By Rita McInerney

The Roman pilgrimage of St. Jude’s parish choir was so full of memorable moments as to make a travel brochure dull reading.

For 41 choir members from the Sandy Springs parish in the group of 78 people on the Feb. 1 to 8 trip, the itinerary was dedicated to performing. They raised their voices three times in the Eternal City and once at the shrine of St. Francis in Assisi.

The moment the choir had practiced months for came Wednesday morning, Feb. 7, when they sang at the weekly public audience held by Pope John Paul II in the Vatican’s modern audience hall. Positioned near the steps leading to the papal chair, the choir was heard by about 5,000 people from around the world fortunate enough to obtain tickets to see the pope on his own ground.

The choir began singing shortly after arriving at 10 a.m. The pope appeared shortly after 11:30 a.m. Everything they sang was a cappella.

When a large group of American sailors entered the huge hall and took seats behind the barricade which separated the audience from the area where the pope and the choir were, Alan Brown, minister of music at St. Jude’s, gave the signal to swing into the traditional old hymn for seafarers, “Eternal Father, Strong To Save.”

During the pre-audience concert, the St. Jude men’s quarter sang the Irish Blessing and “Holy, Holy, Holy.” For the pope, the well-practiced choir sang the Latin “Jubilate Deo” to the accompaniment of their handbells.

Sister Eileen Murray, GNSH, minister to the parish elderly, was surprised to find herself singing the poignant spiritual, “His Eye Is On The Sparrow.” She had no plans to solo, but then “I got the tap on the shoulder from Mr. Brown.”

She later reflected that the selection was especially fitting since the pope, in his multi-language message to the audience, spoke of his recent trip to Africa and the urgent need both for development aid and missionary vocations in the countries he visited.

“There was a sense of great peace in the audience hall as the pope spoke,” Brown commented.

A young people’s folk group from Austria dressed in native costume, also sang for pope and people that morning. The singers were “charming,” said Father Austin Fogarty, parochial vicar at St. Jude’s and spiritual director for the trip, a “lovely complement” to the traditional professional choir from Atlanta.

After the prayers, Scripture and talk, Pope John Paul led the entire assembly in singing the “Our Father” in Latin, Brown said.

This, for the musician who came to the Roman Catholic Church through conversion, was an emotional high point.

“Everyone was able to sing the ‘Our Father’ in blessing. A unifying spirit swept through the entire group. We were all able to be one with the pope. Him leading us from up there, that was very special,” Brown said.

Then came the electrifying moment when the pontiff stepped down to thank the Sandy Springs singers. “Excellente,” he told the awed men and women. “Wonderful choir, marvelous choir.”

He wanted to know where they came from. When Brown said Atlanta, Ga. In southeast U.S., the pontiff replied, “I was there.” (Pope John Paul came to the southeast U.S. in September, 1987, with Columbia, S.C., among cities visited.)

Brown presented greetings from Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, and Father Michael Woods, St. Jude pastor.

“Is Archbishop Marino a good bishop?” the pope wanted to know.

“Yes, he is a very fine archbishop,” Brown answered. “Thank you for sending him to us.”

Emotion ran high among the excited choir members during the dialogue. Once the pope happened to notice a male singer with tears in his eyes.

“Smile,” the pope told him. Joe Fredette cried harder. “The pope said ‘smile,’” he commanded with a smile. Everyone laughed.

Before the audience ended, the pontiff moved among the people. The blessing of the sick was “very tender,” Brown noticed. And “he did not shy away from being touched,” as he moved beyond the barricade and down the aisle.

“There was a great, joyous dignity among the audience,” Brown noticed as people reached out to touch the pope.

The group arrived in Rome Friday after a Two flight from Kennedy Airport in New York. “We hit the road running,” Brown said with a two-hour rehearsal Saturday morning at their hotel in Rome. It was the feast of St. Blaise, “Father Austin gathered us all together and blessed our throats.”

That put them in good voice for Sunday morning when they sang the 10:30 Latin High Mass in the Chair of St. Peter chapel. This chapel is in the front of St. Peter’s under the Holy Spirit window and behind the Bernini altar which is used only by the pope, Brown said.

Father Fogarty gave the first reading, which is always in English, and Loris Sinanian, a present deacon from St. Jude’s, assisted at the Mass. He was the only deacon among cardinals, bishops and monsignors, his wife, Peggy, pointed out.

The Liturgy at the Vatican, Brown discovered, “flows rather swiftly.” And the choir members, “more excited than nervous, were as prepared as we possibly could be for the situation. We had to be on our toes, to go with the changes,” he said. “It was all in God’s hands.”

Patsy Barnes, the St. Jude organist, was able to play several times during the Mass. Tom and Marina Peters and Liz Oliver took up the gifts for the Consecration.

After the Mass everyone hurried out to St. Peter’s Square to receive the blessing the pope bestows each Sunday from his balcony. This turned out to be an incredible moment for Peggy Sinanian, choir member and pro-life coordinator for the archdiocese.

It being Right To Life Sunday the pope spoke forcefully on the sanctity of the unborn. As banners waved over the heads of the throng, she recalled with emotion the Jan. 22 Respect for Life Mass and rally in downtown Atlanta.

That evening the choir performed in concert at St. Ignatius Church, located not too far from the Pantheon, the temple to all the gods of ancient Rome. The one-hour program was varied, Brown said, with selections typical of the Catholic heritage, American hymns and American sacred music.

The choir members and their spouses and supporters were surprised to find, in their bus travel around Rome on Saturday and Sunday, posters advertising the concert plastered on church and public buildings. Many were able to alight from the bus and have their pictures taken in front of the “St. Jude choir” posters.

On Monday, Father Fogarty celebrated Mass at the shrine of St. Francis in the Assisi crypt where he is buried. The priest had brought a book on the beloved saint with him on the trip and drew his homily from a reflection Francis made while living in a cave on the mountainside. He wrote, Father Fogarty said, of the darkness of the cave and within himself, and of his longing to see the light and hear the song of his friends, the birds.

“We were in a cave, the crypt,” Father Austin said.

The choir sang the “Prayer To St. Francis” at his burial place and Sister Eileen offered “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” for the first time in Italy.

It was in Assisi, Father Fogarty, a first time visitor, said that he “sensed the spirit of renewal in the Church.” In Rome, it was the “awesome power” of the Church that impressed him.

For Sister Eileen, riding in buses over roads where Peter and Paul had once walked, “Rome was everything I hoped it would be. The spirit comes through. It was almost a feeling of coming home.”

She felt “very proud for Mr. Brown when the pope put his arm around him, for all the work he had done with the choir.”

For Brown, the dream began in February, 1989, when he flew to Rome to attend the second International Congress of Catholic Musicians. He was not an official delegate but represented the archdiocese and his own parish on an unofficial level.

At the time, he met a Vatican official, Monsignor Paulo Colino, and told him of his desire to bring the St. Jude choir to Rome. The priest gave him forms to fill out and emphasized that “Latin was very important.”

Back in Sandy Springs, he told Father Bill Hoffman, pastor at the time, of his hopes and was told to “Go for it.”

“I owe him a great deal,” Brown said. “He believed in me.”

The choir began studying Latin hymns in August, put a program together in September and began practicing four hours a week, on Monday and Thursday nights in October. All the while, the group was still functioning as a parish choir with all the demands that presents.

For Brown, the musical pilgrimage was “the highest point of my life, professionally and personally.”

While in Rome, he realized that the Vatican is “pushing Latin,” trying to “get the Church back into that unifying language musically.”

And there was tremendous significance for him, standing in the vast audience hall, hearing everyone singing “Our Father” in Latin with the pope.

Coming from a musical background formed in Protestant church, Brown said “I don’t know that I like it” but he feels more understanding now why Latin is the language of the universal Church.

While the performances in Rome had the St. Jude singers soaring in the clouds, an impromptu performance high above Atlanta en route home had a touching ecumenical flavor.

Sharing the big jet with them were about 250 Soviet Jews flying to new homes in the states. They had been several months in Italy waiting for sponsors.

Most were young families, Brown said. They carried baskets filled with cheese and oranges and even babies. “It was life a scene from a movie,” Brown said.

As they neared Kennedy, choir members, with permission from the captain, lined up along the aisles in the three-section cabin and serenaded the apprehensive newcomers.

They sang the Irish Blessing and “America the Beautiful.” A stewardess suggested a number to make them clap their hands. The choir responded with the lively “This Is The Day That The Lord Has Made.”

At one point, movie stars Al Pacino and Diane Keaton, traveling in first class, came back to join in the singing.

The choir hadn’t been home very long when Brown heard from several people who attended the recent 1990 International Congress of Catholic Musicians. The callers all had the same news to report, that Monsignor Colino had informed congress attendees that the St. Jude Church choir from Atlanta, Ga., was a “model American choir.”