Have you ever heard a priest celebrate the Mass in a strong, clear voice, perhaps chanting some of the prayers? Then you probably have Father Richard Wojcik to thank. Father Wojcik, 85, died Jan. 26 after teaching music and vocal practicum — or using the voice as an instrument, both in speech and song — to four generations of seminarians at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary. Among them was Father Thomas Baima, vice rector for academic affairs and dean of the Graduate School of Theology, who was ordained in 1980. Baima said that, at its height, Mundelein was the seminary of 50 U.S. dioceses, about a quarter of the dioceses in the country, so Father Wojcik’s influence reaches far beyond the archdiocese. Father Wojcik, who was born on the Southwest Side and baptized at Five Holy Martyrs Parish, attended St. Bruno School before entering the archdiocesan seminary system. His home parish was St. Daniel the Prophet. He was ordained in 1949, spent a year as an associate pastor at St. Mary of Perpetual Help, 1039 W. 32nd St., then taught at Quigley Preparatory Seminary and directed the Cathedral Chant Choir from 1950-1953. In 1953, he went to Rome to study at the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music. He was one of three Chicago priests — with Bishop Raymond Goedert and the late Msgr. Richard Dolciamore — returning to the United States on board the Italian liner Andrea Doria when it sank off the coast of Nantucket on July 25, 1956. He and the other priests stayed on the vessel, praying, comforting and granting mass absolution to passengers, until the crew was ready to abandon ship. Forty-six passengers died in the disaster. That fall, he began teaching at Mundelein, and he didn’t stop until recently, Baima said. He was also the seminary’s music director from 1956-1990. “Officially, he retired in 1994 and was made professor emeritus,” Baima said. “But he taught usually one class each term after that.” That continued until about 2010, said Linda Cerabona, director of music at Mundelein for the past eight years. “He loved the music, he loved the church and he loved being a priest,” she said. “He loved — loved — Mundelein, and I think it was the seminarians who kept him going.” In addition to teaching and composing and arranging music, Father Wojcik celebrated weekend Masses and directed the choir at Prince of Peace Parish in Lake Villa starting in 1971 and celebrated Mass in Polish at Santa Maria del Popolo Parish in Mundelein starting in 1983. He was the priest selected to celebrate a demonstration Mass at Mundelein incorporating the changes after the Second Vatican Council for seminarians and priests alike, Baima said, and he published many compositions and commentaries. “He was very influential nationally after Vatican II,” Cerabona said, adding that “he put Mundelein on the map” in terms of liturgical music. While the seminary went through many forms in his time there — “He used to say he taught at four seminaries, and he never moved,” Baima said — nearly every seminarian would have had him for class at one time or another, whether it was in the days when all classes were required or when students chose most of their classes. The vocal practicum was a high point, Baima said. That course ended with Father Wojcik’s teaching career, since it more or less consisted of the priest applying his wisdom to the vocal needs of his students. He did so without too much regard for their self-esteem, Baima noted. “He would tell you what he thought,” Baima said, describing a formal man who spoke with quiet authority. “When you spoke to him, he would listen to you intently, and then he would give you his response. And when he gave you his answer, that was the answer.” Cerabona, who worked closely with him in his later years, spoke of his gentleness, and his deep spirituality. “His love of music, especially church music, was a true sign to all of us of the importance of music within the liturgy,” she wrote in a letter to the Mundelein community following Father Wojcik’s death. “Music was his prayer, and through his composing, arranging, directing and singing, you could see that all of his work was rooted in a deep love of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.”