By Barry Howard
The group gathering in St. Peter’s Square dressed in formal attire on this hot Thursday afternoon in July was attracting a lot of attention from locals and from tourists. The men in the group were decked out in black tuxedoes, the women in black skirts, black tops, and gray jackets as they were assembling in a typical Baptist choir formation (four rows deep) for a photo in front of the papal basilica in which they were about to sing.
The sanctuary choir and orchestra from the First Baptist Church of Pensacola were preparing to enter St. Peter’s Basilica, known in this part of the world as the Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano, to sing during 5 p.m. mass. After singing in Munich, Venice, Florence, and Rome during a two-week tour, on this final night of concerts, the choir was privileged to sing at the most famous church in the world. As their pastor, I was honored to be present for this occasion.
There were 96 people in our group posing for the photo, including 66 singers, 16 orchestra members, and 14 missioners. We quickly learned that one reason we were getting such attention was because of the size of our group. While St. Peter’s frequently hosts visiting choirs, they are usually much smaller.
After the photo, our group lined up to pass through a security checkpoint. Once inside, the group was escorted to a small chancel area surrounding a massive pipe organ on the left side of the north end of the basilica, where mass was to be held. The chancel was small, providing seats for just over half of the choir members. Others stood to the left and right of the chancel behind the organist, seated in the center.
Although there has been a church on this site since the 4th century, construction of the present basilica lasted 120 years and was completed on Nov. 18, 1626. The basilica has a maximum capacity of about 60,000 worshipers, but on this day as it remained open to tourists, a couple of thousand seats were petitioned off beyond the Papal Altar and Baldacchino (Bernini’s masterpiece canopy), which cover the burial place of St. Peter, and toward the Cathedra Petri, or Altar of the Chair, for evening mass.
Mass started promptly at 5. After the first song, the lead priest welcomed the worshipers in Italian, and then introduced our choir in English and expressed appreciation for the choir “helping us to pray in song.” With the exception of one portion of the homily, which was rendered in Italian, then English, and finally Spanish, the remainder of the mass was celebrated in Italian and Latin.
The mass included more singing than I’ve experienced while attending mass at other cathedrals. In addition to the four selections presented by our choir, “Cantate Domino” (“O Sing Ye to the Lord”), “Alleluia,” “Come Unto Me,” and “O Filii et Filiae” (“Ye Sons and Daughters”), the lead priest and the attending priests sang portions of the liturgy, with responses sung by four cantors who were standing near a microphone in front of our choir.
The lead cantor, who also served as the music coordinator for the basilica, turned during one of the early response times and prompted our choir, without prior notice, to join in singing the antiphonal responses in Latin. Despite the astonished looks on a few faces, the choir caught on quickly, singing phonetically and with worshipful expression, even though I am sure they had limited understanding of the words.
I am quite sure that our English-speaking group understood only a few of the words spoken during the entire mass, though names like Christos and Mary Magdalena rang with familiarity. Basically, we participated in the passing of the peace and stood at the appropriate times during the liturgy. However, our group resonated with the spirit of worship — we seemed to intuitively know when Scripture was being read, and we were aware that we were among brothers and sisters in Christ who spoke a different language.
We realized that though we articulate our faith and celebrate worship much differently than our Catholic friends, we share a history and a story about the Christ who was crucified, buried and raised to life to provide forgiveness for our sins and to show the way to salvation. Our theology has many divergent points, but on this day we shared in common worship of God.
Our choir was honored to sing for evening Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. And the hunch of this proud and biased pastor is that this Baptist choir lifted their voices in a way that rang the rafters of this historic cathedral in a powerful way.