About Us/
Links
In the event you want an idea of who we are ...
Tom Baker
My current day job is as a consultant for media companies, publishers and arts organizations; in addition, I serve part-time as publisher of Commonweal. Born in Gary, Indiana, I began working on liturgy while part of the campus ministry at Princeton University (where I met and first worked with my honored co-author). After graduation I began a career in business journalism and publishing in New York and later back in Princeton, while staying active as a liturgy-committee member and minister in several parishes. For 17 years, I worked in marketing and management for The Wall Street Journal, including heading the startup of The Wall Street Journal Online (wsj.com). My wife Sue McSorley, whom I married in 1979 and also met at Princeton, is an attorney, lector, cantor, and infallible critic of homilies; together we have three exceptional daughters: Kate (17), Meg (15), and Colleen (13). For the past 13 years, I have also served as a permanent deacon at my nearby parish, St. David the King Parish in Princeton Junction, NJ, where I am a regular homilist, baptizer and RCIA catechist. I've even written a little book for Twenty-Third Publications about being a deacon, if you're interested.
Frank Ferrone
Since we’re now giving this book away, you probably figured out that I too have an alternate means of support. At present I work at Drexel University (www.drexel.edu) in Philadelphia where I am both Associate Vice Provost for Research and Professor of Physics. Born in New York City, I became involved in liturgical music, and eventually liturgy, during my graduate work at Princeton University (where I met and first worked with my honored co-author). My professional career took me to Washington, DC, in 1976 as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, at which time I became involved with the vibrant expression of the liturgical arts at Georgetown's campus ministry. In 1980, after completion of my postdoctoral appointment, I joined the Physics faculty of Drexel University. As an avocation, I became liturgical music director at the University's Newman Center. It was there that I met Mimi Mahon, who had come to Philadelphia for graduate study in nursing at Penn, where she ultimately received her Ph.D. We married in 1983. Her flute, voice and general musicianship enhanced the liturgies at the Newman Center for many years and our two children Stephanie (20—at UMBC) and Adam (19—at Penn State) were baptized in its chapel. After a liturgical hiatus, during which we moved to suburban Philadelphia, we joined Our Mother of Good Counsel parish (www.omgcparish.org), where I returned to the world of liturgical music and liturgy planning and evaluation.
Links We Like
For parish councils, Mark Fischer's site has a
collection of his sensible and thorough articles and other resources. If
your parish doesn't have a council, ask why. You are entitled (in some
dioceses, by official diocesan statute) to have one.
Our friend Pietro del Fabro's liturgical designs, drawing, and sculpture are at Pietro Designs.
Tell the Universalis site your time zone and your
country, and you'll get a page generated with the complete text of morning and evening
prayer, all customized for your country and the day's feast. Very clever.
Stay up to date with the latest issues in the continuing liturgical renewal, and the conflicts that still surround it, at www.webelieve.cc.
A much more complete page of liturgy links and resources is at the Order of St. Benedict's site.