse in Nerinx, Kentucky, where she had retired (at the age of ninety-one) in 1999. Since Sister Mary Luke donated her body to science, a memorial service was held at the motherhouse on October 7.

An ardent ecumenist and advocate of church renewal, peace, social justice, and women’s rights in church and society, Sister Mary Luke was president of her order from 1958 to 1970 and was head of what is now the Leadership Conference of Women Religious during the Second Vatican Council. She was one of only fifteen women worldwide invited to attend the Council’s last two sessions as an auditor, and her invitation came because those in charge of the Council had heard that the Leadership Conference had decided to send someone to attend the Council sessions. Her invitation arrived while she was on the ocean liner headed to Rome. She was not only an auditor, however, she was part of the commission that drafted Gaudium et spes, the council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. (Only two other women were members of commissions that drafted council documents.) Tobin commented later that she was glad that the bishops had decided to include women in the Council gathering. Of course, she noted, “fifteen women among 2,500 bishops was hardly a ‘quota,’ but it was a beginning.”

Born in Denver May 16, 1908, Ruth Marie Tobin joined the Loretto community and took the religious name Mary Luke when she professed her vows in 1927. While living in Nerinx as president of the Sisters of Loretto, Tobin became friends with Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who lived at the nearby Abbey of Gethsemani. They frequently visited and corresponded. After Merton’s accidental death in 1968, Tobin became a lecturer on Merton’s teachings and writings, co-founded the International Thomas Merton Society, and established the Thomas Merton Center for Creative Exchange in Denver in 1979. From 1972 to 1978 she directed Citizen Action for Church Women United, and organization of mainly Protestant women who work ecumenically on justice, peace, and human rights issues affecting women. Tobin represented the group on trips to Belfast and Asia during the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Vietnam.

Until a few years ago, her lifelong love of dance (she had managed a dance school while in college), led her to dance after Sunday liturgy every week at the Nerinx Motherhouse and in the other communities in which she lived. Not long ago, a member of the Loretto community received a card from Sister Mary Luke. This religious woman had asked for advice about getting involved in an activity that might prove dangerous. Sister Mary Luke wrote: “Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” Shortly before her death, when asked if she had any final advice for her friends, she replied: “Carry on.”

Liturgical Pioneers / Pastoral Musicians and Liturgists

We remember those who have died . . .

We remember those who have died . . .

Gregor Bergerson, OSB

John Gallen, SJ

William A. Bauman

Damasus Winzen, OSB

Odo Casel, OSB

Lambert Beauduin, OSB

Irvin Udulutsch, OFM, Cap.

Mary Teresine Haban, OSF

Guilford Young

Percy Jones

Albert Edwin Lynch

Mary Dolores Depner, SCL

Lawrence J. Madden, SJ

Lawrence J. Madden, SJMay 18, 1933–May 30, 2011

Everett A. Diederich, SJ

Robert William Piercy, Jr.

Robert Twynham

Christopher Melvyn Trussell

John J. O'Brien, C.P.

James Field

John D. Wright

Margaret Paluch

John Joseph Wright

Cletus Madsen

Edward Schillebeeckx

Austin Flannery, OP

Paul John Hallinan

Jane Klimisch, OSB

James Quinn, SJ

Gregory Murray

Richard Hillert

Richard Proulx

Niels Rasmussen, OP

Kevin Donovan, SJ

Simon Bischof, OSB

Jerome M. Hall, SJ

David H. Tripp

Conrad Kraus

Dominic Richard Braud, OSB

Eugene A. LaVerdiere, SSS

José Ardazabal, SDB

Franz and Terese Mueller

Patrick Cummins, OSB

Norbert Gertken, OSB

Innocent Gertken, OSB

Patrick Byrne

Jane Marie Perrot, DC

Peter Mazar

William J. Leonard, SJ

William Ferris

Bernardus Maria Huijbers

Shawn G. Sheehan

Jan Vermulst

Thomas Carroll

Chrysogonus Wadell, OCSO

Aloysius John Wycislo

Clarence Rufus Joseph Rivers

Mary Elizabeth Bagnell

Elmer F. Pfeil

Joseph H. Schlarman, D.D.

Eugene Walsh, SS

Mary Perkins Ryan

Leon Roberts

Robert Kreutz

Jacques Berthier

Brother Roger Schutz

Omer Westendorf

Mary Luke Tobin, SL

Lawrence J. Madden, SJ
May 18, 1933–May 30, 2011