“How Awesome Is This Place!”
(Genesis 28:17)
My Years at the Oakland Cathedral, 1967–1986
A Memoir
By
E. Donald Osuna
Photography By
Jerry A. Rubino
Copyright 2011 E. Donald Osuna,
All images copyright 2011 J.A. Rubino,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by Aventine Press
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0363-2
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
TO FLOYD L. BEGIN
First Bishop of Oakland and by Providence my first boss on the 50th Anniversary and Golden Jubilee of the church he proudly fathered
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks to Mary Ellen Leary for editing the initial chapters and graciously guiding my literary efforts; to Jack Miffleton for his unfailing friendship, input and encouragement; to historian Jeffrey Burns for his scholarly review of the completed manuscript; and to Danuta Krantz for proofreading the manuscript and suggesting publishing options.
Most especially, I am grateful to photographer Jerry A. Rubino, whose work is featured throughout these pages. His faithful camera and artful eye has captured on film what many carry imprinted in our memory and engraved on our heart.
Preface: Where It Happens
St. Francis de Sales parish became Oakland Cathedral when the new diocese, split from San Francisco, was established in 1962. The range of its ministry is exactly proper for a cathedral. It serves the local geographical community, folks from everywhere in the diocese, and welcomes guests from every part of the country and beyond. Every Sunday, the liturgical assembly is a picture of this diversity made one. The Church of Oakland is most especially alive in the liturgy of Oakland Cathedral, saved by the Word proclaimed among believers, nourished at the table of the Lord.
For more than ten years, Oakland has been a liturgical Mecca with a national reputation. It has been called vibrant, innovative, colorful, reverent, fun, exciting, prayerful, real and even “far out.” It is not uncommon for “first time” participants, especially if they have been away from formal Church life for a while simply to weep as the experience unfolds. “The Church has changed,” was the tearful admission of one young man, a self-styled prodigal, on a recent Sunday. The Greeting of Peace was more than he could bear! “These people really care for each other,” he exclaimed.
What makes Oakland Cathedral a little different, in its own diocese and in the American Church? Vatican II started it all. As the Council ended, two young men began a program of liturgical renewal throughout the diocese in the effort to assist parish communities to have some experience of what the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy invited. Newly ordained Father Don Osuna and Attorney-Musician John L. McDonnell, Jr. were convinced that a renewal would need more to ensure its success than simply an exchange or clarification of ideas. Ideas, of course, were crucial, but they didn’t go far enough. People need to experience good liturgy if they were ever to be convinced of its power. And music was intrinsic, not incidental, to the experience. The Osuna-McDonnell program was ambitious. They contracted to spend six weeks of analysis and four more weeks of shared celebration with each parish they served. Ten weeks of therapy! Ten parishes and more than two years later, Don and John decided that there had to be a better way to organize and make available what they had to offer. They were convinced, of course, that their labors in any one parish could not be substituted for the work that the parish members themselves needed to do. While they could assist the experience of a community, they knew that it could not and should not depend on them.
So the decision was taken. Settle down in one community and expend full-time service there. Work for and with the members of the St. Francis de Sales community, so that community life and liturgy there would build up the Body of Christ in that parish. At the same time, structure programs of education and practice that would assist both parish members and representatives from through out the diocese. It was not only a splendid formula for ministry. It was exactly what a cathedral should do! At the heart of it, there was the overriding conviction that the most important and most persuasive element of all the programs that were undertaken was the celebration itself of the liturgy.
There is a stateliness and simple dignity to this otherwise undistinguished building in downtown Oakland. It sits across from the bus station, never a gathering place in any town for the performing arts, intellectual exchange or the principal social events of the community. There is a lot of stumbling misery up and down the streets that surround St. Francis and the neighborhood suggests that life has passed by, moved ten blocks or so to the banks and offices of a newer Oakland, forever charming in the romance of St. Francisco across the Bay. But the Cathedral is a place of life! The building is what a building should be: a place for people to gather. Robert Rambusch Associates uncluttered its interior and allowed the main lines of the space to become clear. This church is named for what is the definition of church: the community of believers.
Oakland Cathedral belongs to the community. In the final analysis, that is what makes it work. The people own what happens there. They design it, they execute it, they pick up the pieces afterwards (and reap the harvest as well!). The “parish community” includes both people who live within the geographical boundaries of St. Francis de Sales and others from the San Francisco Bay area who have committed themselves to membership. The combination makes for a splendid coming-together of ethnic, economic, educational and vocational riches. Indians, Filipinos and Hispanics pray and work with Anglos and Blacks. Students and professors of Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union and the Franciscan and Jesuit schools of theology, share ministry with blue collar workers and laborers. The retired elderly match the enthusiasm of teenagers.
“Task Forces” specify the distinct roles of ministry undertaken by community members who gather themselves in groups. They give their attention to youth, religious education, administration, spiritual growth, senior citizens and liturgy. Ned Barker, chairperson of the liturgy task force, has no doubt about what ties it all together: “liturgy forms the people, and the people shape the liturgy.” Liturgy is the heart. He is not alone in this view. Liturgy is the center of everything that happens with the parish community. Everybody agrees on that! Artist Patricia Walsh, president of the parish council, affirms that at liturgy “the emphasis is on each other as the presence of God instead of on an abstract idea of God.” From this weekly experience, she feels, everyone “is refreshed to go on, uplifted by what has been shared.”
Nor does the liturgy trap the community into selfish preoccupation with internal concerns. The dynamism of their prayer always leads them out, to serve
