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Letting our light shine Children’s choir gathers to sing and learn together By Michelle Martin When William Chin took the podium to direct the Archdiocesan Children’s Choir, the first group to perform at the Soldier Field Jubilee celebration, he was facing the 250 young faces for only the second time. And the first time was earlier that day. “I’m going to rely on the expertise and good planning of home parish choir directors,” Chin said during the weeks before the Soldier Field Mass. The 400 children in the choir, ranging in age roughly from 8 to 14, all are members of 22 parish or school choirs. Most of them sang together at a children’s choir festival at Holy Name Cathedral in February, and they sang well then. They were the first group scheduled to sing during the musical prelude to the Mass June 24. Other archdiocesan ensembles scheduled to perform were Las Estudiantinas of Immaculate Conception Parish in Waukegan, the St. Constance Parish Choir, the St. Paul Chong Korean Mission Youth Orchestra from Des Plaines, the Young Adult Ministry Focus Choir, the Holy Cross/Immaculate Heart of Mary High School Marimba Ensemble, Nia Imani Youth Gospel Choir and the William Ferris Chorale. Most of the young people in the children’s choir had never sung before such a large audience and in such a large venue. But while the young singers seemed most excited about the chance to stand on stage in front of thousands of people, their choir directors were hoping the experience would help them learn more about singing. That was especially the case at Santa Maria Addolorata Parish in Chicago. Four children from the parish choir were to sing with the children’s choir, and four teenage members joined the adult Jubilee Choir to sing during the Mass. “Our choir’s kind of a poor choir. We practice with tapes because I’m not really musically inclined,” said choir director Rosaria Aguirre. Aguirre took the choir to the festival at Holy Name Cathedral in February to help them get experience, and was thrilled to get an invitation to the Corpus Christi Mass. To help the children learn the songs, Aguirre helped them read through the words and practice how to stand straight. The church organist worked with the choir once a week to help the children learn the melodies to an arrangement of “The Love of God Comes Close,” by Scottish composer John Bell, an antiphonal Alleluia arranged by John Leavitt and “Soli Delo Gloria” by Marty Haugen, among the songs the choir planned to sing June 24. The older teens, who joined the adult choir, attended regular practice sessions and brought what they learned back to the rest of the group, Aguirre said. “They really enjoy the practices because they’re learning so much,” she said. “Now they’re criticizing all the music at all the Masses. But they see how much better they can get.” Lindida Rizzo, who turned 15 the day of the Soldier Field Mass, had never had a singing audition before she tried out for the Jubilee Choir. “Everyone that I heard had wonderful voices. I was like, ‘Oh my God, they picked me. I wonder why they picked me,’” she said. “I’m really nervous. I’ve never been at Soldier Field. I’ve only seen it from far away.” Despite years of experience directing children and adults, Chin said he learned some lessons about walking in and directing such a large group when he conducted the children at Holy Name Cathedral. “Number one, I’m going to ask for a microphone this time,” he said before the Mass. “Then I’m just going to be making sure that we’re all thinking together.” And number two, he said, is to plan for the unexpected to happen. “I guess what you have to do is have a Plan B,” Chin said. “And if Plan B doesn’t work, you go to Plan C.” And number three, keep an upbeat attitude. “Really, we have very little time while we’re there, and we have to deal with some logistical things, like where’s everyone going to stand, and how do you stand,” said Chin, the assistant director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the director and founder of the Orianna Singers. “Beyond that, you have to think positively.”
Public offerings of faith part of our tradition By Michael D. Wamble As followers of Christ, we are advised not to hide our light under a bushel basket. That, of course, would be difficult given the size of Soldier Field. Field of Faith, the Chicago Catholic Church’s IPO (initial public offering) in celebration of the third millennium, is but another in a tradition of grand ceremonies that have captured the imagination of “urbi et orbi”—the city and the world. But it wouldn’t be the first time all eyes were on the Chicago Archdiocese. In 1926, June 20-24 the archdiocese was the site of the 28th International Eucharistic Congress, the first event of its kind held in the United States at Soldier Field. Over 500,000 faithful assembled in the city’s premier stadium for a public display of adoration. The congress closed with a procession of 750,000 following the Blessed Sacrament along Lake Michigan to the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein. Just as it was 74 years ago, Catholics once again have come together to give witness to the real presence of the Christ in the Eucharist, this year, appropriately, on the feast of Corpus Christi. In 1954, a Marian Year, Chicago Catholics returned to the city’s stadium to hail the Blessed Mother. Many—over 100,000—had to be turned away from ceremonies. The headline blazened across the front-page of the Sept. 10, 1954, New World said it all: “Over 250,000 Jam Spectacular Tribute to Mary.” At the time, the size of the four-hour event on Sept. 8 was comparable to that of New Haven, Conn. “More than 250,000 children of Mary overwhelmed Soldier Field and spilled over the Lake Shore drive and Chicago’s lake front Wednesday night to pay a heart-warming, never-to-be-forgotten tribute to the Beloved Mother of God,” the paper reported 46 years ago. “They came—by bus, by train, by private car, on foot—via every means of transportation, to the illuminated bowl which had never played host to such an event.” So much for the memory of 1926. The report continued, “A towering 16-foot statue of the Virgin
Mary, erected in the north end of Soldier Field, looked out over
the huge throng.” Mother—in stainless steel—twice that size? While that statue would be lost in the shadow of the 33-foot Our Lady of the New Millennium, Cardinal Samuel Stritch put the matter of scale in perspective. “Chicago’s Soldier Field is one of the world’s largest gathering places,” wrote Cardinal Stritch the following week, “but it is not large enough for our people when they want to express publicly their love and devotion to our Blessed Lady.” Public offerings of faith in Chicago aren’t restricted to the pre-Second Vatican Council church. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow was no stranger to our settlement by the lake. During a trip in 1976, he toured the city he described as “the second most Polish city in the world” after Warsaw, and met with then-Mayor Richard J. Daley and local ethnic Catholics. When he returned in 1979 as Pope John Paul II, Chicago once again received him with open arms and an outdoor Mass at Grant Park before the dancing waters of Buckingham Fountain. Church bells pealed throughout the city at 3 p.m Oct. 5 to sound the start of the papal Mass. An estimated 1.2 million people eagerly awaited their audience with the Holy Father as he helicoptered downtown from 7740 S. Western Ave. The Mass was preceded by a four-hour ethnic praise festival that, like the Field of Faith celebration, celebrated the diverse composition that is the Archdiocese of Chicago. The seeds of faith were last publicly watered during 1994’s Liturgy by the Lake. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the local church, tens of thousands of Catholics attended a special sesquicentennial Mass Aug. 7 at Grant Park. “Let us ‘rise—anew—to our call,’ a call that beckons us to build upon our proud Catholic heritage, and to face the future with courage and determination,” said Cardinal Bernardin, before this large sampling of the archdiocese rooted in faith. “The crowds who came to Jesus may have had many different reasons for doing so. But Jesus looked at each of them and saw the truth: They came to him in order to satisfy the deepest hungers of their hearts,” said the late cardinal. Though these four events have different origins, they share much in common. All four were led by the head of the archdiocese. All four enjoyed wonderful weather that smiled upon the city. They each were a public witness to living, breathing Catholicism in the archdiocese. Beneath sun rays or the reflection of the moon, the Catholic people of the Chicago Archdiocese have and continue to let their light brighten the city by the lake. |