Spirit-Filled Sounds

SING AT ST. PETER'S BASILICA  Members of the Paterson Diocesan Choir gather at the Altar of the Chair at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where they sang during a Mass near the end of their Feb. 17 to 24 pilgrimage to Florence, Assisi, Rome and Vatican City. The group, which included singers from the Newark Archdiocese and the Trenton Diocese, sang liturgical music in several churches, cathedrals and basilicas in Italy. Preston Dibble, diocesan director of music, led the pilgrimage.

VATICAN CITY  It would be a while before the Paterson Diocesan Choir begins to sing for the 5 p.m. Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica here. Soprano Lizette Urena spends time looking around and taking in the overwhelming majesty, spirituality and history of the Mother Church of the world’s Catholics — a powerful experience that gives her “goose bumps.”

“It’s incredible to stand in St. Peter’s and ask: ‘I’m going to sing here?’ It was humbling” said Urena, who traveled from Feb. 17 to 24 with a contingent of Diocesan Choir members, along with family and friends, to Florence, Assisi, Rome and Vatican City. There, they toured the sites and sang liturgical music in several of the most famous churches, cathedrals and basilicas in Italy. “The churches have a special quality — and phenomenal acoustics. I feel grateful to have gone,” she said.

The pilgrimage brought together 41 people, including 29 singers from throughout the Paterson Diocese with a few from the Newark Archdiocese and Trenton Diocese. They sang in the Basilica of San Marco in Florence, the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi and at the Altar of the Chair at St. Peter’s, during a Mass, which was concelebrated by Msgr. Geno Sylva, a diocesan priest who now serves at the Vatican in the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization. Choir members included Joan Valk, diocesan director of human resources and child and youth protection, and Dennis Butler, diocesan chief of human resources and compliance officer.

Toward the beginning of the visit, the choir got a thrill, singing a full-length concert for the city of Rome at St. Ignatius Church, said Preston Dibble, diocesan director of music and pilgrimage leader.

“The Diocesan Choir gets together a few times a year to sing for diocesan religious services, such as the Chrism Mass or the ordination of priests. So this pilgrimage brought the group closer together. When you sing in St. Peter’s or St. Marco’s, the experience and the power of the music touches you. It creates a deep connection that’s’ overwhelming,” said Dibble, who also noted that the pilgrimage included the choir and their family and friends attending an audience with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square. “The trip deepened people’s faith quite a bit. When you recite the ‘Our Father’ at the papal audience in Latin with people and cultures from all over the world, you are connecting to the universal Church — not only with your local parish, diocese or country,” he said.

Bursting with renewed faith, Diocesan Choir members, who took the trip to Italy, expressed a readiness to sing for an upcoming Mass to celebrate an historic moment for the Church of Paterson: the re-dedication of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Paterson, on June 24. Dibble also hopes that the excitement of this trip will inspire other singers to join the choir.

The group’s first stop was Florence, where they toured the city’s museums and sang before and during a Mass in the Basilica of St. Marco. Organist Vincent Carr accompanied the choir, led by cantor, Janet Natale.

In Assisi, they toured and sang in the Basilica of St. Francis and toured the Basilica of St. Clare and St. Francis’ tomb. There, they happened upon Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the New York, said Rich Westerman of St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Mountain Lakes, who is a tenor in the choir.

In Rome, they took in historical sites and the landmarks of Vatican City, such as the Sistine Chapel. They also sang a full-length concert in St. Ignatius Church, which Westerman described as “Baroque, elaborate and gorgeous.”

The concert featured 10 pieces of music — from the Renaissance to the 19th century to contemporary — with an emphasis on U.S. composers. The pieces included “Ave Verum Corpus” by W. A. Mozart, “Pilgrim’s Hymn” by Stephen Paulus and “Jesu the Very Thought of Thee” by Paul Halley. A few of these compositions were part of diocesan events, but some were performed exclusively for the pilgrimage, said Dibble.

“The end of ‘Jesu the Very Thought of Thee’ is a showstopper with the singers singing and the organ playing at fortissimo. After the last note, you could still hear reverberation — the sound that kept going around [the basilica]. It was beautiful,” said Westerman.

The next day, they attended an audience with Pope Francis, which Westerman called a “wonderful experience.”

The pilgrimage ended with the Diocesan Choir singing at a 5 p.m. Mass at St. Peter’s, concelebrated by Msgr. Sylva, who surprised the singers with his presence. In his remarks after Mass, he praised the quality of the choir’s musicianship.

“It was great to see Msgr. Geno again. We met him before Mass,” said Urena, who sings in the choir of St. John’s Cathedral, where the soprano and her sister and fellow traveler, Daisy Velez, remembered the priest from when he served there as a seminarian. “Msgr. Geno was very gracious.”

Singing at St. Peter’s ended “an outstanding trip” and a “great week musically, spiritually and historically,” said Westerman, who traveled with his wife, Marie.

“We sang some pieces four times, which let the choir work out the musical nuances. We sang beautiful pieces with wonderful musicians,” Westerman said. “We visited wonderful holy places and big, beautiful churches. It was a fun trip of a lifetime,” he said.

Still excited from the pilgrimage — her first trip to Europe, Urena called the experience “an opportunity to get to know the other choir members better.”

“The pilgrimage reinforced my spiritual beliefs. I learned so much that I didn’t know,” Urena said. “As we kept singing throughout the trip, we got better. That will make the group much stronger,” she said.

[To join the choir, email [email protected]]