ARTICLES

Worship director writes Sourcebook as guide

By Jean Denton
of The Catholic Virginian

You’ll have to excuse diocesan Director of Worship Catherine Combier-Donovan if she acts like she wrote the book on liturgy.

She did.

That is she wrote the “Sourcebook” for the year 2010 for Liturgy Training Publications.

LTP is a not-for-profit agency of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Its annual Sourcebook is considered the bible of all things liturgical.

Nearly every parish in the United States has several copies as the basic resource for Catholic pastors and ministers on planning all liturgical celebrations.

Ms. Combier-Donovan, who has been Director of Worship for the Richmond Diocese for three years and has more than 20 years experience in parish liturgical ministry, has written several articles for LTP publications as well as for the website of Georgetown University’s Center for Liturgy.

She was approached two years ago by LTP about authoring the sourcebook that carries the lengthy formal title: “Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons, and Weekdays 2010: The Almanac for Pastoral Liturgy.”

Gratified by the invitation to write the book that had been her own primary resource throughout her career as a parish musician and liturgist, Ms. Combier-Donovan took several weeks before agreeing to accept the daunting task. When she asked Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo for permission to take on the project, he encouraged her to do it, she said.

“I did it because it was such an honor to be asked, and because I would finally be able to put down on paper all I’ve learned,” she explained.

But it indeed turned out to be “an enormous undertaking” as she began work on the sourcebook in January 2008, and completed the writing by her deadline the following July.

“For six months I wrote like an insane person,” she recalled, laughing.

She credits her administrative assistant Judy Pasicznyk with providing much moral support as well as guidance in organizing her work.

Ms. Combier-Donovan brought to the project long and broad liturgical experience beginning as a parish pastoral music minister two decades ago. She has a master’s degree in liturgical studies from St. John University in Minnesota. Currently she is on the board of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions that works with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Writing the Sourcebook allowed her to share her knowledge and long experience more widely. As the “primary author” she wrote the segments on the liturgical seasons, ritual, sacraments and saints.

Other writers contributed information on scripture, art and environment, Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, music and bringing the liturgy into the home.

“In what I wrote, all the pastoral aspects were based on my personal experience,” she said.

“You know, for liturgists it is really true: the older you are the wiser you are,” she contends.

Ms. Combier-Donovan, who has two grown children and two grandchildren, grew up in a devout Catholic family in France.

In her introduction to the Sourcebook, she related a conversion experience 10 years ago that led her to graduate study and transformed her attitude toward worship.

“I had been a pillar of the church, active as liturgist, musician, teacher, member of many commissions. I sought to ‘do’ liturgy the best and most contemporary way available,” she wrote.

“I had no patience with the pious, little respect for the shoddy and distaste for the unattractive and the unintelligent.”

But then she experienced a devastating loss when a fire destroyed her family’s home. As a result, she began re-evaluating her life including her involvement in parish worship.

Through prayer, she said, she was embarrassed to realize her center was not Christ, but herself, and from that moment she began “learning to serve not ‘the liturgy’ but God, by serving and respecting others.”

During her subsequent graduate study, she said, this notion grew through the influence of a professor of canon law.

“He said with canon law you have two levels: Level one is the law. Level two is pastoral application and that’s where, within the framework (of the canon), you opt for the good of the person, the community.”

She noted that as a leader of liturgical ministry — and now as a writer — what she offers is not so much bound by Church documents as it is grounded in history, meaning and the way rites developed.

Ms. Combier-Donovan believes strongly in following the rubrics (rules) of worship set by the church.

“When I teach I wear a button that says, ‘Stick to the script,’” she noted. “The problem is that people tend to want to be creative when there are no options, or to feel (unnecessarily) limited when there are options.”

But in her teaching, she said, “I try to help people understand the options.”

That’s also a main objective of the Sourcebook.

She explained, “The Sacramentary (Roman Missal) is very complex, but there are many choices, and I try to show people how to navigate through the options.”

One of her challenges in writing the 2010 Sourcebook is that a new, revised Roman Missal is due to be approved this December. Although its changes won’t go into effect until a year later, Ms. Combier-Donovan said she was able to include instructions for them. She’s pleased that the sourcebook will be a primary resource for a diocesan workshop this summer on the coming liturgical year.

She won’t receive royalties on the book as she had a simple, one-time contract with LTP. But apparently the publisher liked her work as they’ve invited her to write the segment on the seasons for the 2012 Sourcebook.

“I’m thinking about it,” she smiled.

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