A reflection by Michael R. Tovino

I was not surprised to read the article about the passing of Rev. Raymond S. Bianchi in The Monitor (“Father Bianchi, peacemaker, cathedral rector, buried in native Italy,” The Monitor, July 16 issue.)  Father Bianchi was on my mind more than once the week before his passing.   During that week, I asked myself how it was that I had not heard from him recently. 

When “Padre” retired to his native Italy just around the turn of the century, he contacted many of us on a more or less regular basis.  Each time he wrote to me, I immediately responded with a very complimentary letter and a token gift of my esteem for all that he did at the cathedral. 

Father Bianchi was small in stature.  But he was a very big presence at the cathedral, where he had a tremendously positive influence upon so many of us. And so when I saw the article, I knew immediately how it was that he was in my thoughts.

The circumstances of our meeting took place some 20 or so years ago, on Saturday, Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  The Ave Maria religious store was across from the cathedral back then.  During my first stop at the store, I learned that the vigil Mass was at 4:00 o’clock.  In the beckoning darkness of a mid-winter day, I walked to the rectory and noticed that the light in the office was on. 

Too early for the vigil Mass, I guessed that if I rang the bell someone would answer, so that I could get a bulletin of services.  My ringing the bell elicited the immediate response of a short Italian priest with a smile virtually wider than a football field.  During this first meeting, I was transfixed by the eyes of the priest because they pierced right through me, as if this thoughtful priest were looking directly into my soul.  (What could all this mean?) 

Father Bianchi invited me into the rectory office and allowed me to take a bulletin for the services of the upcoming week.  He stated that confessions would be available in just a few minutes and showed me the way through the rectory hallways to the inside door of the church.  Sure enough, promptly at 3:30 p.m., a priest came from the hallway into the church and entered one of the two confessionals closer to the door.  (Two other confessionals are closer to the altar.) 

I don’t recall that I needed to go to confession, but I think that I stayed for the vigil Mass.  Driving home in the dark of a late afternoon in winter, I knew that I would be making more visits to the cathedral. 

Little did I know how much more I would be doing!  Within a few months and with the approval of Father Bianchi, I was reading regularly at the 10:30 a.m. Mass on Sundays; serving as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion; helping to prepare the sanctuary for weddings and “Sweet Fifteen” services for Hispanic girls; occasionally leading the novena prayers after the 12:10 p.m. daily Mass; reading for the Holy Week liturgies; and—with a patented Bianchi smile on my face—sometimes pushing the broom to prepare for a service involving Bishop Reiss.  Father Bianchi always laughed when I jokingly told him, “We also serve who push the broom!” 

His service never flagged.  Padre Bianchi thought of others even when he himself was receiving hospital care.  Toward the end of his ministry as rector at the cathedral, the good priest suffered an attack apparently brought on by diabetes and was rushed to the hospital.  When I visited him in the sterile environment of his room, he was obviously in a weakened condition.  But even then, he was more concerned about hospitality than about himself. 

He neglected his tray of food until he assured himself that I had a comfortable chair as he graciously thanked me for the visit.  Only after that did he focus on the “banquet,” as he termed the food on his tray.

It seems the parishioners liked my serving in varied capacities.  Once, at the side of the altar and away from the sound system, Father Bianchi stated, “They [the people] think you’re a priest.  They want to know when you hear confessions….Are you a priest?”

He asked that question and his eyes pierced right through me—for the second time since I walked into his office on that cold, February afternoon.  Of course, I responded, “No.”  But I often wondered if his question was more prophetic than interrogative. 

A Hollywood ending to this reflection might include details about my entering the seminary, becoming a priest, and carrying on the work of Father Raymond S. Bianchi as I worked in and transferred to various parishes in the Diocese of Trenton.  That would be Hollywood—but not reality. 

Reality was that a job change took me to another part of New Jersey and to another parish, where I often served as lector during weekly Masses and, occasionally, as extraordinary minister of Holy Communion.

Only recently have I returned to the cathedral, where Msgr. Roldan and Deacon Ramos have allowed me to enter the rotation of lectors for the vigil Mass.  But sometimes, as I bring “Lectionary 1” and “Prayers of the Faithful” from the sacristy, I catch a nostalgic glimpse of the image of a little Italian priest with the smile of a giant. 

In this image the priest is sitting in a pew just outside one of the confessionals near the hallway door.  And in this image he is very pleased.

Tovino is from Lawrenceville.