Until this month, St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church, 17103 Spring Mill Road, Westfield, did not have any bells to ring for mass, weddings, funerals, baptisms, or other ceremonies. Now the church has its bells in the tower and a group of parishioners have touching memories to last generations.
Mary Lyman was one of several parishioners to take a journey to Italy for a pilgrimage and to visit the Marinelli family foundry to see their bells being cast at the Marinelli family’s foundry in Agnone, Italy, where bells have been made by the same family since the 12th century.
“We were there for 10 days,” Lyman said. “We went on March 14 and came back on the 24th. It was just mind-blowing to all of us. We just walked around with our mouths open going ‘wow!’ because of the history of the same family making these bells since the 12th century. It was so moving know these bells in our bell tower and who knows whose first child will be.”
Another parishioner to make the journey was Laura Martz.
“My mother is Italian and my father is deceased,” Martz told The Reporter, “so I thought, ‘Well I have to take my mother to Italy!’ My mother and I went with the group. My children also went to school there. I would not have passed up the opportunity to be a part of the casting of the bells.”
Those who made the trip were able to see the entire process of the casting of the bells for their church in Westfield.
“It was breathtaking,” Martz said. “That is by far the best way to describe it. The Marinelli family were so welcoming to us. They hugged and kissed us. It was a celebration. I’ve never had an experience like this before.”
In the Catholic religion, when a new bell is cast for a church, it is blessed while it is still molten. The bells are blessed again before they go up on the tower and the bell tower once they are up and running, which will be on Dec. 8 at St. Maria Goretti.
“As this molten is pouring they are splashing the holy water, you just have chills going through your body and tears in your eyes because it has been such a long journey to get to this point,” Martz said. “Normally they have a priest from the Vatican come and bless the bells at the Marinelli family foundry, but since Father Kevin studied in Italy and he was bringing witnesses he was allowed to do the blessing. And in order to be part of that—there were 21 of us—it was by far the most breath-taking and emotional experience that I have ever had with the Catholic religion.”
Martz called it the experience of a lifetime.
“When we first got there I asked Father, ‘What does a pilgrimage mean?’ He said it is a journey closer to God,” Martz explained. “I thought, ‘Oh, I didn’t sign up for this!’ But I would do it ten thousand times over again. I would pay anything to never lose that experience in my life.”
Martz said the journey and the experience has deepened her faith in unexpected ways and became about much more than just the casting of the bells for her church.
“The pilgrimage we went on was so breath-taking because all of this reconfirmed out faith: watching the bell tower be built, watching the bells being made and learning so much about it and about the Catholic religion,” Martz told The Reporter. “For 10 days, 21 of us ate together, you slept in the same hotels, laughed together, cried together, prayed together — there are so many emotions just talking about it I tear up. We got to crawl up the stairs that Jesus walked up when he was judged by Pontius Pilate — all together. Things like that cannot be replaced. We were all together all the time. It was the most uplifting, emotional, spiritual journey I have ever been on in my life.”
Matz took her mother, Anna Marie Yant, on the pilgrimage with her. Yant is of Italian descent, but had never been to her ancestral homeland before this pilgrimage. Her grandparents were born in Italy, but she and her own parents were born in the United States.
“It was my daughter’s idea to go,” Yant said. “I had just had hip surgery in January, I turned 69 in February and went to Italy in March. My surgeon said it would be OK for me to go, but I kept saying I didn’t think I should go. My daughter said, ‘You’re going if I have to carry you.’ I had my cane with me the whole time. All of the people that were with us were very helpful. Even the people in Italy — as soon as they see an elderly person, especially with a cane, they just make way for you. They are very accommodating people. They are very loving people. Very helpful.”
Like Martz, Yant said it is an experience that is hard to put into words.
“I can’t even tell you how it feels. I was there the other day and I saw the bells being brought up into the tower and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, what a wonderful experience. I saw this from beginning to end. Now, finally seeing them up in the tower.’ Just even talking about it is very emotional,” Yant said.
Martz spoke about not just the journey now past, but about how these bells are a part of her family’s future.
“To know that those bells are going to ring when my children are wed, that they are going to ring at my funeral — it is unbelievable to know the history of those and to know I was part of watching them as molten,” Martz said.
Her mother, Yant, also sees the bells as part of her family’s future and a part of her life.
“From here on the bells are a part of me,” Yant told The Reporter. “They are like a child or grandchild. I can’t tell you how many times we touched them before they went up into the tower. And the bells all have names. They are inanimate objects, but they are like a part of you. Like an animal is a part of your family, these bells are now a part of me and I love them.”