Submitted by: Msgr. Brian Brownsey
Until recently, the most commonly used form of social communication has been church bells. Bells are used primarily to announce the call to worship. They announce the joy of a wedding. At funerals they announce the victory over death and serve as a doorbell into heaven. Their use throughout the day serves as a reminder to pray at key times.
They also are used to broadcast various forms of worship. Throughout history, church bells have been used for both sacred and secular purposes.
In days of antiquity a church would employ a person, called a sextant, to pull the ropes and ring the bells at specified times. As budgets got tight, it became more difficult for a sextant to survive on the wages the churches were able to pay. It was only churches that could afford the maintenance on elaborate clockwork gears that could facilitate a fully mechanized ringing schedule.
Without mechanical systems or people who were dedicated to doing it on a regular basis church bells were rung only occasionally and so many fell silent. In the last twenty years, more and more churches are again ringing their bells due mostly to advances in technology that provides a means to schedule their ringing at a low cost.
When I moved to West Peoria in 2009, it was the sounding of the West Peoria fire alarm that reminded me that I really missed the “sounds of the community” that I grew up with. I’m talking about those sounds that remind us that our lives are connected by something deeper than just a location on a map. When I was growing up in Streator, there were the whistles of the factories that signaled the beginning and end of work shifts.
When the whistle blew at Owens Glass Factory we knew dad would be home soon. At grandma’s house, the whistle at the Furniture Factory told us to stay in the yard because traffic was about to go crazy. When Mom told us dinner would be ready in fifteen minutes, we knew the bell ringing at St. Anthony’s meant it was time to end the inning.
We were brought up with the philosophy that dessert after dinner was only for rich people, and so instead of apple pie, many suppers at our house ended with the treat of being able to sit on the back porch and listen to the carillon from the Church of Christ before having to report for dishwashing duty. To this day my father tells everybody that he never misses the first-Tuesday steak fry at the Knights of Columbus because they blow a siren every month to remind people. I think I was thirty years old before I realized that was the monthly test of the tornado siren and not the Knights of Columbus.
In big cities there is a lot of noise, but very few “sounds of community.” Like I said, the West Peoria fire alarm is one such sound. People who are new to the area often ask me why they sound the “tornado siren” so often. When I explain it is the fire alarm calling the firefighters to the station, they are amazed that firefighters don’t use pagers or smart phone technology and I chuckle. “City people” I often mutter. They just don’t get it.
The alarm serves so much more of a purpose than just calling firemen. Every time I hear it I experience a variety of reactions. My first reaction is to think about the firefighters who are responding. I always say a prayer for them: maybe their lives will be in danger or maybe it’s nothing at all, either way they are giving of themselves and I’m grateful. Next I think about the possible victims and offer another prayer—maybe someone is losing their home. Then I realize that whatever I’m thinking, there are hundreds of people in the community who are likely thinking the same thing and I praise the Holy Trinity, the exemplar for all community life.
When I arrived at St. Mark’s I wanted to have the Church bells ring as another such means of connecting the community, but I discovered the bell system to be in a terrible state. Among my first funerals was the one for Joanie Crusen. Her children asked that we ring the traditional funeral toll for their mother as she always appreciated the rich incarnational traditions of the Church. I told them the bells really sounded awful and their response was, “Good. Ring them all the louder.” Why? Their advice was that when people heard how bad they sounded they would be more likely to contribute to their repair. And so it began.
We rang them for Joanie’s funeral and on every occasion we could afterwards. It didn’t take long for people to start giving. Soon we had enough to fix the sound and buy a computerized scheduler ($8,000) and it was installed in the spring of 2012.
The regular schedule for the bells at St. Mark’s begins around 8:30 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m. so as not to disturb sleep. From 9 a.m. until 9 p.m., the bells ring on the hour every hour. At Noon and 6 p.m. they also ring out the Angelus. The angelus bells remind us to stop at least three times a day (we skip the 6 a.m. bell) to give praise to God for the Incarnation. Besides the striking of the hour, the Angelus strikes out a melodious tone. During Ordinary Time this tone is simply a peal of various notes. During other seasons the Angelus is often set to the tune of a traditional seasonal hymn like “O Come All Ye Faithful” during the Christmas season or “Stabat Mater” during Lent. Other scheduled bells ring ten minutes prior to each Sunday Mass (except 7:30 a.m.) to call worshippers to Church. It is not uncommon to hear a college student’s story something like this: “Father, I almost missed Church this week, but I heard the bells and came running.”
In addition to the scheduled times, we also ring the bells at the conclusion of weekend Masses to give the faithful a joyful sendoff as they go out to build the Kingdom by serving the poor, loving one another, and proclaiming the news of salvation. It is interesting to note that since we began ringing those bells there are fewer temper flares in the parking lot. The bells also ring out traditional wedding themed pieces about every fifteen minutes during the hour leading up to a wedding. The couple appreciates our help in letting the whole world know their joy. When you hear “Ode to Joy” on a Saturday afternoon, please say a prayer for the happy couple.
Funeral tolls have gotten a bad reputation over the years. Unfortunately many people think they mark doom and gloom. Quite the opposite is true. The funeral toll serves two purposes. First it is a victory signal announcing to the world that another Christian has won the victory of life over death. The second purpose is that it cries out to Heaven to open wide the gates to receive another soul. At St. Mark’s we ring the funeral toll for three to five minutes as the procession drives away. It is identified by a monotone which strikes steadily for about three to five minutes.
The bells ring out for other celebrations like Christmas carols during the eight days of Christmas and resurrection hymns during the Octave of Easter. During the Commemoration of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, the bells go crazy during the Gloria because it is the very last time they are permitted anywhere in the world until the Gloria of the Resurrection at the Easter Vigil. Of course, that Gloria also gets “crazy bells” to mark the end of the mourning period for the Crucifixion.
True story: When I was the pastor of Utica, Illinois, a retired gentleman showed up one Easter Sunday and told me how he continued his Good Friday fast right through Holy Saturday. It had been his custom every Saturday in good weather to go fishing on a lake near the church. He would begin in the morning and quit when he heard the Noon Angelus at which time he would head for shore and go home for lunch. He didn’t know we didn’t ring the bells on Holy Saturday, so he fished right up until it got dark, missing both lunch and dinner.
You may hear the bells ring at other random times. That’s usually because I am technologically handicapped and sometimes forget to put the machine in “test” mode while programming it. One error occurred while I was trying to set the timing of the funeral toll. It wasn’t ringing long enough to get the families to their cars. I reprogrammed it to ring extra-long. At subsequent funerals, I forgot that I had reprogrammed it so I instructed the servers to press the button five times in order to give the procession time to get underway. With the bells ringing I would ride off to the cemetery having no idea that the bells continued to ring for forty minutes. Nobody told me about it until three funerals later.
On Christmas morning another little glitch occurred. A parishioner volunteered to open up the church and prepare for the 7:30 Mass. The remote control fobs we use to light our Christmas decorations resemble the remote control fob for the bell system. The volunteer didn’t know which was which and as he attempted to light the Christmas lights, the bells began to ring out. When the lights didn’t light, he pushed another button, and another, and another and before we could get over to pull the plug the whole neighborhood was treated at 6:40 on Christmas morning to a concert of Jesus Christ is Ris’n Today, Immaculate Mary, the Wedding March, and everything but a Christmas Carol.