Explaining Ad Orientam to a Parish

I stumbled on this the other day and thought it was a fantastic way to explain and prepare a congregation for the Mass celebrated Ad Orientem.  I'm not sure which parish it came from, but it's excellent.  

Blessed Sacrament Parish will celebrate its feast day on Sunday, June 6, on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. To commemorate this great day in the life of the parish and the universal Church, we are celebrating a special Mass at noon that will include the procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the grounds of our parish, both to signify the importance of the Eucharist and to celebrate the body of Christ, the people. The procession will be followed by a catered luncheon in appreciation for the entire parish.

I have also decided, after conferring with my associate, Jesson Mata, Director of Liturgy and Music, to celebrate the noon Mass "ad orientem" in the vernacular, that is, English. The phrase "ad orientem" means "to the east." It is a way of celebrating Mass in which the priest faces the same direction as the people. At Blessed Sacrament, this would mean the priest, in effect, prays towards the crucifix in the same direction as the people. We call this form of prayer "ad orientem" because the east is where the sun rises. Christ himself is the rising sun. For early Christians, praying towards the east, towards the dawn, towards Christ himself, would have been a common liturgical posture. The practice of facing east in Catholic liturgy is not a literal directional issue, however; in fact, facing the crucifix at Blessed Sacrament Church is facing directional west. The orientation is primarily towards Christ, who is effectively symbolized by the crucifix.

Why are we doing this now?

The practice of facing the east is an age-old custom that has been kept in the treasury of Catholic worship and a practice we can use today in the Mass. I have decided to resurrect this custom because I believe it is important in the prayer life of the parish.

I have been at Blessed Sacrament Church for seven years now. Five years ago, I invited Jesson Mata to join the staff as my associate for liturgy. Throughout the course of these five years, Jesson and I have labored together to enhance the prayer life of the church through the diverse offerings of Catholic liturgy. While diversity in liturgical practice can sometimes be counterproductive to the goal of deepening our prayer lives, what we have accomplished thus far has produced remarkable effects. I have seen us pray for and support the sick, the elderly, and the poor in our community. I have seen our young people engaged in their faith. I have witnessed our people care for the sick and dying in the hospitals. We have invited and welcomed the stranger amidst us. I have even observed strong disagreements among our people that have been resolved with respect for one another. These effects can beattributed to our life of prayer. While there are many forms of prayer, there is only one God, only one Christ; and one Spirit who breathes life into our Church. It is that same Spirit that continues to guide this parish.

My intention, as your pastor, is to continue to build our Dominican community by employing the rich traditions of Catholic worship and Catholic theology. I want to build a church dedicated to the pursuit of truth. I strongly believe that Blessed Sacrament has a great potential to become a true Dominican center for faith formation and evangelization. I envision a church with many rooms, where its members engage each other in the faith; where wisdom and knowledge are shared and spoken; where authentic dialogue happens naturally, amidst the diversity of minds and backgrounds; where peace and justice meet; and where each of us may find a place to pray.

The Mass is the ultimate expression of thanksgiving and my hope is for you to join your prayers to mine in that perfect prayer to God. The prayer that I say during the Mass is not simply my own. In fact, the prayers are of and for the entire Church, both yours and mine. I wonder sometimes if people believe that the Mass belongs to the priest. We often think (because of variants that occur with each presider) that the Mass is centrally about the priest. It is not. It is not about me. The Mass is Christ's, and my function, as a priest, is to lead our prayer to God. Facing "ad orientem," that is, east, facing Christ, is a noble way of praying with the congregation. I wish for all of us to understand that this is not about exploring ways of prayer that are "better" than another form of prayer; rather, we must see this as an expression of the same prayer. Our Holy Father expressed the same sentiment about the new and the old rites, i.e., the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite. Both belong to the same family. Likewise, praying "ad orientem" belongs to the same family. We belong to one Church with various expressions of prayer.

Come Holy Spirit: Celebrating Ascension Thursday on Sunday?

Since the transfer of what's traditionally been called "Ascension Thursday" to Sunday its been a bit confusing as to how to celebrate this solemnity.

Many of you already know that, in some areas of the United States, bishops have decided to transfer "Ascension Thursday" to the Sunday immediately following. So, for example, in the ecclesiastical Province of Michigan -- a province includes those dioceses that are attached to a Metropolitan bishop, a.k.a. the "Archbishop" -- the bishops have decided that the Solemnity of the Ascension will be transferred to Sunday. So, we no longer celebrate the Ascension this Thursday because it is transferred to Sunday.

The bishops have given various reasons for this, but the most common one is because of the low numbers of people who attended Mass on Ascension Thursday. Also, it was said that it was sometimes harder to put together adequate resources to celebrate this feast with its due solemnity in the middle of the work week -- music, food, etc. The bishops thought it would make for a better celebration if we could do it on Sunday when people could attend more easily and bring together more resources to really celebrate the day. Personally, I think it's great to really celebrate the Ascension on Sunday when more resources can be given to it. Yet, I think the reality in most parishes is that the Ascension tends to become 'one more Sunday' among the others, just with different music. Moving the Ascension to Sunday gives into the secular culture of our day that would have us keep God confined to Sunday and leave the rest of the week to the world.

That being said, the Catholic Church (i.e. the Church throughout the world) continues to celebrate this Solemnity of the Ascension on the universal calendar on the 40th day of Easter...i.e. this Thursday, during the 6th Week of Easter. For example, if you were in Rome you would be celebrating the Ascension today, Thursday. So, although we will not liturgically be celebrating today as the Ascension of the Lord, I still like to make a personal remembrance of Thursday as the Ascension BECAUSE it is the biblical way: it was on this 40th day of Easter that our Lord ascended to the Father and on the following day (i.e. Friday), that the Apostles began to wait for nine days in the upper room for the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday.

This is not a fundamentalist way of reading the Scriptures, but a liturgical way of reading and living the Scriptures. That is, the Acts of the Apostles is written with this chronology of 40 days + 9 days to help us to see the fulfillment of the Lord Jesus' mission in the light of these two traditional Jewish pilgrimage feasts of Passover and Pentecost. Whereas in Passover the the Lord's saving Presence is celebrated in His death and resurrection; in Pentecost the Lord's Presence in His life-giving New Covenant Presence (the Person of the Holy Spirit) is celebrated. This nine-day novena, from the Ascension to Pentecost, is instituted by the Lord Jesus Himself and is a great way to annually celebrate and renew His New Covenant fulfillment.

Practically, that can mean that the family might begin to pray a Novena (a nine-day prayer) to God for an outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. This can be confusing for adults and kids, but people often celebrate a holiday (like Christmas) when family members can get together rather than only celebrating it on the specific calendar day. So, the way I like to see it is that the local church may get together on Sunday to celebrate Ascension Thursday because of practical reasons of difficulty gathering the whole family together, but we still celebrate the Ascension in our own particular family on the day it falls chronologically, i.e. Thursday.

So, whether you liturgically celebrate the Ascension on Thursday or Sunday, celebrate with the Universal Church on Thursday and count down the next nine days with prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. Come Holy Spirit, Come!

Clean Bacon

I remember working at a retreat during Lent a few years back and waking up to the smell of bacon on Saturday morning--my olfactory meat-detection tends to be particularly acute on (and immediately after) penitential days. I took a big whiff and commented: “Mmmmm . . . Unless a pig shall fall to the ground and die, there shall be no bacon!”

Today, the first reading that the Church gives to us in the Mass is Acts 11:1-18. In it, Peter has been consorting with Gentiles (non-Jews)--something taboo for pious Jews at the time because the ritual purity laws forbid it. He explains that a vision was given him, showing him all sorts of unclean animals and a voice from heaven telling him to kill and eat the animals. Peter replied like any faithful Jew would have, refusing to eat what was unclean. The voice replied: “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.”

What goes unmentioned here is the fact that the animals were considered unclean for the sake of ritual purity--primarily for the sake of purely offering the sacrifices in the Temple. Some have even argued that the clean animals were the same as the animals that neighboring pagans had worshipped as gods and that the slaughter of the clean animals was the slaughter of the pagan gods as a way of keeping Israel pure from the worship of false gods. Dr. Hahn treats this well in his book A Father Who Keeps His Promises:

The Israelites had to fight a protracted war against idolatry, which they were commanded now to wage by daily animal sacrifice, among other things. Within the Father's remedial program lay a subtle strategy. On the one hand, Israel couldn't slaughter—or eat—the animals that the Egyptians sacrificed to their gods; they were declared unclean. On the other hand, Israel had to slaughter and eat the animals that the Egyptians venerated but never sacrificed; they were clean. [166]

The entire book of the Acts of the Apostles, however, takes place after Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ sacrifice, beginning in the upper room and consummating on the cross, had already been performed. That for which the Temple sacrifices were called has been fulfilled by the one true sacrifice. The Jewish Temple has become sacrificially useless--signified by the tearing of the veil from the top down (Matthew 25:51, Mark 15:38) commonly understood as the tear coming from God, not man and the tear representing the fact that the Temple holy of holies is no longer useful. The veil used to cover it because its holiness was only to be seen by the high priest on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Full Atonement had been made by Jesus’ sacrifice. There was no more need for the Jewish Temple because its sacrificial system had been fulfilled by the new definitive sacrifice.

With the replacement of the old sacrificial system (in fact, the entire Old Law, save what is contained in the Natural Law) by Jesus’ new sacrifice, the ritual purity laws were also fulfilled and replaced. Jesus’ sacrifice established a new covenant, with a new sacrifice and a new priesthood. God has made all the animals clean and He has opened membership among those people He calls His own to the Gentiles. This is particularly relevant for me and bacon. I don’t come from Jewish descent, so only by Jesus’ opening up to the Gentiles am I able to participate as a member of the people of God during this life--and only by His fulfillment of the Old Law has He made bacon (and all previously unclean foods) clean again, so, enjoy your bacon and thank God for revealing to us (through St. Luke's recollection of our first pope's explanation) that these foods are no longer off limits. Thank God even more (those of you not from Jewish descent) that we are able to be a part of the Catholic Church and receive, from her, the graces to be drawn into an ever-deepening union with God.

Good Shepherd Sunday

The Gift of the Priesthood

Why does a man choose to become a priest?  Because he has fallen in love and has been called.  

Pope John Paul II answered this question well:

I am often asked, especially by young people, why I became a priest. Maybe some of you would like to ask the same question. Let me try briefly to reply. I must begin by saying that it is impossible to explain entirely. For it remains a mystery, even to myself. How does one explain the ways of God? Yet, I know that, at a certain point in my life, I became convinced that Christ was saying to me what he had said to thousands before me: 'Come, follow me!' There was a clear sense that what I heard in my heart was no human voice, nor was it just an idea of my own. Christ was calling me to serve him as a priest.

This call that he felt was a call to love that many have heard: "'Simon, son of John, do you love me?' He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.' He said to him, 'Tend my sheep'" (Jn. 21:16).   So, the priest is not his own, but is Christ's.  The priest is priest only because he has been configured to Christ, i.e. made like him, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. 

The priest is thus called to live his life as a response to Jesus' love, so that His love might continue to be tangible in the world.  This is principally the case in the Sacraments where Jesus touches us and we are able to touch Him.  The Sacraments are the powers that come forth from His Body and heal us (cf. Luke 5:17; CCC 1116). 

The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the principle way in which Christ regularly gives Himself to us bodily and calls forth a response of love from us.  Indeed, "This sacrifice is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 11).  So it is that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (Jn. 6:53). 

Fr. Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, O.P. described this call of God in practical terms:

To live in the midst of the world with no desire for its pleasures; to be a member of every family, yet belonging to none; to share all sufferings; to penetrate all secrets, to heal all wounds; to daily go from men to God to offer Him their homage and petitions; to return from God to men to bring them His pardon and hope; to have a heart of fire for charity and a heart of bronze for chastity; to bless and to be blest forever.  O God, what a life, and it is yours, O Priest of Jesus Christ. 

Let us give thanks for the gift of the priesthood and pray that God will send us more holy priests!

Easter Sunday

Call: He is Risen!  Response: He is Risen, Indeed! 

So goes the old Greek dialogue between Christians during the Easter season. 

As we sang at the Easter Vigil, "This is the night…" when Jesus conquered sin and death through his victorious resurrection from the dead! 

This is our passover feast,
when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,
whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

This is the night
when first you saved our fathers:
you freed the people of Israel from their slavery
and led them dry-shod through the sea.

This is the night
when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin!

This is the night
when Christians everywhere,
washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night
when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death
and rose triumphant from the grave.

It is we who are witnesses to this night of glory, this Easter Day, "the first day of the week" (John 20:1), when Our Lord passed from death to life, rising bodily from the dead.  Ever since this Day, "the culmination of history is anticipated 'as a foretaste,' and the kingdom of God enters into our time" (CCC 1168).

 

The New Creation has begun in Jesus' bodily resurrection.  This is why "the readings of the Easter Vigil, the celebration of the new creation in Christ, begin with the creation account" (CCC 281).  Because "sin when it is full-grown brings forth death" (James 1:15), Christ's victory isn't merely over some ethereal sin out there someplace, but over sin as it manifests itself bodily, physically, concretely in our world. 

 

So it is that when the Son of God took flesh the blind began to see, lepers were cleansed, the dead rose from their graves.  Jesus is "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:20). 

 

"Therefore Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the 'Feast of feasts,' the 'Solemnity of solemnities,' just as the Eucharist is the 'Sacrament of sacraments' (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter 'the Great Sunday' and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week 'the Great Week.' The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to him" (CCC 1169).  

 

This New Creation, this "imperishable" seed (cf. 1 Peter 1:23), has taken root in us through our baptism into Christ's death and resurrection.  We might begin our joy in this Easter season by  asking the Lord where His New Creation needs to grow in our lives, in our families, in our communities.  A blessed Easter to you all!

 

Call: He is Risen!

Death on a Friday Afternoon

This is a small piece from Fr. Neuhaus' book, Death on a Friday Afternoon.  It's wonderful!!!  

I hope that in some small way it helps you celebrate Good Friday more deeply.

Every human life, conceived from eternity and destined to eternity, here finds its story truly told.  In this killing that some call senseless we are brought to our senses.  here we find out who we most truly are, because here is the One who is what we are called to be.   The derelict cries, "Come, follow me."  Follow him there?  We recoil.  We close our ears.  We hurry on to Easter.  But we will not know what to do with Easter's light if we shun the friendship of the darkness that is wisdom's way to light.

[The prodigal son was]...determined to reach for the stars, to seize the light, to shatter the restraints of life, he went to his father and asked for all he could get...And so the prodigal son went off to what we are told was a distant country.  There he wasted his money...until he had no more and was no more what he had been.  Destitute..."He came to his senses"...

The beginning of wisdom is to come to our senses and know the fearful truth about ourselves, that we have wandered and wasted our days ina  distant country far from home...

Stay for a while.  Do not hurry by the cross on your way to Easter joy, for we know the risen Lord only through Christ and him crucified...The only joy to be trusted is the joy on the far side of a broken heart; the only life to be trusted is the life on the far side of death.  Stay a while, with Christ and him crucified.  

We contemplate for a time the meaning of Good Friday, and then return to what is called the real world of work and shopping and commuter trains and homes.  As we come out of a movie theater adn shake our heads to clear our minds of another world where we lied for a time in suspended disbelief, as we reoriet ourselves to reality, so we leave our contemplation--we leave the church buildin, we close the book--where for a time another reality seemed possible, believable, even real.  But, we tell ourselves, the real world is a world elsewhere.  It is the world of deadlines to be met, of appointments to be kept, of taxes to be paid, of children to be educated.  From here, from this moment at the cross, it is a distant country.  "Father, forgive them, for they have forgotten the way home.  They have misplaced the real world"  Here, here at the cross, is the real world, here is the axis mundi.  

[If the real world is that of deadlines and adgendas...] What then is that other world of worship, prayer and contemplative exploration into the mystery of Christ's presence, a presence ever elusive and disturbingly near?...It is by this world, this world at the cross, that reality is measured and judged.  That other world, the world we call real, is a distant country until we with Christ bring it home to the waiting Father.  

We are bringing it home, dragging it all behind us: the deadlines and the duties, the fears of failure and hopes for advancement, the loves unreturned, the plans disappointed, the children we lose, the marriage we cannot mend.  And so we come loping along with reality's baggage, returning to the real--the real that we left behind when we left for what we mistook as the real world.  " I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, 'Father I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'"  I am no longer worhty to be called your son.  I am no longer worhty to be called your daughter.  And Christ our elder brother takes the baggage and hoists it upon his shoulders, adding this to all that on the cross he is bearing and bringing home.  "Father, forgive them, for they knew not what they were doing."

"Come to me," he had earlier said, "all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest."  Bring me your baggage.

Lenten Growth Through Conversion

What Are You "Giving Up" For Lent?

Let's go beyond the basics here and go straight to the heart: what do I need to let go of in order to grow closer to God?

Fasting

In his Lenten Message Pope Benedict writes, "Since all of us are weighed down by sin and its consequences, fasting is proposed to us as an instrument to restore friendship with God."

Indeed, fasting has been a part of human life from the very beginning when God told Adam, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Gen. 2:16-17). So it was, writes St. Basil, that "'fasting was ordained in Paradise'…'You shall not eat is a law of fasting and abstinence'" (Benedict XVI, Lenten Message).

"True fasting" is oriented toward doing "the will of the Heavenly Father, who 'sees in secret, and will reward you' (Mt. 6:18)…The true fast is thus directed to eating the 'true food,' which is to do the Father's will (cf. Jn. 4:34). If, therefore, Adam disobeyed the Lord's command 'of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,' the believer, through fasting, intends to submit himself humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy."

"That We Might No Live NO Longer for Ourselves but for Him"

"Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God."

Fasting for Others

Benedict tells us that "Voluntary fasting enables us to grown in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of this suffering brother…By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brother and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving." Benedict quotes St. Peter Chrysologogus: "Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy' if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to other, you open God's ear to yourself."

Fasting: How?

How can I fast? Again we turn to the question we began with: what do I need to let go of in order to grow closer to God? If it's wasting time on television or the internet or some such amusement, then give some of that time up every day to prayer, to reading the Bible or a spiritual book, to spending time with someone who needs you. If inviting God into the sphere of my bodily health is lacking, let go of something in order to give time to God in exercise. When we give these things up we discover that we never lose anything except that which we never really needed in the first place.

Lastly, pick a day per week and cut out some of the food you usually eat. Have a plan for Lent.

Why the "ROMAN Catholic Church"? Why not just, the "Catholic Church"?

I'm studying the Book of Revelation these days and am enjoying it greatly.  I found some great introductory stuff for how to read the Bible from Peter Kreeft's, You can Understand the Bible: A Practical and Illuminating Guide to Each Book of the Bible, and N.T. Wright's Simply Christian.  

I found this quotation from Michael Barber in his book, Coming Soon: Unlocking the Book of Revelation.

"Ever wonder why it's so important that we are not only 'Catholic,' but 'Roman Catholic'?  The early Christians knew why.  Saints like Peter and Paul went to Rome hoping that, by the shedding of their blood, the fourth beast would convert, so that the kingdom of God would be made manifest through it.  The term 'Roman Catholic,' then, reflects not some kind of implicit political allaince between the Church and Italy, or any other earthly power, but the fulfillment of God's plan, which He announced through Daniel."

So, it was not by random chance that Sts. Peter or Paul went to Rome.  St. Paul's insistence to be heard by the Emperor in Acts moves us along these lines.  Also, the fact that Acts ends with St. Paul in Rome, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom.  

This also moves us further into the Book of Revelation: is "Babylon the great," of which St. John speaks, Rome or Jerusalem?  Interesting.