Published February 4, 2007

More Than 1,000 Attend
Snow Fails to Chill Liturgical Gathering

By Eileen Dugan
Sooner Catholic

OKLAHOMA CITY — To learn how to praise the Lord in new ways, to reach parishioners with messages of hope, to bring bilingual communities together, to get Catholic teenagers into the pews, and to learn how to turn from 24/7 busyness to a Day of Rest with the Lord. These are some of the reasons more than 1,000 Catholics braved sleet and chill to attend the Southwest Liturgical Conference.

The 45th annual conference was held Jan. 17-20 at the Cox Center in downtown Oklahoma City.

Getting there was difficult for some, impossible for others. Much of Oklahoma and the entire state of Texas, home to several of the main speakers and many of the prospective attendees, was partially shut down in one of the biggest deep freezes in recent history. Some participants, stranded in their homes or at airports by snow and freezing rain, never made it to the Cox Center. Others left warm houses to brave frigid streets covered with ice and downed power lines to get there.  

Why did they come? Because liturgy is important to Catholics, and they wanted their liturgies to be the best they could be. All who came had one thing in common: They want to help improve the ways they celebrate Sunday, the Day of the Lord.

Ramona Ortiz and Teresa Ann Ciapusci came all the way from southern Arizona. The two friends,  in their third year of a four-year lay Catholic formation program, are hoping to become lay ecclesial ministers in their respective parishes. Ortiz attends Holy Angels Church in Globe, Ariz., while Ciapusci is a member of Corpus Christi parish in Tucson.

Ortiz said that she and Ciapusci had experienced a slight mechanical delay at the airport in Tucson before they left. But they flew through Denver, not Dallas, so they had no weather delays.

“The people here in Oklahoma were at the airport to meet us when we arrived,” she said. “They were wonderful — hospitable, courteous and helpful.”

Ortiz is involved in a funeral  ministry at her parish in Globe. “I am hoping this conference will help me with the planning of funeral liturgies,” she said.

Ciapusci came to the Southwest Liturgical Conference “to learn and network with those outside of my normal career.” She works as an eco-system management staff officer for the Coronado National Forest, headquartered in Tucson.

“At the conference, I hope to get a better understanding of how lay and clerical communities are learning to collaborate and work together more effectively. I also hope to gain some general knowledge about liturgy,” she said.

Father Clifford Smith, pastor of Saint Mark’s Church in Plano, Texas, was another participant. His church, with an enrollment of over 8,300 families, is the largest in the Diocese of Dallas. Father Smith escaped the terrible travel conditions by driving from Plano to Oklahoma City two days before the conference began, before the bad weather had set in.

 “I have been coming to Southwest Liturgical Conferences since the mid-’90s when I was still in the seminary. I find them a great resource. I learn a lot and see people I know — former teachers, priests, others.

“Right now I’m trying to learn how to do better bilingual liturgies for Easter and ordinary celebrations. I also hope I will feel energized from attending the conference.”

Eva Brittain, in charge of English RCIA at Sacred Heart Church in Oklahoma City, arrived at the conference without too much trouble. “I slid around a little, but I drove slow. It wasn’t too bad,” she said. “By yesterday,” after several days of driving in winter conditions, “I was acclimated to driving in the snow and ice.

“I came to the conference to get a deeper and clear vision about how I can help the Lord in our parish. I’m looking for ways to bring bilingual communities together. We can always learn new things, especially when we get together with people from different parishes and we hear how they do them,” she said.

Sitting with Brittain were Sister Susan Clark, CST, and Sonia Estrada. Both women work at Saint Joseph Old Cathedral parish in downtown Oklahoma City.

“Sonia and I had no trouble getting here today because Don Queen, the maintenance fellow at Saint Joseph’s, came by our homes and picked us up,” Sister Susan said. “In fact, we stopped to help a lady who had fallen on the ice.

“I came to the conference because I want to have a deeper spirituality of the Day of the Lord, Sunday. Today, Sunday is taken for granted. It has become a day to catch up on everything. I hope to gain some ideas from the presenters and other friends on how to instill in people a greater love of the Lord’s liturgy and the time we spend with Him on Sunday,” Sister Susan said.

The 45th Southwest Liturgical Conference was the first one Estrada had attended. “The reason I came was because, as the secretary at Saint Joseph’s, I kept hearing about things like RCIA and didn’t know exactly what they were.

“This conference has taught me a lot. Now, I have some idea what these things are. In the future, when people call the church with questions, I’ll be able to answer them,” she said. “The conference was great. Now, I want to learn more. I’m already thinking about coming again next year.”