Breathing new life into his faith - A devout Catholic man draws inspiration by incorporating aspects of yoga into his life
In 1996, when Richard Galentino walked into
a Georgetown University gymnasium for his first
yoga class, he was not sure what to expect.
For Galentino, raised in a traditional Italian
Catholic home and educated in church-affiliated
schools, this breathing-and-exercise discipline
long identified with Hinduism was entirely new.
"I read it in the course catalog and thought
it would be interesting," recalls Galentino,
now director of Catholic Volunteers of Florida,
based in Orlando. "I've always been interested
in health and fitness."
The experience was profound, if not life-changing.
A decade later, Galentino, 32, has synchronized
the strands of his life -- the Western, Catholic
tradition of saying the Rosary, with the Eastern
religious breathing practice called praynayama.
He is the author of Hail Mary and Rhythmic Breathing:
A New Way of Praying the Rosary.
Along the way, he has become a man of disparate
parts: Harvard graduate, marathoner; fluent
speaker of French and Swahili; Jesuit volunteer
in Africa and Honduras. And, yes, yoga instructor.
Galentino first became interested in yoga during
his academic class work at Georgetown, reading
about Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, and the
various physical and meditative disciplines
that Gandhi followed. Gandhi's autobiography,
The Story of My Experiments with Truth, had
a particularly deep impact.
"It sparked a real, true education beyond
the course," he says. Then a senior at
the university's prestigious school of foreign
service, and seriously considering becoming
a Jesuit priest, Galentino found the yoga class
a "reprieve" from the stress he was
going through.
"I loved the class instantly," he
says, but he found it to be much more than relaxation.
His instructor, Victor Vyasa Landa, talked
about the importance of following your heart,
says Galentino, but nothing Landa said threatened
the student's Catholic theology.
The instructor brought up the Virgin Mary and
St. Francis, and "presented them in a yogi
perspective," Galentino says.
The idea of combining yoga and the rosary came
to him in late 2002 while he was working on
an Advent calendar. One window said "Do
Contemplation." Another said, "Pray
the Rosary."
"It happened in prayer," he says.
"Sometimes in contemplative prayer I would
just try to rest in the presence of God."
Conventional Catholic breathing and praying
traditions, such as saying "in God"
while inhaling and then "out me" while
exhaling, inspired Galentino. The idea of incorporating
"Hail Mary" occurred to him almost
by accident.
"I found myself combining the two,"
he recalls, "contemplative prayer with
the rosary."
'Everybody breathes'
Some Christians have long been critical of
yoga because they believe it emphasizes the
physical self, to the exclusion of Christian
spirituality. Pope Benedict XVI even weighed
in on the subject in 1989 when, as Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, he warned that some Eastern
practices, including yoga, "can degenerate
into a cult of the body." Catholics, he
said, should not confuse yoga's "pleasing
sensations" with "spiritual well-being."
That concern is well-founded, Galentino says.
"I would agree," he says, "and
I think most yoga masters would too. In our
contemporary society, it is easy to turn yoga
into a materialistic 'cult of the body,' in
which image and physical experiences become
more important than relationships with others
and God."
In the same letter, Galentino says, then-Cardinal
Ratzinger "also states that we can use
the methods of other 'great religions' to achieve
union with God as long as it is consistent with
Christian logic. This is what I am doing with
yoga."
Orlando Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Wenski
seems to have no problem with Galentino's book,
saying that Western traditions also use similar
breathing practices.
"Breathing isn't unique to Easterners,"
Wenski says. "Everybody breathes."
"He's a fine man," Wenski says of
Galentino. "He's a good Catholic leader."
More manuscripts coming
The road to publication for Galentino's slender
paperback was not straight. He sent the manuscript,
originally titled Hail Mary and the Art of Yoga
Breathing, to 50 publishers. Some rejected it
outright -- several dubbing it heretical.
Then, while visiting the Catholic shrine at
Lourdes, France, he got an e-mail from Paulist
Press, a Catholic publisher, saying it wanted
his book.
"That was my miracle," he says.
The only thing the publishers wanted to change
was the title.
Galentino has already completed the manuscript
for his next book, The Wormwood Emails, an updating
of C.S. Lewis' classic, The Screwtape Letters.
Galentino's primary job, though, is serving
as head of Catholic Volunteers of Florida, where
he supervises 14 people who give a year of service
around the state, sometimes en route to a career
in ministry.
A native of Upstate New York, Galentino himself
served as a Jesuit lay volunteer in Tanzania
for three years, working as a teacher. Afterward,
he considered joining his college roommate at
a Jesuit seminary but says he felt called down
a different path. He received a master's degree
from Harvard in administration, planning and
social policy. Today, he and his wife are the
parents of a 9-month-old baby.
He practices yoga regularly, and it shows on
the job, co-workers say.
"He's generally a pretty calm and patient
guy," says Sister Florence Bryan, placement
director for Catholic volunteers, who has worked
with Galentino for three years. "He's a
forthright but gentle mentor."
Bryan says that Galentino does "a good
job of trying to integrate yoga with Christian
meditation, as well as encouraging exercise
and good eating by the volunteers he supervises.
I think he sees all of that as incorporated
into one spirituality, based on respect for
the body."
