HONORING OUR LADY — Archdiocesan Boy’s Choir member Jimmy Hogan
sings a solo during the concert of sacred music in the Basilica.
 

Adventures in Song: Archdiocesan Boys Choir

By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent
 

The Archdiocesan Boys Choir is not your average singing club. For boys age 7 to 16 years, it’s more like a spiritual adventure that occasionally reaches global proportions.

Their latest adventure was a return trip to Fatima, Portugal to celebrate the feasts of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. The choir celebrated the Feasts of the Two Hearts in Fatima, Portugal. The choir director Tom Windfelder led a group of 144 people, including 54 of the 77 member choir, on a 10 day tour from June 15-24.

“It was a busy tour with very little down-time,” Windfelder said. “We did five concerts, sang at three masses –– two of which were international –– sang two benedictions and performed at three international rosary night processions.”

In between, the boys ventured through Moorish castles, enjoyed a medieval feast, visited the burial sites of several saints and strolled through monasteries that pre-date the discovery of North America.

The high point of the trip for many of the boys, however, came just after the group landed at Lisbon Airport.

They were about an hour’s drive outside Lisbon when the bus stopped at a little town name Santarem. Inside an old church named after St. Stephen, the boys found themselves face to face with a genuine miracle. Carefully enshrined atop the main altar is a host that bled profusely when stolen by a local woman in the 13th century.

Choir member Andrew Goebel, 13, told the story: “A woman was having trouble with her husband and she went to a fortune-teller for help. The fortune-teller asked her to bring her a consecrated Host. So the woman went to a weekday mass and instead of putting the host in her mouth, she slipped it under her garments. As she was walking home, a friend of hers stopped her and said, ‘You’re bleeding.’ There was a trail of blood behind her. She knew right away it was the host. So she went home and hid it in a chest in her attic and the same night, there was this light coming out of the attic.”

The light was so brilliant it attracted the whole town and by the next day, almost everyone had witnessed the miracle. In a solemn procession, the parish priest brought the Host back to the church where it has remained for the last 750 years.

“And it’s still alive,” Goebel said. “The same host, with little blood particles. Scientists have tested it and found it to be blood. It looks like a piece of flesh with dried blood. It was definitely the high point of the trip.”

The choir had the great honor of singing a benediction to the miraculous Host at St. Stephen’s and afterward they were permitted to individually venerate it. “The monstrance is above the main altar,” Wendfelder explained, “but there’s a little side stairway where you can come up behind the altar and stand within a foot of the miracle. With the light coming through you can actually see the coagulated blood. Each boy had his own private moment with Him.”

It was one of many unforgettable moments on the tour, which included singing at the Coimbra Monastery, where the only surviving Fatima seer, 97-year-old Sister Lucia of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was celebrating her feast day.

The group stayed at Domus Pacis (House of Peace) in Fatima and the choir members were privileged to sing the main Sunday Mass for the pilgrims. Windfelder, who has been directing the choir since 1988, explained: “They sang the Mass of the Angels, a Gregorian Chant. This is the one Mass the Pope asked everybody to learn so that when big crowds get together for Mass we all have something in common.”

The Portuguese were delighted to hear such young children singing Latin chants, but when the choir sang a few songs in their native Portuguese, “they had smiles from ear to ear,” Windfelder said.

The mission of the choir is to help young people get to know their Church better through music, which is why they learn what the songs mean, and why certain music is sung at certain times.

“When we do Holy Thursday music, that’s a great teaching tool. What is Holy Thursday? Why are we singing about the Eucharist? What is the Eucharist? Is the Eucharist real? So when we do a song about this or that, I use it as a tool for learning.”

Teresa Zubert, Chairperson of the Parent Board, said, “You know the children are absorbing it because it comes back through the parents. The parents will say, ‘I didn’t know that about my faith. I want to know more about this.’ ”

The children are very often in the lead when it comes to venturing deeper into the faith. In fact, Zubert’s 13-year-old son, Michael, was one of four boys who performed the traditional walk around Fatima’s Cova da Iria on their knees –– at 4:00 o’clock in the morning.

“It was their own idea,” Teresa said. “Many of our boys did the walkway on their knees.”

Eleven-year-old Raymond Penyak was one of them, “But not at four o’clock in the morning!” he said.

For Brendan Bradley, 11, who is one of eight children, this was his first trip overseas. He was never homesick, he said, and came home with a whole new interest in the rosary. “Our Lady wants us to pray the rosary every day,” he said, and bought a rosary for every member of his family.

Jimmy Hogan, 13, thought the whole trip was a great experience, and had his own special moment to talk about. “I sang a solo. My voice has been changing and I wasn’t sure if I could hit the high notes because I’m right on the edge of not being able to do it anymore. It was ironic because I was standing at a lectern and right behind me was the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.”

He hit the note just fine. After the concert, when the director gave him a pat on the back, he said, “Well, look who was behind me.”

Fourteen-year-old Brendan Dalton was amazed by the candlelight rosary processions. “There’s so many people, like 15,000 on a Saturday night, and everybody has a candle. It was just illuminating.”

Getting close to the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima was another high moment for the boys. This statue was created from descriptions given to the artist by the three seers, Lucia, Jacinta and Francesco, shortly after the apparitions. It is the same statue Pope John Paul II brought to Rome in 1984 for the world consecration, and the bullet that almost took his life in 1981 is imbedded in the crown.

“On our last night there we got to get close to the statue of Our Lady of Fatima,” said 10-year-old John Salandria, “—closer than normal pilgrims get.” They were almost close enough to touch it.

The adventure came to an end when the choir landed in Newark airport on June 24. The boys returned to their homes, which are scattered throughout the area. In fact, the choir is very much like a microcosm of the Archdiocese.

“The boys come from all over,” Zubert said. “Some come from schools where they have big fences around the playground. Others come from way out in God’s country, but when they put the cassocks on, they’re all the same. They’re all one.”

For more information about the Archdiocesan Boy Choir, call Tom Windfelder, director, at 215-425-6995.

Susan Brinkmann is a Correspondent for The Catholic Standard & Times and can be reached at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615

Article used with permission of The Catholic Standard & Times