“WHEN we try to get one style of celebratory mass against another, we have a hard time with variety. We need not create these battles, as long as the substance and meaning stay the same.” – Fr. Ricky Manalo, 2008.
Fr. Ricky expressed those sentiments at a Sirius Radio show, The Busted Halo, hosted by a co-ordained priest, Fr. Dave Dwyer. They both got ordained as priests by Cardinal Roger Mahony at St. Paul the Apostle Church in New York, a gothic church with marble floors. Fr. Manalo is a member of the Missionary Society of St. Paul(The Paulists).
In 2008, the Paulist 150th Anniversary homily was prepared by Fr. Ricky Manalo, Fr. Thomas Kane, Fr. Edward Koharchik and Richard Andre, a seminarian. Their bulletin, Paulist Today, read: “It was pointedly and encouragingly appropriate … that the Sending Forth hymn written by Fr. Manalo included the lyrics: “We are sent into the world to proclaim the reign of God. We give glory to the Risen Christ among us. Though our eyes have not seen his face, we believe and we spread the story of our faith.”
In masses around the United States and even in the Philippines, his liturgical compositions are performed both in English and Tagalog and re-echoed on YouTube, e.g. Ang Katawan ni Kristo.
When Fr. Leonard Gilman was ordained to the Order of Carmelites in 1998, Fr. Ricky Manalo’s joyful music, The God of All Grace was sang by combined parish choirs, accompanied by piano, trumpet, violin and organ in Tenafly, New Jersey. Some of its lyrics says: “The God of all Grace has blessed us this day. All Creation join us in praise, lifting our voices, lifting our hearts through the Glory of God forever.”
A choir member complimented Fr. Ricky on Sirius radio, after she sang the liturgical song that he created.
I first met Fr. Ricky at the Cathedral of Angels in LA in January 2011, when he was introduced as the musical composer of Pie Jesu, arranged by for the orchestra by Louie Ramos, performed by Joan Cano, Bella Ramos, UST Singers and the Filipino American Symphony Orchestra (FASO). He has an inner radiance, and seems content and at peace. After all, over 2,000 folks from the Fil-Am community just heard his musical arrangement, performed by 65+ members, with violins, violas, cellos, bass and more. The standing ovation was enduring.
At St. Genevieve Catholic Church, on April 16, 2011, he led a seminar on “ The Roman Missal: Deepening our Relationship with Christ and With One Another” for 65+ folks, who were choir members from 5 churches in Los Angeles. He traced the liturgical roots of the mass including the New Roman Missal, the process of translating the third typical edition and what are possible reactions to change. He ended it by sharing his own transition to embracing change, putting in place some old parts of the liturgy and then, using the new text for the songs. He then played the piano, and led everyone in singing excerpts from his Mass of Spirit and Grace (Oregon Catholic Press). The seminar ended on a happy, progressive tone of embracing the change in the text of the English Mass.
Fr. Ricky described his calling as a “gradual unfolding of God’s will and a progressive surrendering and responding..I never viewed [it] as a fully romanticized event, I never expected the Angel of God to literally appear before me in all of her/his splendor and reveal the definitive answers to the questions in my heart. Instead, little angels came in the form of specific people and events at different stages throughout the discernment process.”
He grew up with a family that’s surrounded by live music -- “noisy,” yet “vibrant and alive.” He gives credit to his father, Dominador, who loved classical music and his mother, Pat, who quietly composed melodies on the side. They were responsible for making music the central focus of his life. His mother also taught him to thank God whenever he shared his musical skills in public.
While in the music conservatory in New York, he memorized 24 paragraphs of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy simply because he wanted to learn about liturgy and did not know what else to do with his energy. He now he believes that may have started the discernment process of a more personal relationship with God.
He graduated from the Manhattan School of Music and the Washington Theological Union. He now lives at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in Chinatown, San Francisco and is currently a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. He is also an adjunct professor of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University.
His liturgical music is published by the Oregon Catholic Press and GIA Publications. He is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, a board member of National Association of Pastoral Musicians and an advisor to the US Bishops’ Secretariate on Cultural Diversity in the Church.
In closing, he offers The Paulist Prayer: “God of Imagination, Creativity and Surprise We are made in your image and likeness. Help us create fearlessly, with great love, purpose and passion. We offer ourselves and our works as the Paulist Center Community; our past, with its joys and triumphs, failures and regrets; our present, with its struggles and success, hopes and setbacks; our future, with its fears and freedom, pain and promise. Let us be your servants, to lose and to bind, to stretch and to shape, to become more like Jesus, trusting the Hand that made the world trusting the Spirit that breathes life trusting the Love that will not let us go. Amen.”
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