GOOD LEADS TO FOLLOW.

Five liturgical leaders, and those they lead, explain ways to make good prayer

FOR FATHER CHUCK FASO, O.F.M. there's nothing like presiding at a wedding. The sacrament of marriage calls for a wide range of presiding skills and offers him plenty of affirmation about how he is appreciated in his role as the leader of a community's prayer.

At weddings, feedback on his presiding skills is immediate and genuine. "When I do weddings at different churches around the country, there is a real consistency. People line up to say how their lives were touched or moved, and it's not just the words they say but the emotions I read on their faces when they say it. At weddings you often get people who don't come to Mass regularly, and one thing I hear afterward is, `Father, if you lived here, I'd come to church all the time.'"

What qualities do people in the pew appreciate about good presiders? What motivates good liturgical leaders--and what can the people in the assembly do during Mass to affirm them? What do good leaders of liturgy put into it that makes it both an enriching experience for those assembled and satisfying for the ministers?

This feature highlights a handful of people who were judged to have exceptional skills in leading others in communal prayer. Also included are comments from people who have had the pleasure of observing these good presiders to learn what they--both people in the pew and folks trained in liturgical prayer--liked about their style.

For the love of the job

Ella Cooper sees a priest who loves what he's doing when Father Paul Quintet presides at St. Raymond Church in the northwest corner of Philadelphia.

"I just see him as such a happy, spiritual man," says Cooper, a secretary. "He's very warm and always has a funny story that usually relates to himself or his family. He seems so close to the Lord."

"Presiding at liturgy really is the core of what we're supposed to be doing as priests," says the 44-year-old, who was ordained 18 years ago to serve the Philadelphia archdiocese and also edits the Catholic Standard & Times newspaper.

"The liturgy is supposed to inspire both me and the community to go out and live our faith. It's for God, but it's for us, too--we're strengthened by what we're taught in word and Eucharist."

It is an expressive, participative liturgy that the primarily African American assembly enjoys at St. Raymond. Quinter brings energy and movement to the experience, walking back and forth across the sanctuary as he engages each and every member of the assembly, making points in his homily with a passion but bringing that same passion to every spoken word of the Mass and every action of the rite.

As pastor of St. Raymond, Msgr. John O'Brien says he has heard from parishioners that "every person feels he's speaking to them no matter what their age, spiritual background, or need for the moment.

"Paul is a communicator who believes so strongly in our Lord and in the Eucharist. He utilizes the liturgy to the very maximum, bringing that message of our Lord to the people. His great gift is his ability to bring the human experience to everyday living and to show how our Lord can be the center of the everyday experience, even in our society as it is today."

The gift, though, starts with a philosophy that Mass is a celebration, and Quinter says he tries to put meaning into every part of liturgy because he wants people to participate.

"You want a good prayer experience. You can't just show up and do it any more than you would just walk into a workout and start lifting weights. You gotta stretch out first. It's the same thing with liturgy. There is a lot of preparation beforehand with the team--readers who prepare so the word is well-proclaimed, music in theme and participatory. You can't just blow in and preside, because you're not going to get the best out of it.

"One of the leader's jobs is not ownership but leadership. The good leader is going to elicit the best out of people to make it the best [experience] for them."

Quinter knows from experience that can happen, and that the liturgy can change lives. A small point of a homily once touched upon the issue of alcohol abuse. After Mass, a woman with four children came up to speak to him and broke down crying.

"I don't know why I went on that topic other than it came to me in prayerful preparation of the readings, but I believe it was the Lord, and I believe it was for that person," Quinter says. "Follow-up came after that, and I was able to help the family. You never know the power God's word might have on people, but obviously what I said touched her and brought God to her."

The rite approach

Franciscan Father Chuck Faso says learning to "love people and be with them" has had an impact on how he leads people in prayer--in fact, how he approaches each opportunity to preside at prayer.

"I'm not doing something in front of people--I do it for them and with them. I feel connected to them. I always try before a liturgy to stand in the lobby and greet people or walk around the church, talking and touching people, shaking hands, asking them questions about themselves. That gives me the feeling that people are calling me to celebrate for them. I feel as though people are ordaining me for that service. It's always like the first time I'm presiding whenever I put on my vestments."

A priest for 33 years, 59-year-old Faso spent 21 years at St. Peter's in Chicago's Loop. Now he's a full-time itinerant preacher for the Sacred Heart Province of the Franciscans based in St. Louis.

Faso gets excited seeing people get caught up in the action of the Mass or the rituals of the sacraments, he says, because he understands why Catholics do what is done in liturgy. "That I can be an instrument of the Lord's presence, letting his grace and love flow through me into hearts and lives, that's what gives me satisfaction."

Allowing that to happen requires knowing the rite, trusting it, and doing it to your human and grace-filled best, Faso says. "I try not to get in the way of the rites."

According to Faso, his presiding has succeeded from observing people. "There is an energy in the community--people are looking, people are smiling, not just during the Mass but after. They talk about what just happened. There is some energy, some love, and some hope. Mass isn't for God--Mass is for us. We need it."

To get to that degree of satisfaction, however, Faso prepares to lead prayer by praying, takes care that each element and ritual action has meaning, and annually undergoes a review.

"Presiding isn't a matter of reading the recipe, it's a matter of faith statements," he says. "I pray over each of the Eucharistic Prayers in my room. Then when you stand over the text as the official leader of prayer, that prayer is coming from a place deep inside of you. It shows. You can hear the difference."

During the various portions of liturgy when a response from the assembly is required, Faso says he makes a point to look at people, "to help them perk up their ears. What do you do whenever anybody is talking to you? You look at them."

Faso says he always talks with the lectors before a liturgy to ask them if they have any questions. "I tell them the point of the reading that I will be drawing on in the homily, what I will be emphasizing. Then, when they are reading, I glue my eyes to the lector."

Once a year, he has somebody with a video camera tape him presiding. "Then I go up to my room with someone who will be honest with me--but gentle--and watch it."

Faso needs to feel people being drawn along with him as their communal prayer develops, and that starts right from the gathering rite. "I need people to feel really connected in what we're doing, feeling first of all gathered in God's mercy and embrace," Faso says. "Then I need them to listen. We all come with our difficulties and distractions, but I give them something to listen for. I always give a two-sentence introduction to the readings. We're used to that from the TV news. I'll say something like, `Paul's writing to Corinth, and here's the question, and here's our question, too.'"

Sweet surrender

Just to be praying with a community of others--no matter the size--is satisfying for Sister Teresita Weind, S.ND.deN.

"I need attention and presence from the community--and surrender," says Weind. "Everyone in the group will surrender to the mystery, they won't be watching me. Their attention and focus keep me attentive and aware of what we are doing together. That's what I really appreciate: That we've come to pray and we're doing it."

Whether it is a group at the Sacred Heart Neighborhood House of Prayer that she directs in Saginaw, Michigan, or parishioners at nearby Sts. Simon and Jude Church where she serves as a pastoral associate, the 58-year-old Sister of Notre Dame de Namur says she finds it important to put prayer, not presiding, first.

"That's the gift I bring," she says. "It is always, always my intent to pray, not to lead the group in prayer. I always hope that we, all of us in the group, will connect by praying together, but my focus is on the praise and worship--adoration in the real good sense of that word."

That's how others see her, also "She's first of all a woman of prayer herself," points out Sts. Simon and Jude pastor Father Robert Schramm, O.S.F.S. "Teresita is obviously well-read. She lives by herself, and purposely so, so she can spend time contemplatively, and that comes across in what she says and how she says it."

Sacred Heart Neighborhood House of Prayer provides spiritual direction to individuals and offers retreats, days of prayer, and spiritual direction for groups in Saginaw. Much of Weind's opportunity to lead others in prayer comes before groups of varying sizes, but, according to Schramm, she has also earned the love and respect of Sts. Simon and Jude parishioners when she preaches and leads prayer at the parish. He thinks her own experiences of hurt and rejection have given her a deep-seated compassion for others.

"She's a person who visits the sick a lot. She spends a lot of time with people when they are in trouble, and that gives her a lot of authenticity when she leads prayer here. She's dearly loved."

Schramm says the worship space at Sts. Simon and Jude has a closeness that makes for very inclusive prayer. "Somebody described the space as a `sacred living room,'" he says, "so it's got a built-in intimacy. Teresita takes advantage of that intimacy so well. She tends to move around quite a bit, so it's easy for people to feel they are in touch with her."

For Weind, being in touch with others and with God is what communal prayer is all about. She takes satisfaction just connecting with one person's facial expression and feeling "we've surrendered to a mystery at work, a mystery that's with us and beyond us."

Weind remembers when she felt a whole church caught up in the mystery at the same time: when St. Catherine-St. Lucy's in Oak Park, Illinois celebrated its centennial with an evening of prayer.

"We involved children from the parish and children from the school, and many of the children from school didn't belong to the parish. We had some 100 children, and each carried a candle into the church. When they all came in together, there was simply a moment of transcendence. I felt it, and I heard later that others felt it, too. Watching those little children carrying candles up to the sanctuary in memory of the parish, we were caught up in the moment."

Performance art

Annette Turner wishes Jesuit Father Joseph A. Brown served in Louisville, Kentucky instead of Carbondale, Illinois.

"If I could have him here in our archdiocese, it would truly be a gift from God," says Turner, executive director of the Office for Multicultural Ministries in the Archdiocese of Louisville. "He gives so much and he has so much to give.

"In terms of pure worship, Father Brown is very much guided by the Holy Spirit. He's very free. He's not inhibited by the structure that he might be presiding in. He's very much alive. He's very theatrical."

Brown, who teaches at Southern Illinois University, wouldn't deny the spirituality--or the theatrics--as he leads prayer. He knowingly adapts gesture, sound, and sight so he can be seen and heard--and understood--by those near and far from him in the worship space.

"The key to presiding is to develop a sense of rhythm," says the 28-year veteran priest. "Those who are responsible for the development of the ritual--the liturgy--must have a sense of the appropriate balance of the elements. Every ritual is, at base, a performance, and the requirements for any type of performance apply to church rituals.

"Those gathered must feel that the rhythm of the event is conducive to their involvement, to the building of trust within the participants. The presider must be the master drummer who maintains a balance of rhythms so that all who are participating feel that they can in fact be engaged."

Brown, who is currently preparing the liturgies for the next National Black Catholic Congress, judges whether liturgy has been good by employing some unique concepts.

"There is something that occurs in every good liturgy that I call `deep silence.' Even when a room is quiet, there is another level of attentiveness that goes much deeper in concentration and awareness. When the entire gathering is focused on what is happening at any given moment, it is like an elevator that makes a sudden, rapid, descent. The gathering of the focus is palpable. What was quiet becomes deep silence."

Brown also notices the "across" effect. "When people across age-groups, gender categories, cultural identities, class levels all speak of how they were deeply moved, affected, then I trust that something happened, and that whatever it was, it could be called good liturgy," he says.

The director of SIU's Black American Studies Program, Brown says he tries to put honesty into his performance as a presider.

"I also make a special effort to speak the language of the assembly," he says. "For me, the work of the presider is to be the reflector of the prayer of the people. In the traditional eucharistic liturgy, certain prayers were called collects. Presiders must manifest a sense that the people pray through us, so we must reflect the concerns, language, images, and rhythms of the people assembled. To present the truth, simply and clearly, takes a great deal of effort. To be an effective presider, one must be prepared to do that work, but to do it without affectation."

Brown expects members of the assembly to be present to the ritual just as a good conversationalist pays attention when others are speaking. Actors, he says, are trained to listen hard when they are not speaking on stage.

"Even silence must be an active part of a conversation. The assembly can be in full participation even in moments of silence. Any liturgy that does not permit profound, sacred, silence is a failure to me."

The success of any prayer experience is enhanced when people feel welcomed as they gather and are prepared for the ritual.

"It never hurts to tell people what will occur and how they can be a part of it," Brown says. "When people understand their role in a ritual, they bring a level of creativity to it that often astonishes me. Rituals are organic to a people's collective memory. If the ritual is not organic, it becomes a show with a set of performers and a static audience. But that is not liturgy."

Turner appreciates Brown's empathy with people's memories when preaching. "When he's conducting prayer and worship, he connects the old with the new, and in doing that he provides a foundation that perhaps some of us have moved away from."

Turner says Brown's is a very Afrocentric approach to preaching.

"He leads you right to the edge of where you need to be to respond--to where God is calling you to be--and he invites you to step off the cliff, to fly. He helps you to see the truth. And sometimes the truth hurts. Dealing with the truth, you have to move beyond where you are. If you stay in that current state, you can't grow."

Passion Sundays 

After presiding at a Sunday liturgy, Father Jose Rubio usually is exhausted.

A priest of the Diocese of San Jose, California, he takes a cue from Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard and tries to "draw the prayer out of the people" when leading them.

He really gets a lift if, when he says "Lift up your hearts," he hears an enthusiastic "We have lifted them up to the Lord." But even a strong "amen" or one person nodding in agreement during a homily motivates him to pour his heart into presiding with a passion.

Rubio emphasizes every world of the eucharistic prayer, saying it more slowly than most presiders and exaggerating the gestures. "I try to make it forceful, like I'm forcing the Spirit into the bread and wine."

When it is the people's turn to offer a verbal response during the liturgy, he leans forward and looks directly at them to show he is listening.

Sam Rojas, who plays the trumpet at Sacred Heart in San Jose where Rubio was assigned for many years, calls it a special treat when Rubio presides at Mass.

"You go to a later Mass, and you hear from people, `Boy, you should have heard Father Rubio this morning.' He really makes you look forward to his services. We've been Catholics our whole lives, and we couldn't always say that. He really makes you feel like you want to be there."

Rojas says Rubio's style of presiding keeps everyone's attention. "He really takes control of the flock," Rojas says. "I think he's a good example of what Christ wants us to do when we share his word. I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. And his homilies are so incredibly interesting."

According to Sister Rita Claire Dorner, O.P., a liturgy and catechesis expert who teaches in the graduate program in pastoral ministry at nearby Santa Clara University, Rubio seems to know the people so well. "He's totally present, and he has a good sense of what people are praying for," she says.

"Jose takes the prayers of the liturgy seriously, and he prays them seriously," she adds. "He prays them slowly and meaningfully, and doesn't slip over any of the words. They're really prayed with heart. Part of that is the good tempo he has. He observes good pauses to allow people to absorb the meaning of the words."

Dorner also notes that Rubio, along with being a good storyteller, is an expressive one, using his arms and facial movements to hold people's attention. She recalls a recent Sunday when she looked around during Mass. "People weren't even breathing, they were paying such close attention."

"He also has a gift for certain improvisations that are quite moving. At the Sign of Peace, when the priest asks the Lord to `grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom,' Jose will add, `may there be peace in our land, in our community, and in our homes--may there always be peace in our homes.' You can tell people really identify with that. They're almost waiting expectantly for it."

The ecumenical officer for the diocese, Rubio, 51, now has a weekend assignment at St. Patrick's in San Jose. He also helps out at St. Elizabeth's in Milpitas, usually presiding at the Spanish-language Masses at both parishes. A 20-year veteran priest, he presides in English as well.

According to Rubio, "One of the things I enjoy about leading people is when I notice they are actually praying the words. I've had somebody come up to me and tell me, `You know, when you were saying the prayer, I was really praying with you.' It's the liturgy itself that works, that moves us. The whole flow, the text, the songs, the people singing, it has a power of its own."

PRESIDER PRINCIPLES

WHILE NO "3 EASY STEPS TO GREAT PRESIDING" emerged, some common principles were present among all presiders, and those same elements were also frequently the ones observers appreciated. Some of the characteristics of good leaders of community prayer:

* They prepare. They prepare themselves and they help prepare others who will be ministering at the liturgy.

* They are prayerful themselves and draw out prayerfulness from the community.

* They make a point to communicate with every person in the assembly, making eye contact around the worship space and making everyone feel connected to the words and actions of the ritual.

* They are energetic and enthusiastic.

* They encourage participation by the assembly and feed off it.

* They are present, paying attention to lectors and readers, listening to the responses of the assembly.

* They put meaning into every word and gesture.

* They understand the power of the liturgy.

* They are open to feedback and critical review of their presiding skills.

AND WHAT DOES GOOD LITURGY ASK OF THOSE IN THE PEW?

Here's a quick list culled from recommendations of good presiders:

* Prepare mentally. As you arrive at the church or worship space, recall why you are gathering in a community with others.

* Be present. Put aside life's distractions and concerns and give your attention to the words and the actions of the ritual.

* Listen. Think about what the words of the rite mean.

* Respond noticeably. Let the presider see your reactions. Participate in the responses and the songs.

* Make your own the prayer the presider is offering.

* Let the liturgy do the work. Realize that liturgy is meant to move you.

* Give the presider feedback. Comments are welcomed not just on the homily but on his or her other skills as well. Affirmation is appreciated, but so are constructive criticism and questions.

BOB ZYSKOWSKI is associate publisher of The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.