By: Anastasia Pinto
Through the academic year, community life at The Lay Centre extended beyond classrooms and liturgies, utilizing art as a unique language for encountering God and one another. On May 14, The Lay Centre welcomed Dominican Fathers Peter Gautsch, O.P., and Austin Litke, O.P., both members of the American musical collective The Hillbilly Thomists.
Fr. Litke is a professor of Theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), where Fr. Gautsch is concluding is doctorate. Together with six of their Dominican brothers — including the rector of the Angelicum, Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. —, they have developed a unique musical project that seamlessly weaves together classic American bluegrass, folk, and country traditions with Christian theology.
The Hibility Thomists: Faith and Folk Tradition
During the evening, the musicians performed a selection of their own compositions and shared the group’s history, which has continued to expand its research and is preparing to release its sixth studio album.
The friars also discussed how music serves as a dynamic, contemporary tool for evangelization, helping modern audiences encounter the Christian message in a fresh, accessible format. Through melody, lyrics, and personal witness, they demonstrated how faith and art naturally enrich one another, opening new pathways for contemplating the divine.
Celebrating Lay Centre Talents
On different occasions, the community’s artistic engagement came to light.
Residents gathered at the Saint John II Institute of Culture at the Angelicum for a performance of Karol Wojtyła’s dramatic work The Jeweler’s Shop: A Meditation on the Sacrament of Matrimony, Passing on Occasion into a Drama.
The Lay Centre community attended the production in which resident assistant Olga Piaskowska was in the cast. The play explores the profound beauty, responsibilities, and inherent challenges of the marital vocation, inviting the audience to examine the intersections of love, freedom, and human relationships.
To mark the conclusion of the academic year, resident Pavel Stockmann performed a classical music piece for the community on June 17. He was joined by his friend Natalia, a student at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia. The evening’s program featured Johannes Brahms’ Violin Sonata in A major, a masterwork composed in 1886 during the musician’s residency in Switzerland.
