Jane Marie Perrot, DC

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

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

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

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 composition 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, alt. Reprinted with permission.

Bernardus Maria Huijbers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Eugene Walsh, S.S.
1911 – 1989

The death of Father Eugene A. Walsh, S.S., was a loss mourned far beyond the seminary world within which he lived most of his life. Deeply committed to the Sulpician mission of priestly formation, he did not fit at times the popular image of men working quietly and without recognition behind an institution’s walls.

Father Walsh’s Sulpician assignments were in only two places, Baltimore and Washington, DC, and yet his impact, especially on liturgical worship throughout the English-speaking world was enormous. He was also a highly successful teacher who, until the day of his sudden death, never stopped challenging and prodding his hearers to stretch themselves to become better life-giving members of the Christian community.

 

Born in Baltimore on January 24, 1911, the first of three sons of Aloysius John and Mary Agnes (nee Hanley) Walsh. Eugene, who was called “Gene” or “Geno” by all his family and friends, grew up in St. Ann’s parish with its reputation for an active church life and a goodly number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, including Cardinal Lawrence Shehan, Bishop John J. Russell, Father John P. McCormick, S.S., and the homilist of the funeral liturgy, Father Joseph J. Gallagher. On completing his elementary education at the parish school, Gene entered St. Charles College to study for the priesthood. Upon graduating, he was awarded a Basselin scholarship for three years at The Catholic University of America to study philosophy, earned the M.A. degree, and then completed his preparation for ordination at the Sulpician Seminary in Washington. He was ordained a priest on June 7, 1938, in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

 

While still at St. Charles, Gene had received permission from Archbishop Michael J. Curley to apply for membership in the Society of St. Sulpice. His interest in liturgical music was early evident. A student of the violin, he also studied voice and directed the choir as a seminarian in Washington. Another of his early interests was preaching, with a special attraction to the Catholic Evidence Guild’s street-corner preaching, which he did frequently before and after ordination.

 

Gene’s success with choir direction especially recommended him to the new president of St. Charles College, George A. Gleason, S.S., himself a masterful organist and choir director. At St. Charles, Gene also taught Latin and English as well as Gregorian chant. He quickly developed a reputation as a spiritual director and involved faculty member. Few students, however, or faculty members, were ever neutral in their feelings about Father Walsh; their opinions were either strongly favorable or strongly unfavorable.

 

His formal admission to the Society was delayed for five years because of his essential work at St. Charles with church music. But in 1941, with seven other candidates, he took the year of Sulpician formation at St. Mary’s Seminary on Paca Street, the first both under the direction of the seminary rector, Lloyd P. McDonald, S.S., and at that site. He used the year well to read seriously in the spiritual life and re-affirmed his reputation as a priest totally faithful to the seminary schedule, actively involved in community life, and yet often critical of the status quo within and outside the seminary. He also expressed a strong preference for minor seminary work. He was admitted to the Society in 1942.

 

His success with the choir, coupled with a graduate degree in philosophy, led to his appointment to the Paca Street faculty, where he would remain until 1968, except for a period of further graduate study. In that time, his interests deepened and widened in the philosophy of education, theology, ascetics, and contemporary composers. His spiritual counseling widened to include military service people and women religious, priests and laypersons. He became aware of the liturgical ferment in Europe that was barely recognized in the United States. His participation in the first seminarians’ study week in 1946 at the University of Notre Dame on the lay apostolate at which Canon Joseph Cardijn, founder of the Jocist movement in Belgium, was the featured speaker, had a lasting influence on Gene’s concern for social questions and the role of the laity in addressing them.

 

These multiple strains in his intellectual and spiritual growth were greatly nourished by Gene’s return to the Catholic University in 1945, where he earned a doctorate in theology with his ground-breaking dissertation on The Priesthood in the Writings of the French School: Berulle, DeCondren, and Olier, published in 1949. The work opened the eyes of many younger Sulpicians to their spiritual heritage and its connection with new thinking about Sacred Scripture, liturgy, and the spiritual life.

 

Reassigned to the Paca Street seminary in 1947, Gene increasingly gave his classroom attention to the philosophy of education and the work of Jesuit scholars Bernard Lonergan and Teilhard de Chardin. He directed several retreats each year for women religious, led days of recollection, taught in summer sessions at various schools, colleges, and motherhouses, and wrote articles for Worship magazine. His father’s sudden death in 1949 increased his responsibilities to his mother, whose gentle ways and warm hospitality were legendary. Sunday afternoons and evenings at her home became occasions for wide-ranging discussions between Gene and his disciples and friends on all church trends and movements. These continued until her death in 1966. Another very close tie for Gene was with his brother Jack’s family, which continued after Jack’s death in December 1975.

 

In the early 1950s, Gene began participating in the annual National Liturgical Conference. He gave talks, helped plan the liturgies, and directed the music. As a member of the Liturgical Conference’s board and the executive committee, he was in contact with the major contributors in Europe and America to the growing liturgical movement. In 1957, he spent six weeks in Europe vacationing and visiting liturgical centers and leaders. In 1961, he began a long series of summer workshops at The Catholic University on church music and worship. About the same time, he had his initial experience with the Cursillo and then directed several others.

 

Gene’s profound liturgical consciousness made him a valued resource for implementing the revised liturgy mandated by the Second Vatican Council. Many dioceses sought his advice. Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan asked him to serve on the music advisory board of bishops preparing music for the English sacramentary and later documents. He also participated in meetings called to develop liturgical renewal in seminary programs and curricula.

 

Through this remarkable range of activity, Gene, although often warned not to over-extend himself in outside interests, never lost sight of his primary Sulpician commitments. He made important contributions to the modernization of Sulpician seminary programs including his own theology courses at the seminary college level, considered a great innovation, served on two major committees of the U.S. Province, one on the preparation for Sulpician ministry after Vatican II, and the spiritual renewal committee from 1972 to 1976, and he was elected a delegate to several provincial assemblies.

 

His accomplishments made it almost inevitable that Gene would be considered for a seminary rectorship. It happened in 1968, when he accepted that position at the Theological College (known as the Sulpician Seminary until 1938) of The Catholic University. At the time, the seminary was burdened with controversy over its hesitant adaptation to Vatican II norms. Gene pushed through dramatic changes in governance and lifestyle and generated even more controversy. He resigned the rectorship in 1971.

 

The appointment was a mistake by most estimates. His intellectual and teaching gifts did not include administration. Strong ties to friends whom he needed and to whom he gave much, a man of strong emotions and deep compassion, exceptionally dedicated to priestly work, he thought and acted in broad and creative designs with energetic enthusiasm and without much patience for detail or routine administration and careful planning. The seminary floundered for want of clear direction.

 

Gene recognized the problems and had little difficulty stepping back into a faculty advisory role at Theological College and assisting with the pastoral program until 1978 and also teaching courses in liturgy and celebration at the University until 1979. Before retiring, he taught a quarter’s course in liturgy at St. Patrick’s Seminary in California.

 

But what an extraordinary retirement. Gene was already doing workshops, seminars, and lectures for clergy and laypeople in various dioceses and he decided that work would be his new apostolate. For the next ten years, he spoke in more than 400 parishes in the United States, and others in Canada, England, New Zealand, and Australia, most often in the format of a renewal weekend, and he heartily enjoyed it. He published various booklets filled with recommendations and directives on how a parish comes alive liturgically and catechetically.

 

Gene wrote that life-giving celebrations in church do not just happen. All members of the assembly make them happen. His purpose was to help all members of the worshipping community assume responsibility for improving the quality of Sunday Mass celebrations. His focus was on the parish experience, which could generate new life that then flows into every other aspect of parish life. His goal was always to help people understand the renewal of the Church initiated by Vatican II.

 

In late 1985 Gene moved to an apartment in nearby Columbia, where he could entertain friends, serve meals, and work more independently. He continued to love his work, his friends, and his travel. He enjoyed his fame and the fact that a biography of him that highlighted his effectiveness as a teacher was published in 1988. In reviewing that work by Timothy Leonard, Father Gallagher wrote that Father Walsh was important for twentieth century Catholicism, not chiefly for his writings or any original thought, but through his personal influence as a teacher, exemplar, and synthesizer of Christian humanism. At heart, he was always a liberating teacher, excited and exciting. Father Gallagher continued, he had a genius for that sacred role and has been a genius in living it out.

 

Returning from several workshops in New Zealand, having just completed one in Hawaii, and planning a full schedule for the coming year, Gene relaxed briefly with friends before returning to the mainland. Most of the time he had worked with crippling pain from a phlebitis condition that required a weekly hospital check-up from the onset of the problem in 1945. He loved to swim every day if possible, the only exercise that did not cause him pain. It was in a swimming pool that his life suddenly ended on August 15, 1989.

 

Father Walsh had made his mother’s Mass of Christian burial a joyful occasion to celebrate her entrance into the heavenly kingdom. He had planned his own funeral with a rare attention to detail and named several close friends to a committee to see that it was implemented faithfully in the evening in some church where a gala reception and dinner could follow immediately at his estate’s expense. Over 700 people were there to celebrate and support one another in the loss of such an ardent friend and mentor. Bishops P. Francis Murphy of Baltimore and F. Joseph Gossman of Raleigh were principal celebrants of the Eucharist in the church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City on August 21, 1989. A private burial in the Sulpician cemetery the following morning was presided over by the Sulpician provincial, the Very Reverend Gerald L. Brown.

 

Father Walsh was survived by a brother, Aloysius J. Walsh, his sister-in-law, Mrs. Marian Walsh of Salisbury, MD, several nephews and nieces, and his cousin, Sister Marie Sulpice, SSND, and his Sulpician confreres. 

 

May Father Walsh live forever in the joy of the Resurrection.

 

Tribute prepared by the Society of St. Sulpice, Province of the United States, William J. Lee, S.S., Provincial Secretary.

Mary Perkins Ryan

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

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

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

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

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

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.