My apologies, folks, for the inconsistent posting these past few weeks since my return from Italy. So much to catch up on here at work and at home. Yesterday was spent at a meeting in Los Angeles and in a few hours, I am headed to New York to give a retreat at the beautiful Immaculate Conception Center in Douglaston, NY for the RCIA ministers in the Diocese of Brooklyn.
Every once in awhile I pause and realize how grateful I am to be able to work and minister with others in our Church. I see the dedication of so many across the United States and Canada; I see people who, despite the fact that they struggle with some Church structures, are committed to lighting a new fire of hope in this era of new evangelization. I count myself blessed to be among them.
I promise to post more regularly when I return next week.
Greetings on this Feast of Saint Matthias (and my own feast of sorts as well!)
I decided late Friday to spend a few days in Boston with my family over the weekend.
I went to Mass on Sunday with my parents. The Archdiocese of Boston is one of few provinces in the United States where the Solemnity of the Ascension is not transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter. So on Sunday I got to hear the readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, which I have not heard in many years.
Something struck me about the music at Mass at this particular parish. We sang "Gentle Woman" at the Preparation of the Gifts and the cantor sang an "Ave Maria" as a solo after communion. I sat there, trying to make a connection between these songs and the readings and prayers that we had heard and prayed during Mass. Then I had one of those "duh" moments. The Marian music was obviously chosen because it was the month of May? Or perhaps because it was Mother's Day?
Anyway, I just wanted to throw this out there: do you sing Marian hymns at Sunday Massduring May? Do you sing Marian hymns on Mother's Day?
Here's a little snippet from an on-line article I read this morning. Seems something was lost in the translation of this particular German Cardinal's report on the Pope Emeritus' physical appearance.
German cardinal 'shocked' to see retired pontiff's decline (ANSAmed) - Berlin, May 8 - A colleague of retired pope Benedict XVI says the former pontiff is in failing health, according to published reports. Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, said he was shocked at the declining health of Benedict. During a meeting between the two clerics on March 18, Meisner said he was stunned at how small Benedict had become, saying he was only half of his previous size, the German Catholic News Agency (KNA) reported.
I have a busy travel schedule over the next several days. I am flying to Boston to be with family tomorrow; I return here Monday evening; fly to Los Angeles for meetings on Wednesday and Thursday; return here Thursday night; then it is off to New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn on Friday, then back Saturday night.
For the past week, I have been digesting the sad news of the impending dissolution of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate. Perhaps you read the article in the National Catholic Reporter.
Many colleagues with whom I have ministered through the institutes offered by Forum over the past twenty-five years have shared their own sadness. I have become a bit melancholy about it all and began to wonder just where Forum's institutes have taken me over the years. And here is a list of dioceses that I can recall:
In the United States:
Arlington, VA
Atlanta, GA
Baltimore, MD
Belleville, IL
Birmingham, AL
Boston, MA
Bridgeport, CT
Brooklyn, NY
Buffalo, NY
Camden, NJ
Charleston, SC
Charlotte, NC
Chicago, IL
Cincinnati, OH
Corpus Christi, TX
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Detroit, MI
El Paso, TX
Evansville, IN
Fall River, MA
Fargo, ND
Fort Worth, TX
Galveston-Houston, TX
Gary, IN
Grand Rapids, MI
Green Bay, WI
Hartford, CT
Indianapolis, IN
Jefferson City, MO
Joliet, IL
Juneau, AK
Kalamazoo, MI
Kansas City in Kansas, KA
Kansas City-Saint Joseph, MO
Lansing, MI
Las Cruces, NM
Lexington, KY
Little Rock, AR
Louisville, KY
Madison, WI
Memphis, TN
Miami, FL
Milwaukee, WI
Mobile, AL
Monterey, CA
Newark, NJ
New Orleans, LA
New Ulm, MN
Norwich, CT
Oakland, CA
Omaha, NE
Orange, CA
Orlando, FL
Philadelphia, PA
Phoenix, AZ
Portland, ME
Portland, OR
Pueblo, CO
Raleigh, NC
Richmond, VA
Rochester, NY
Sacramento, CA
Saginaw, MI
Saint Louis, MO
Salina, KS
San Antonio, TX
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
Springfield, MA
Springfield-Cape Girardeau, MO
Springfield in Illinois, IL
Stockton, CA
Syracuse, NY
Tucson, AZ
Tulsa, OK
Wheeling-Charleston, WV
Wichita, KS
Youngstown, OH
In Canada:
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Moncton, New Brunswick
Ottawa, Ontario
Peterborough, Ontario
Saint John's, Newfoundland
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Toronto, Ontario
Vancouver, British Columbia
Nelson, British Columbia
And Overseas:
Deidesheim, Germany (US Miltary Ordinariate)
Ramstein Air Base, Germany (US Military Ordinariate)
Through the work and ministry of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate, I have had the privilege of seeing the Church in so many places across North America.
I remember traveling to Juneau, Alaska and listening to the bishop there tell us that when men are ordained there, they usually get their pilot's license at the same time, since they need fly a sea plane in order to visit and bring communion and say Mass for Catholics in very remote areas. Some of these Catholics may celebrate Mass once every three months. And I remember this vividly because when I returned to the parish in Port Orange, Florida after this trip, there was much lament that the parish had to go from having four priests to three priests.
And I remember talking with a priest in the rural diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in Missouri. He opened a map of the United States and was able to draw a small sqaure on that map, letting me know that what was in that square was the territory of his parish and that he puts an average of 80,000 miles on his car each year. And I remember this vividly because when I returned, I was at a meeting at my parish during which people were complaining about how long a walk it was from the paschal fire back into the church at the Easter Vigil and how long it took.
You see, for those of us who ministered as team members with Forum (bishops, priests, deacons, vowed religious, and baptized lay leaders), the gift we received from our experiences far outweighs anything we could have given to the tens of thousands of people who came to our institutes. The gift that I received was, in a word, balance. We got to experience the Church everywhere, from places where the the bishop was rarely seen and who was far removed from the daily lives of the people to places where the bishop walked with his folks through a week-long training institute and even played the accordion for them at a reception one night.
This balanced perspective made me the Catholic lay leader that I am today and I will forever be grateful to the North Amercian Forum on the Catechumenate for that gift; it is one I will treasure always.
Tuesday greetings from Chicago. I returned from Europe on Sunday afternoon and am gradually and slowly getting over the jet lag.
As I look back on the last several weeks, I realize what a blessed man I am. To be able to go on this baptismal pilgrimage was such a gift and I am so grateful to our good God.
The work ahead for me now is to work with the Catholic pilgrimage company to craft this pilgrimage that I hope will take place late in 2014. There were so many places, so many baptisteries and fonts that I think people would appreciate seeing. Choosing from among the many sites will be difficult. I drive about 2500 miles over those two weeks and I know that pilgrims do not want to spend lots of time in motor coaches, so I will do my best to craft a journey that will capture the best of what Northern Italy has to offer by way of fonts and baptisteries (among other sites.)
Lots of work to catch up on here at the office. Thanks for coming along on the journey with me, at least virtually!
As I was about to sit down and write this blog post, I received an e-mail from the offices of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate in Washington, D.C. I have been a Forum team member since about 1987 and served on their Board of Directors and chaired that Board until November of 1999. The e-mail was from the current Board of Directors, announcing the dissolution of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate, effective June 30, 2013. Many of us have been aware of the financial challenges facing Forum for a number of years, chiefly due to the decline in attendance at Forum's RCIA training institutes. The reasons for this drop in attendance are varied. I believe there are two chief reasons: 1. Lack of funds on a parish and diocesan level for training of persons in the RCIA; 2. A growing decline in the perceived importance of the full implementation of the Rite in parishes and dioceses.
To say that I am sad would be an understatement. I simply would not be sitting here in Udine, Italy, after having spent two weeks scouring the North Italian countryside for baptisteries and baptism fonts had it not been for the North American Forum on the Catechumenate. Had Forum's founder, Fr. Jim Dunning, not visited our parish in Florida in 1986 and seen something in a young music and liturgy directory there that told him that there was something in this 28 year-old kid that might help the initiating Church, I don't know where my life in ministry would have gone.
And this is simply nothing compared to the tens of thousands of Catholic clergy, vowed religious, and lay men and women who have been trained by Forum through institutes, writings, and a commitment to a mission and vision for the implementation of the Rite. Jim Dunning himself often expressed the view that Forum should only be around for a few years, after which dioceses would be able to provide the training themselves. Perhaps his vision and viewpoint has only now come to fulfillment; it has taken not a few years, but thirty. Unfortunately, with the budget cuts faced by so many dioceses, I am not sure if they will be able to do the kind of training sorely needed in this field. Other dioceses have taken on the training and done a marvelous job. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is not another "program," like RENEW, or CHIRP, or ACTS. RCIA is at the heart of the Church's sacramental life: it is baptism; it is confirmation; it is Eucharist. The North American Forum on the Catechumenate helped so many see that vision and put it into practical and pastoral practice. My hope is that this was enough of an impetus to keep the power and potential of the baptismal catechumenate moving forward.
Back in the mid-1990's, I helped lead a pilgrimage through northern Italy that was sponsored by Forum. That pilgrimage did more for the development of my own baptismal spirituality and my commitment to help others cultivate a baptismal spirituality than anything else in my life. This is the main reason why instead of two weeks at the beach for vacation, I am here searching out places to help prepare another pilgrimage for other people in 2014. It was Forum that enabled all of this to happen in the first place.
I am deeply sad and deeply grateful all at the same time. I think of those team members, like Jim Dunning and Christiane Brusselmans, and so many others who shaped my life. I think about the scores of Forum team members with whom I worked and ministered all over the United States and Canada. I think of the thousands of good Catholics who shared their own stories of conversion at our institutes over the years. I think of diocesan leaders who committed themselves to hosting those week-long "Beginnings and Beyond" institutes for so many, many years, as well as other institutes. I think about the present and former staff members of Forum's national office. Most of all, I think of the hundreds of thousands of people whose life journey brought them to the Catholic Church and who moved along a road of conversion and formation, ministered to by people who had been trained and formed by the North American Forum on the Catechumenate.
Perhaps it is fitting to share these last images of my baptism pilgrimage, which is drawing to an end. These are some of the oldest baptisteries in the world, found on the coast of northern Italy, in the ancient cities of Aquileia and Grado. I first encountered these on Forum's pilgrimage. When I encountered them again yesterday, I was struck by the fact that billions have been baptized as Christians since these holy places were established some time in the fourth century. As I need to say my own farewell to Forum, I do have a deep sense, especially when seeing the long history of the Church's initiatory sacramental life, that the work of evangelization, conversion, and baptismal practice will go on and billions more will "put on Christ" at fonts all over the world.
First, Aquileia. The church was built in the year 313 and was the scene of a historic anti-Arian Council in 381, which was attended by Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome.
The frescoes in the crypt show the early Christian practice of baptism by immersion:
And here is an image of the baptism of four women, all at the same time in the same font:
This is the original fourth-century baptism font found in the ruins excavated beneath the piazza next to the current church.
And here is the later fifth-century baptistery and hexagonal font in the baptistery. The restoration work done since I last visited is exquisite.
And, finally, the baptistery at the cathedral of Saint Euphemia in Grado, several miles to the south of Aquileia:
On this day when I am mourning the apparent end of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate, I am grateful for all that Forum has meant in my own life. And, by extension, to you, the faithful readers of Gotta Sing Gotta Pray, I hope that my Catholic formation by Forum has enriched your own.
Wednesday greetings from Ravenna. Arrived here yesterday afternoon and immediately searched for the two significant baptisteries here: Neonian and Arian.
The Neonian is the older of the two, dating from the late fourth to early fifth century. The octagonal font within is a later addition, built, if I remember correctly, in the fifteenth century, to mimic the size and type of font that originally stood in the baptistery.
Here is the exterior of the octagonal building.
And here is a video taken inside.
The mosaics are extraordinary, as you can see.
Here is a photo of the octagonal font. The sun was shining into the font; makes it seem as if the light is radiating from within.
More photos of the mosaic work:
In this center of the ceiling is a depiction of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan by John the Baptist:
Around this central image are the apostles, and they appear to be moving; some suggest that they are poised in dance positions. Imagine emerging from this baptism font as a newly baptized adopted child of God and gazing at the apostles dancing with joy? (Did you know that that is what occurred on the day you were baptized?!)
Next stop was the Arian Baptistery. Arianism was widely practiced here in Ravenna; the belief that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, did not exist for all time, but was created by the Father and was subordinate to him. This view is obviously in opposition to the Catholic understanding of the Trinity and is heretical. At any rate, the baptistery is another stunning one. Here is the exterior of this octagonal building:
There are no remains of the actual baptism font in this baptistery and none has been constructed. The floor simply has a large round stone marking the area where the font would have been. It important to note that both of these baptisteries' original floors are nine feet below Ravenna's current street level. Especially in this photograph, you can see how much the city streets have been built up over the centuries. This is true especially in Ravenna, which sits on marshland.
Here is a video of the interior. Hold on to your seat for this one. I apologize for my camera work; it's a bit dizzying! Notice anything similar between this Arian Baptistery and the Neonian Baptistery?
The ceilings have very similar designs. More photos:
The third figure in the scene is the personification of the River Jordan.
Today was a day to see more mosaic work; the mosaics here in Ravenna are among the finest in the world (and oldest). There is an entire department of the university here dedicated to the restoration and maintenance of mosaics.
The church of San Vitale is a stunning example of the work.
The work is so fine that some of it looks like rich Persian rugs attached to the walls and ceilings; hard to describe, but definitely breathtaking.
More photos of this stunning building:
These mosaics have got to be seen to be really appreciated. My great hope, of course, is that Ravenna will be one stop on the Baptism Font and Baptistery Pilgrimage I hope to lead in the Fall of 2014.
Sorry for so much posting today. This is definitely a city for the senses; wonderful things to see, hear, taste, smell, and feel!
Early tomorrow it is off to Udine; the longest drive of this trip. But Padua is halfway and my hope is to stop there and visit one of the most visually stunning baptisteries in the world at the Duomo in Padua.
I hope you are enjoying this little taste of the baptism fonts and baptisteries of Northern Italy.
Dr. Jerry Galipeau is Vice President and Chief Publishing Officer at J. S. Paluch Company and its music and liturgy division, World Library Publications, located in Franklin Park, Illinois.
Jerry presents keynotes and workshops throughout the United States and Canada on the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, liturgical spirituality, ritual music, evangelization, and adult spiritual formation. He earned the Doctor of Ministry with a concentration in liturgical studies from Catholic Theological Union at Chicago in 1999.
Gotta Sing Gotta Pray is Jerry's blog in which he shares reflections on current events in the Church and in the world that may be of particular interest to those serving the Church, including a focus on the new English translation of the Roman Missal every Tuesday and Thursday.
