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By Susan Sullivan, Special To The Bulletin
ATLANTA—During the September terrorist tragedy, crowds
flocked to pray and reflect at what has become the spiritual center of the
Archdiocese of Atlanta, Peachtree Street in Buckhead, where twin, cross-topped
spires pierce the sky.
It is fitting that this visible Atlanta landmark was the place
where worshippers came during these most recent troubled times to find solace
amidst lasting spiritual and physical beauty.
The cool, elongated dimensions of the Cathedral of Christ the King
are imposing, defined by stone and marble. The glow of towering stained-glass
windows serves as a complement and contrast, providing visual insights into
church tradition and local history in 22 glittering groupings.
Such illumination offers a glimpse of the multiple levels of life
at the Cathedral. Though ministries in this parish of over 5,000 families are
astonishing in their variety, ranging from traditional to cutting edge, the
Cathedral is more than a parish. It may be a microcosm of the movements of the
Spirit responding to the Catholic growth in the archdiocese, possibly even in
the South.
Paul Wilkes, an author for Paulist Press, recently published a
book called “Excellent Catholic Parishes.” In the Georgia listing
readers will find St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Alpharetta and the Cathedral of
Christ the King in Atlanta. Concerning the Cathedral, Wilkes remarks on the
ministry to the homebound and hospitalized, the women’s Bible studies and
the choirs. He calls the parishes listed “a pattern” for serving
well.
Being a remarkable Catholic parish at the beginning of a new
millennium is the latest chapter in a rapidly changing history. Established in
1936 as a parish, in 1937 as a co-cathedral, and in 1956 as the spiritual home
of the Diocese of Atlanta, the Cathedral became in 1962 the home base of the
new archdiocese.
Throughout, the Cathedral has served as both a stalwart of
“old” Atlanta and a beacon to the thousands of transplanted newcomers
who have been drawn to both the building and its numerous faith ministries.
Here we find founding families of long-standing and immigrant
families of recent arrival. Here we find a mix of suburban and urban lifestyles
in an area where residents range from very wealthy to homeless. Here we find
old structures comfortably existing with new and a priority for educating
adults as well as children. Here is also a place where worshippers can find
both the spiritual expression of well-orchestrated choirs and the simple peace
of a perpetual adoration chapel in place since 1996.
The Christ the King community provides parish life that also must
welcome visitors from all over the archdiocese and the world. Visitors to
Atlanta arrive by the hundreds each Sunday for an experience of this
archdiocese as revealed in this parish.
Ordinations, the Chrism Mass during Holy Week and installations of
archbishops are all part of liturgical life here, along with funerals, first
Communions and nine weekend Masses. Bridging the various demands inherent in
this parish provides a constant challenge as well as constant opportunity for
parishioners and staff.
In the midst of such richness and complexity, it may be a
simplification to say that the 12 choirs at Christ the King, from Schola
Cantorum to Contemporary Ensemble to Hispanic to handbell, illuminate, express
and nourish the soul of the parish. The choirs are, and have been, at the core
of parish life here since the parish was founded in 1936. Music is a moving and
memorable part of liturgies at the Cathedral.
In 1938 Ham Smith’s mother, Helen Riley Smith, was the first
music director and organist at the Cathedral. She was followed three years
later by Jane McEvoy, who retired in 1964. Ham Smith has been the director of
music ministry since then.
The commitment to quality music that has always been a hallmark of
Christ the King has many levels, he said, including liturgy, leadership, time
and talent and financial stewardship.
“We’ve always had the notion that you need musicians who
are qualified, whatever the style or genre of the music,” Smith said.
“Music that is badly rendered has a negative impact on the liturgy. Music
is here to enhance the liturgy and serve ministry. We try to provide a wide
palette of musical styles — all of them done well. We strive for balance
between the opportunity for the assembly to participate in the singing and the
judicious use of music groups to enhance worship.”
“This building is made for music,” Smith said.
“We’d fall short if we didn’t take advantage of what we
have.”
That commitment means, among other things, paying some musicians
and singers, thus elevating the learning curve for the majority of amateurs. It
has also meant three significant upgrades to the pipe organ. The liturgy/music
budget represents 10 percent of the operating budget of the parish, he said.
The newest focus of the music ministry is the choirs for young
people. The children and young adults will be prepared for a lifetime of
sharing their musical gifts, a practice that the Episcopal and other churches
instituted generations ago, Smith said.
Kevin Culver has spent more than 12 of his 15 years at the
Cathedral as choirmaster. He directs the Cathedral and parish women’s
choirs and coordinates eight choirs. For Culver, liturgical music “helps
support the voice of the assembly and provides musical commentary on the text
of the Mass.” Yet, he also sees a connection between the music at Mass and
joining “all the choirs of angels in the unending hymn” of heavenly
praise.
“We try to connect with the congregation at something more
than the conscious level,” he said. “Part of our goal is for them to
step back from that world and take another look. We want to connect with the
heart and the spirit. Music is one of the most developed tools for that
connection. To a degree, music brings the soul . . . to worlds that aren’t
quite illuminated.”
The power of the connection is not simply aural. Culver pointed
out that the choir groups function as another form of small Christian
communities in the parish.
“A lot of what we are about is ministering to each
other,” he said.
Choirs are just one area of involvement at the Cathedral, where
there are more than 100 ministries, from the multifaceted evangelical programs
to the growing Hispanic outreach to popular young adult gatherings.
From the beginning, Christ the King School has also been an
integral part of parish life and parish ministry.
The parish school and parish church had simultaneous
groundbreaking ceremonies in 1937. That year, the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart
opened the school, adding grades as they were needed. Named a National School
of Excellence in 1986, the school underwent a $5 million renovation and
expansion project, completed in 2000, to ensure low student-teacher ratios and
ongoing educational quality. Today the school welcomes 570 students in grades
K-8, more than 60 teachers and staff as well as scores of volunteers.
Peggy Warner, principal at Christ the King School, finds a strong
collaboration between the school, the parents and the parish to be essential to
the education provided. That education includes service projects, from visiting
the elderly to assisting Birthright, the nondenominational outreach to women in
crisis pregnancies.
The school has many loyal alumni, including Barbara Johansen, a
parishioner since 1939, who attended the grade school with her six siblings.
She and four of her sisters attended the girls high school as well, though it
was closed in 1958 when St. Pius X High School opened in Atlanta.
“I’ve known every pastor,” Johansen said.
“Father (Joseph) Moylan was the first. We were outside the city limits
then. The only other parishes (then) were Lourdes, Immaculate Conception, St.
Anthony’s and Sacred Heart. The first pastor had a great vision,”
Johansen said. “He built this huge church. He envisioned a cathedral,
though Savannah (at that time) was the seat of the diocese.”
Her parents were very active in the parish, setting the family
precedent for roles in numerous organizations. Johansen’s mother, Gladys
Gunning, is one of at least three parishioners to receive the “Pro
Ecclesia Et Pontifice” medal from the pope in recognition of outstanding
service and charity.
Johansen’s own parish activities have included being a
eucharistic minister, serving on the parish council and the school board,
lectoring, helping at the school, Scouting and the 50th anniversary
celebration, to name a few.
“It’s been a privilege and an opportunity to be part of
the growth of this parish and to know the early founders,” Johansen said.
“It’s been thrilling to be a part of that and to hand it down.”
Handing down a faith tradition is a matter of cultural context. No
one in the parish may understand that better than Sister Maria Jesus, ACJ, who
this fall began her 12th year working with the Cathedral’s Hispanic
programs. A principal focus is the mission at Lindbergh. That ministry includes
a youth group, religious education, RCIA, a prayer group, a traveling shrine to
Our Lady of Guadalupe and Mass. The mission will be expanding its evening
programs soon.
Another set of programs for Hispanics is based at the Cathedral
and at a relatively new mission in a trailer park on Chattahoochee Avenue.
Sister Maria Jesus shares the work at the parish and the missions with
Franciscan Sister Blanca Lopez.
“Sometimes I think we’re stretched too thin,”
Sister Maria Jesus said. “But when people want you it’s hard to say
no. You don’t have a bored moment here.”
The welcoming tradition of the parish is also expressed the first
Sunday of each month after the 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Masses. Julie Richardson,
a parishioner for the past 12 years, saw a need for people to get to know other
people and the parish ministries.
“I just want to connect and reach out to people,” she
said. “I don’t want people to be lost in the parish. Coffee and
doughnuts was a tradition where I grew up. This is a way to try to fill a new
gap in a large parish.”
The new gathering space, completed in the latest building project
— part of an $11.5 million makeover which includes a three-story parish
center with new offices, classrooms and meeting space, a courtyard and
processional-assembly area — provides a wonderful location for this
informal, but important, ministry, Richardson said.
Hospitality can also include trained, loving support at a time of
major personal crisis. Carol Hunt’s many ministry “hats” include
the parish Stephen Ministry, where she has been active since its founding. The
interdenominational ministry trains parishioners to journey one-on-one with
another person in the parish in particular need, often because of illness or
loss. For her, service to the suffering is a fruit of the nourishment and joy
she finds in parish life.
“This parish does so much work in the community,” she
said. “St. Francis said to preach the Gospel at all times (by living the
Gospel values) and if necessary use words. That’s what this parish does by
its example . . . You are sort of challenged to go out and share spiritually in
gentle and sacred ways; in doing so you celebrate the divine encounter with
each person. Even in a time of suffering there is a journey that brings
light.”
You probably wouldn’t notice this next parishioner’s
ministry, unless she didn’t do it. Jane Flower, a parishioner for more
than 17 years, has been sacristan for about 10 of those years. She knows which
sacramentals, candles to oils, are needed by the liturgical teams coordinating
various sacraments. Ask her about altar and credence table linens by liturgical
season, where the albs of visiting priests are washed, how many purificators
are needed during Holy Week (18 dozen). She makes sure there are enough hosts
available and towels for cleaning the vessels and that the vessels are properly
secured — not to mention the dusting, vacuuming, polishing. When she
describes the handling of the gallons of oil to be blessed and distributed to
pastors at the time of the Chrism Mass each year, she sounds like a ballet
director.
How does she do it? She has teams of volunteers, 15 people in all.
Tom Bockman, for example, monitors the altar wine inventory and helps fill the
oil canisters in the sanctuary. Their ministry is one that is a service to the
archdiocese as well as the parish.
“It’s a million little jobs that have to be done
regularly,” Flower said, “like, where are the matches? It’s
about little things done exceedingly well on a consistent basis so that all
celebrations can unfold gracefully. It takes many hands in a large
parish.”
Washing, dusting and ironing are essential, but essentially
low-tech; not so Lee Ann Hantula’s ministry. Hantula came into the
Catholic Church at the Cathedral in 1993. By 1999 she and her husband were
serving on the new Technology Committee.
She and a team of a dozen other computer professionals are working
on everything from a developing the parish web site, to updating the
parishioner database on the parish priests’ and pastoral care
coordinator’s palm pilots. This group also selects and oversees computer
service providers for the parish and helps with the challenge of scheduling all
the events and meetings in the parish facilities, among other projects.
When the “Outlook” scheduling program was recently
launched, 21,000 events came up as being scheduled at the Cathedral over the
next 12 to 18 months, said Andrea Merriman, parish secretary.
For Hantula this ministry emphasizes the ways technology can help
the church carry out its mission.
“The people on the committee work very hard,” she said.
“I am thankful to them.”
When it comes to working hard at the Cathedral of Christ the King,
Keri Allen is near the top of the list. As director of evangelization, she is
responsible for the RCIA program, the Jericho praise and worship ministry,
Living in the Spirit seminars, apologetics seminars, Catholics Returning Home,
Cathedral Bible Study for Women and several other Bible studies. Since the late
1990s, the women’s Bible study has grown to about 200 participants. Fifty
to 70 people come on Monday evenings to a Bible study open to everyone, which
has been meeting for about 10 years.
A parishioner for 16 years, Allen has spent much of that time on
the parish staff. Deepening individual, parish and community spiritual life
might sum up much of her work.
The Jericho ministry is the newest of her responsibilities. It
came about as a follow-up to the Living in the Spirit seminars.
Meeting on Thursday evenings, roughly during the school year, the
purpose of the Jericho group, Allen said, is to “use our praises, worship
and prayers to tear down the walls keeping people from the Lord. We have
intercessory prayer for the lost, the unchurched, Catholics who’ve been
away, for those who are obsessed with careers, power or other addictions. We
pray for our city. We are trying to reclaim our city for the Lord.” The
evening includes singing, Scripture readings, eucharistic adoration and
fellowship.
Developing young people spiritually is the focus of Anne
Boshinski’s ministry. As director of Family and Children’s
Ministries, she oversees everything from sacramental preparation to religious
education to the nursery offered during Masses. Her work, and that of more than
200 volunteers, touches the faith of nearly 700 children, “the church of
tomorrow,” as she puts it.
“Our catechists are loving and caring. Every year I am struck
by their Spirit-filled dedication,” Boshinski said. “We are doing the
best we can to provide these children with an opportunity for spiritual growth.
We try to provide a program that provides fellowship for families and children.
We want them to be drawn to worship, study, prayer and community. That is where
they will find Christ. We want the child to find a church ‘home,’
where they will be drawn for the rest of their lives.”
During the recent physical renovations at the Cathedral, and at
Christ the King School, architects, with the guidance of parish staff and
committees, went to great lengths to make the new blend with the old, even
seeking limestone from the same quarries as those used in 1937.
The results are virtually seamless, as the new parish center sits
between the historic Cathedral and the school. Yet the new space has made it
possible for the parish to do more, as it must, in a growing archdiocese and in
an increasingly Catholic metropolitan area.
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Many Wed Here
Weddings are one measure of life at the Cathedral of Christ the
King, Atlanta. Every Saturday, except during Holy Week, three weddings are
scheduled at noon, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. respectively. The calendar is fully
booked months ahead. Parish secretary Andrea Merriman said the parish receives
10 to 15 calls a day from couples inquiring about marriage preparation.
In addition to those who will actually have their wedding
ceremonies held at the Cathedral, the parish prepares just as many couples who
belong to the parish, but whose weddings will be celebrated in other Catholic
churches. Initial pre-Cana preparation begins with couples attending a group
program on either a Monday evening or a Saturday morning. This is followed by
individual preparation with a deacon or priest, in addition to the
couples’ participation in an archdiocesan marriage preparation program.
83 People In Catechumenate
Those who are interested in joining the Catholic Church at the
Cathedral of Christ the King may take part in a new inquiry process beginning
next Tuesday. The inquiry can be an opportunity for people to have their
questions answered and to take a first step. It can also be the entry point for
those who are ready to move into the catechumenate process, the formal
preparation to join the Catholic Church.
There are now approximately 83 people in the catechumenate program
at the Cathedral, preparing to become Catholic at the Easter Vigil in 2002.
Those who join the new inquiry group will be starting a process
that could lead to entrance into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in
2003.
Cathedral Reflects History Of Archdiocese
June 15, 1936—Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara of Savannah
establishes the Parish of Christ the King.
Jan. 5, 1937—Pope Pius XI issues a proclamation changing the
Diocese of Savannah to the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta and making Christ the
King Church a co-cathedral with the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in
Savannah.
July 2, 1956—The Diocese of Atlanta is created and Christ the
King becomes the Cathedral church of the new diocese. Bishop Francis E. Hyland
is installed as the first bishop of Atlanta.
Feb. 21, 1962—The Archdiocese of Atlanta is created with the
Cathedral of Christ the King as its Cathedral church. Archbishop Paul J.
Hallinan is installed as the first archbishop of Atlanta. |
