Interpreter Recall Being On Camera
ROCKFORD—TV Mass interpreter Sheila Antosch has been signing since she was a 20-year-old attending a community college. An interpreter there inspired her to learn American Sign Language, so she began to attend ASL workshops, trusting that her knack for learning spoken languages would continue with ASL. She says she soon “fell in love with (sign) language.”
In the 46 years since then, Antosch has been “always involved in Catholic religion interpretating,” she says, as well as with freelance work. She has interpreted, for example, at weddings and funerals, for a few plays, and for Deaf individuals at doctor, social service and physical therapy appointments.
Antosch calculates that she has been interpreting the TV Mass for about 25 years. After a few years of alternating sessions with her fellow interpreter, Lori Cazel, Antosch began to sign the Mass at every taping — two Sunday Masses every other week. For her work, Antosch is paid a small stipend through the diocesan Deaf Apostolate.
Antosch spends about six hours to prepare for each session — three hours per Mass. She practices signing the readings, the music, and the homilies, which the priest celebrants email to her. “The priests have been really good about that,” Antosch says, adding that it is “invaluable to me” to receive them ahead of time.
“Hardest of all are the prayers that change at every Mass,” she says, naming the collect, the prayer over the gifts, the prayer after communion, the preface, Eucharistic prayers … noting that Ordinary Time has about 10 options for some of those. She adds that such Mass prayers are harder to interpret “than Scripture because they are translated from the Latin and are not in smooth English.” The new St. Joseph Sunday Missal, she says, “is invaluable because it has all those prayers in it and all the prefaces.”
She also names the “comparisons and jokes” in homilies as being difficult to interpret.
The TV Mass was recorded at the NBC affiliate (WREX) station west of Rockford for years.
“What I remember the most is how long the drive was, especially in bad weather,” Antosch says. She also mentions there were several producers of the Mass, noting one who changed the colors of the background for the liturgical seasons. For “a good 10 years,” participants were all in one room, then the station moved the celebrant into a separate room.
Since 2022, the TV Mass has been taped in the Diocesan Administration Center chapel. It is a change that Antosch says has made it “much better, much holier, and all (of us are) in one place … it seems much more reverent.” She adds that she also can hear the words of the Mass much better than before and appreciates the shorter drive.
Antosch is featured in a box in the corner of the TV screen as the TV Mass unfolds.
“I’ve always been amazed at how many people who can hear watch (that Mass), and how many recognize me from that little box,” she says.
Each session’s two Masses are broadcast on the appropriate Sundays at 6:30 a.m. on WREX TV. Antosch notes that many people she’s met think she and the others are at the chapel for the recording at that early hour. It is a common conclusion, she says, adding that many are surprised when she tells them how it is done. The early broadcast time, she adds, is distressing to her, although she knows of viewers who tape it to watch later in the day.
Nowadays there are fewer Deaf viewers of the TV Mass. That is in part because Msgr. Glenn Nelson, director of the Deaf Apostolate for the diocese, celebrates a signed weekly Sunday Mass and tapes it on his phone. He instantly uploads that interpreted Mass to Facebook, and people here and all over the world watch it.
Another reason is a weekly Mass, currently at St. Bridget Church in Loves Park, which Antosch and others interpret. That in-person interpretation is also provided by the Deaf Apostolate.
However, Antosch knows that her work on the TV Mass does help elderly people without computers.
And perhaps her presence in that corner box is inspiring others to learn ASL and help communication efforts to serve Deaf Catholics in this and other dioceses.
