Miss-Delectable
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The Rhode Island Catholic
On the first Sunday of every month, a very special Mass is celebrated at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Woonsocket.
The first three pews on the left are filled with worshippers who happen to be deaf – as is the priest, Father Joseph Bruce, who celebrates this Mass in voice and sign. Sitting in a chair at the altar is Mary Ann Sullivan. As the choir begins the opening hymn, Sullivan stands and signs along with the song. The deaf participants follow suit, and together, raised in song, both hands and voices fill the church.
Sullivan is a certified interpreter who takes great pride in her job and precisely follows what is known as the Interpreter Code of Ethics. The interpreter is required and expected to maintain confidentiality and to remain impersonal while on an interpreting job.
“If you’re going to be an interpreter, you have to follow the code,” she explained. “Deaf people depend on you to follow that code. They depend on you to be confidential and they depend on you to offer no opinion. You are only a voice. You are not there to be anything more than that. It’s a lot of responsibility.”
Much of her work is done for the Catholic Church – everything from weddings, funerals, and baptisms to Masses, CCD classes, and Pre-Cana. Interpreting for the church can be a challenge since the language is often archaic and figurative.
“The church is more difficult,” Sullivan explained. “ The responsibility is greater. The Mass is abstract. Translating the abstract to the concrete can be difficult. I practice more.”
In addition, she said, the interpreter must choose signs that will most effectively communicate the meaning of the Mass’s poetic phrases. “Interpreters are not to teach. But we do have the flexibility to take a word and translate it and interpret it to its true meaning.”
Sullivan loves music and most enjoys interpreting hymns. Though visually pleasing when interpreted correctly, they are also the most challenging to master.
“If I gave you a song to interpret, you would spend hours memorizing it word for word,” she said. “Then, you would spend a lot of time listening to it and thinking, ‘what’s the rhythm, what does it mean, what does the writer want, and what is it you’re hearing in it?’ So, with music, you have poetic license and the song becomes more visually beautiful.”
She said translating song lyrics from written word to sign language is like the difference for a hearing person between reading song lyrics and singing a song.
“If I read you the words to a song, they would mean one thing. But when you hear the voice put into those notes, it becomes a whole different experience. What a singer does with his voice or his body movement, we [interpreters] can do by expanding signs, by creating a sign – by creating a more visual picture.”
Born in Wellesley, MA in 1940, she began her interpreting experience there with Audrey, a deaf girl who lived across the street. The two became good friends even though Audrey was about seven years older.
“Beginning when Mary Ann was around 10 years old, she said, the girls would go to a family gathering and Audrey would constantly ask what other people were saying.
Audrey taught Mary Ann how to “oral interpret,” that is, how best to mouth the words of those around them so she could read her lips and understand.
Although Audrey knew sign language, she did not teach it to Mary Ann. “It wasn’t that she was averse to teaching me sign,” Sullivan explained. “You just didn’t sign in public. [In those days,] none of the deaf would sign in public, and most of them didn’t sign in school because they were punished if they did.”
Through Audrey, Mary Ann was constantly exposed to the difficulties deaf people face in a hearing world. “I saw the separation between my friend as a deaf person and a family of hearing. I saw the pain on both sides. I saw how she would go to confession and have to write her sins down on a piece of paper and slide them under to the priest.”
Sullivan also remembers how the deaf had to follow the Mass by using a missal with Latin and English. “The deaf person would follow along with the English, but they would miss the homily!”
In the 1970s, Sullivan moved to Natick, MA, where she began working at the deaf Community Center. One evening, while attending Mass at the Oblate Retreat House, she saw the priest begin to say his homily in both voice and sign language. The priest, Father Dayne, offered a sign language class and she immediately signed up.
During the second semester, while attending a Mass at which Fr. Dayne was interpreting, she saw him sign, “Mary Ann, please replace me.”
She was completely caught off guard. “I’m sitting in the pew and I’m thinking, ‘I didn’t see that.’ He said it a second time, and again I thought, ‘that’s not what he’s asking me to do! I’ve only had one and a half semesters!’ The third time he said to the deaf, ‘I have to sit down. I need a 10 or 15 minute break.’ I found myself walking up past the deaf, getting to the spot where he was, and starting to interpret! I had no idea how tired the mind gets when you’re interpreting.”
Sullivan recalls that the deaf people were very kind to her during the nerve-racking experience. “If I finger-spelled a word too much, afterwards, they let me know what the sign for it was. Father must have seen something in me and from that time on he mentored me to become an interpreter.”
In the 1980s, Sullivan moved to Connecticut to teach religious education at the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford. She also became state certified to interpret.
Today, she lives in Buzzards Bay, MA. But more than 30 years ago, she met Joseph Bruce when he was a Jesuit scholastic and began interpreting for him. She continues to interpret for Fr. Joe and the deaf community of Rhode Island. Sullivan interprets at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Woonsocket and St. Jean Baptiste Church in Warren. She also interprets at churches in Massacgysetts and for many deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
Mary Lomastro, who attends the deaf Mass at St. Charles Borromeo, said, “Mary Ann's vast experiences with interpreting in the Catholic Church, be it for Mass, lecturers, or workshops, make her truly one of a kind! She signs so effortlessly using facial and body movements that fit the tone of the words, whether graceful, stern, angry, pleasant, or happy.”
Roberta Greene agreed, calling Sullivan “an excellent interpreter. I am able to follow her clearly. I know Fr. Joe Bruce is very pleased having her around while the ‘deafies’ attend his church.”
Sullivan said she is pleased to see the increased acceptance of the deaf community and their language both in daily life and in the Catholic Church.
“It’s like I’ve had the before and the after,” she said. “I’ve lived that long to see so much happen.” Through the work of interpreters for the deaf, the deaf are provided with the opportunity to attend, understand, and be involved in Mass, allowing them to celebrate their faith more fully.
“With sign language interpreting at Masses, I see more and more deaf people attending Mass and becoming more active in their Catholic faith,” said Lomastro.
This thrills Sullivan, who noted, “to have a job that you love doing is such a blessing.” And indeed she herself has been a blessing in the community fpr which she has cared so passionately, all of her life.
On the first Sunday of every month, a very special Mass is celebrated at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Woonsocket.
The first three pews on the left are filled with worshippers who happen to be deaf – as is the priest, Father Joseph Bruce, who celebrates this Mass in voice and sign. Sitting in a chair at the altar is Mary Ann Sullivan. As the choir begins the opening hymn, Sullivan stands and signs along with the song. The deaf participants follow suit, and together, raised in song, both hands and voices fill the church.
Sullivan is a certified interpreter who takes great pride in her job and precisely follows what is known as the Interpreter Code of Ethics. The interpreter is required and expected to maintain confidentiality and to remain impersonal while on an interpreting job.
“If you’re going to be an interpreter, you have to follow the code,” she explained. “Deaf people depend on you to follow that code. They depend on you to be confidential and they depend on you to offer no opinion. You are only a voice. You are not there to be anything more than that. It’s a lot of responsibility.”
Much of her work is done for the Catholic Church – everything from weddings, funerals, and baptisms to Masses, CCD classes, and Pre-Cana. Interpreting for the church can be a challenge since the language is often archaic and figurative.
“The church is more difficult,” Sullivan explained. “ The responsibility is greater. The Mass is abstract. Translating the abstract to the concrete can be difficult. I practice more.”
In addition, she said, the interpreter must choose signs that will most effectively communicate the meaning of the Mass’s poetic phrases. “Interpreters are not to teach. But we do have the flexibility to take a word and translate it and interpret it to its true meaning.”
Sullivan loves music and most enjoys interpreting hymns. Though visually pleasing when interpreted correctly, they are also the most challenging to master.
“If I gave you a song to interpret, you would spend hours memorizing it word for word,” she said. “Then, you would spend a lot of time listening to it and thinking, ‘what’s the rhythm, what does it mean, what does the writer want, and what is it you’re hearing in it?’ So, with music, you have poetic license and the song becomes more visually beautiful.”
She said translating song lyrics from written word to sign language is like the difference for a hearing person between reading song lyrics and singing a song.
“If I read you the words to a song, they would mean one thing. But when you hear the voice put into those notes, it becomes a whole different experience. What a singer does with his voice or his body movement, we [interpreters] can do by expanding signs, by creating a sign – by creating a more visual picture.”
Born in Wellesley, MA in 1940, she began her interpreting experience there with Audrey, a deaf girl who lived across the street. The two became good friends even though Audrey was about seven years older.
“Beginning when Mary Ann was around 10 years old, she said, the girls would go to a family gathering and Audrey would constantly ask what other people were saying.
Audrey taught Mary Ann how to “oral interpret,” that is, how best to mouth the words of those around them so she could read her lips and understand.
Although Audrey knew sign language, she did not teach it to Mary Ann. “It wasn’t that she was averse to teaching me sign,” Sullivan explained. “You just didn’t sign in public. [In those days,] none of the deaf would sign in public, and most of them didn’t sign in school because they were punished if they did.”
Through Audrey, Mary Ann was constantly exposed to the difficulties deaf people face in a hearing world. “I saw the separation between my friend as a deaf person and a family of hearing. I saw the pain on both sides. I saw how she would go to confession and have to write her sins down on a piece of paper and slide them under to the priest.”
Sullivan also remembers how the deaf had to follow the Mass by using a missal with Latin and English. “The deaf person would follow along with the English, but they would miss the homily!”
In the 1970s, Sullivan moved to Natick, MA, where she began working at the deaf Community Center. One evening, while attending Mass at the Oblate Retreat House, she saw the priest begin to say his homily in both voice and sign language. The priest, Father Dayne, offered a sign language class and she immediately signed up.
During the second semester, while attending a Mass at which Fr. Dayne was interpreting, she saw him sign, “Mary Ann, please replace me.”
She was completely caught off guard. “I’m sitting in the pew and I’m thinking, ‘I didn’t see that.’ He said it a second time, and again I thought, ‘that’s not what he’s asking me to do! I’ve only had one and a half semesters!’ The third time he said to the deaf, ‘I have to sit down. I need a 10 or 15 minute break.’ I found myself walking up past the deaf, getting to the spot where he was, and starting to interpret! I had no idea how tired the mind gets when you’re interpreting.”
Sullivan recalls that the deaf people were very kind to her during the nerve-racking experience. “If I finger-spelled a word too much, afterwards, they let me know what the sign for it was. Father must have seen something in me and from that time on he mentored me to become an interpreter.”
In the 1980s, Sullivan moved to Connecticut to teach religious education at the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford. She also became state certified to interpret.
Today, she lives in Buzzards Bay, MA. But more than 30 years ago, she met Joseph Bruce when he was a Jesuit scholastic and began interpreting for him. She continues to interpret for Fr. Joe and the deaf community of Rhode Island. Sullivan interprets at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Woonsocket and St. Jean Baptiste Church in Warren. She also interprets at churches in Massacgysetts and for many deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
Mary Lomastro, who attends the deaf Mass at St. Charles Borromeo, said, “Mary Ann's vast experiences with interpreting in the Catholic Church, be it for Mass, lecturers, or workshops, make her truly one of a kind! She signs so effortlessly using facial and body movements that fit the tone of the words, whether graceful, stern, angry, pleasant, or happy.”
Roberta Greene agreed, calling Sullivan “an excellent interpreter. I am able to follow her clearly. I know Fr. Joe Bruce is very pleased having her around while the ‘deafies’ attend his church.”
Sullivan said she is pleased to see the increased acceptance of the deaf community and their language both in daily life and in the Catholic Church.
“It’s like I’ve had the before and the after,” she said. “I’ve lived that long to see so much happen.” Through the work of interpreters for the deaf, the deaf are provided with the opportunity to attend, understand, and be involved in Mass, allowing them to celebrate their faith more fully.
“With sign language interpreting at Masses, I see more and more deaf people attending Mass and becoming more active in their Catholic faith,” said Lomastro.
This thrills Sullivan, who noted, “to have a job that you love doing is such a blessing.” And indeed she herself has been a blessing in the community fpr which she has cared so passionately, all of her life.