others is demonstrated very touchingly each Sunday when, at the end of communion, special ministers of Eucharist are sent forth with a simple but public mandate to feed incapacitated brothers and sisters and notify them of the community’s continued affection and concern. Programs like last Lent’s focus on the people of the Third World deliver the same message: we are all God’s children and have responsibility for each other.
When the liturgy happens, it doesn’t just happen! Careful and complex planning is the order of the day. The liturgy task force identifies the focus of each celebration by consulting the texts of the lectionary. Musical pieces are chosen because of (1) their harmony with the theme, (2) their quality, (3) their place in the celebration. Special activities, called for by the needs of a particular celebration, are assigned to the appropriate ministers. In addition to these somewhat routine matters, the special ingredient which must be counted as the major factor of influence is this: a liturgy, like every work of art, cannot be constructed by a committee. It must be fashioned by an artist. So, all the work of the liturgy task force, essential as it is, helpful as it is, ultimately is submitted to the creative hands and vision of one artist. At Oakland that artist is Don Osuna: musician, pastor, genius. No one begrudges Osuna that role, or envies it either. It is not regarded as authoritarian veto-power over the community but as artist’s service for brothers and sisters. More than a decade of experience yields the irrefutable argument in favor of this arrangement: it works!
The pastor’s role as chief artist hardly exempts the rest of the ministers from responsibility for their own tasks. John McDonnell, who directs the choir and ensemble, says that their musical style must be classified as “eclectic.” A choir of forty-five voices, soloist Melissa Franek, and instruments (string bass/electric bass, two keyboards, two guitars, two trumpets, sax and flute, plus a string quartet for special occasions) conspire to make this gracious blend of styles into one “Oakland style.” Ample use is made of classical, folk, jazz, swing, spirituals, soft rock, show tunes and even country western. The mix has developed over the years, shifting with the needs of the community and its characteristics.
An attempt by one young couple to summarize what happens at Oakland listed these points in this order: (1) people come, (2) who want to be part of it, (3) and find it comforting, (4) center all their life around the liturgy, and (5) insist on making it bear apostolic fruit. The first bishop of Oakland, Floyd Begin, somehow understood that Don Osuna had touched a central nerve. He was the galvanizing force that brought people together to pray and, if the bishop didn’t come with great frequency himself, he made the whole thing possible for others. He made it possible for them to do it at his Cathedral, so that it wasn’t long before it became clear that it wasn’t “his” Cathedral at all but everyone’s, including the bishop’s. The present Ordinary, Bishop John Cummins, a native of Oakland, has made his own agreement with the Cathedral program all the more dramatic by moving his residence to the Cathedral rectory. “The Cathedral,” he feels, “serves the community which makes up its parish, and serves the whole length and breadth of the diocese as well. A bishop today can’t stay home. He needs to be everywhere with his people, to serve them.” But one of the places to serve them is precisely at “home,” at the Cathedral liturgy. The warm and affable Cummins is a welcome celebrant in the midst of the “home community.” His homilies are especially appreciated.
Aren’t there any problems at Oakland? Of course there are: the continual challenge to work with each other, to try over and over again truly to listen and to hear each other, taxes the patience of all. Over the years, particularly in an earlier age when traces of legalism were still in the air, more or less substantial shots were fired across the bow of Oakland’s struggling ship. Occasionally a bomb landed, and shrapnel was made a permanent part of the bodies that were aboard. Once or twice, there was nearly a wreck, and some consider it “a real miracle that they are still together.” Even success has been a problem, because it inspires people to foster inflated or misdirected expectations.
But in this age of liturgical renewal, when it is the mandate of the Second Vatican Council to develop forms of prayer which will be culturally appropriate to communities of men and women all over the world in all their diversity, it is still not possible to estimate the size of the debt that the American Church owes to the community of Oakland Cathedral. When the history of this time of reform is written, Oakland will hold a central place. Four words tell the reason: People, Prayer, Suffering, Fidelity. Several weeks ago, network television recorded the community liturgy of Oakland Cathedral for a national audience. May their film and these words provide some insight into the action of the Lord among His faithful people at Oakland, and serve to inspire us all!
John Gallen, S.J.
Hosanna: A Journal of Pastoral Liturgy, Volume 5, Number 2, 1979
Reprinted with permission by Oregon Catholic Press
5536 NE Hassalo, Portland, OR 97213-3638 [email protected]
Prologue
On that momentous afternoon, the three of us were glued to the rectory television monitor. An American astronaut was stepping onto the moon and announcing a giant leap for mankind. Science and technology had wedded and were giving birth — right there in our living room — to a new age.
Just as memorable was Father Jim Keeley’s comment at the end of the telecast: Gazing out the window at the silver sphere with an earthling now prancing about its surface, the young priest prophesied, “Wait until the poets get a hold of this!”
That was July 20, 1969.
Earlier in the decade, a similar landmark event had altered the course of church history. In 1962, the recently elected pope, like the visionary American president, had set his sights on a far-off target. President Kennedy took man to the Moon; Pope John XXIII brought the Catholic Church back to earth. For too long, the pontiff concluded, the bark of Peter had skirted the realm of human affairs like a satellite, detached, remote and locked into its own orbit. The ship had become obsolete; it was time for a return to earthly origins. Once grounded in its native soil, the Church could once again reclaim its pristine identity: that of a disciple and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ who alone had ascended into the heavens!
The trajectory was earthward; the propellant for reentry was to be the sacred liturgy. To achieve this, Pope John had convened the Second Vatican Council which immediately engineered the reform of the Roman Rite, thereby taking aim, as one colleague put it, “for the jugular.” Nothing is as sacred to the Church as its rituals which cradle and nurse so jealously its ancient creeds. At worship, believers experience what it means to be Catholic. For them, sacramental celebrations and especially Sunday Mass reveal and express the very essence of religion: the Word of God and Christian Tradition. So, in order to bring the Church around, the Pope and the bishops of the Second Vatican Council had to subject the sacred liturgy to review, revision and renewal.
The results were revolutionary. Out went the Latin, the ancient voice of a buried empire. Henceforth the sacred mysteries were to be proclaimed in the tongues of the people. Rubrics and ceremonials were restored to their original simplicity, eliminating centuries-old “accretions.” Flexibility replaced the rigid and stylized rubrics of the Council of Trent (1545–63). Waves of changes and revisions began inundating beleaguered pastors.
Some critics claimed that the liturgical reforms reduced the sacramental structures to bloodless skeletons. But others considered it profoundly insightful of the Council to provide simple frameworks for local churches to adapt and enhance with local cultural and religious traditions. No doubt about it: Pope John, who was ready to embrace everyone he met, wanted the Roman Rite to be equally as catholic — welcoming, encompassing, incorporating into its worshiping embrace the diverse and distinctive heritages of the human family.
The pioneers had done the deed. Were there to be any poets?
*****
