Welcome Bishop da Cunha!

Earlier this week I was privileged to join folks from all across the Diocese of Fall River as they welcomed their new shepherd, Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha, S.D.V. Bishop da Cunha is the first native Portuguese speaking Bishop in the United States and his love of the people of Fall River was evident throughout the Liturgy of Installation. Here is a brief excerpt from his homily:


I feel so grateful today that the Lord and Pope Francis gave me this beautiful gift: the opportunity to serve the Lord and his people here in the Diocese of Fall River. My brother Priests and my brothers and sisters, I pledge to you today to use all the gifts God gave me, to use all the graces he will continue giving me, to serve you and to do it faithfully and joyfully. We shall walk together in faith and hope, sharing our faith with each other, praying for one another always trusting in the Lord’s words and the promise he made to us: Sufficit Tibi Gratia Mea. My Grace is enough for you.


Our own Father David Pignato was Master of Ceremonies and the Liturgy of Installation was beautifully celebrated.

Welcome Bishop da Cunha!

SJS at the Danvers Carmel

Close to thirty seminarians joined Father Riley and me for a pilgrimage to the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Danvers this morning.  After Mass the seminarians had a chance to spend some time speaking with the cloistered sisters through the cloister grill.  I am very grateful to the third order Carmelites, and especially our own Loretta Gallagher, for making this visit possible.

A Vision for Saint John's Seminary

Here is an excerpt from a Master Planning Video I shared with the Board of Trustees the other day concerning my vision for the growth of Saint John's Seminary in the coming years.  I hope you enjoy it!

Congratulations Deacon Vigneron!

Philippe Vigneron, a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Paris who is studying at Saint John's this semester, was ordained to the Diaconate in Paris this past weekend. Father Romanus Cessario, O.P. graciously represented Saint John's Seminary at his ordination. Our grateful prayers to God for providing us with another fine deacon!

Family Day at SJS

WELCOME

In the closing prayer of today’s Mass, you will hear the words “may God bless us through the mysteries we have celebrated and through the way we live our lives.”  Today is one of the happiest days of the year in this holy house, as we welcome those family and friends who by the way they have lived their lives, have raised up priests for Christ and for his Church.

For, you see, the very reason these good men are part of Saint John’s Seminary is because of the choices their families and friends have made: choices for life, for faithfulness and for holiness. Thank you for all the sacrifices you have made for them.  May Christ reward a hundredfold.

I am also very happy to welcome the family of Father Francis Murphy, whose generosity made possible our new tabernacle.  Ann, his twin sister is with us, along with her husband John, and their daughter with her husband, along with Fr. Murphy’s grand-niece.  Please join me in saying thank you to the family and friends of this good priest.

I invite you all to join me in offering this Mass for the repose of Father Murphy’s soul and in gratitude for his sterling example of priestly ministry.

—-

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, 

and so prepare ourselves 

to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

HOMILY

“Seek the LORD while he may be found, call to him while he is still near.”

As we welcome the families and friends of all our brothers in this holy house, I think of my own parents who first brought me to seminary some forty two years ago.  My father has since died and my mother’s health is fading.  And here I am, in my early sixties (with emphasis on the word early).  How life goes by…how everything changes.

Everything except the Lord.  He was there at the beginning, he through whom all things were made, he who named me in my mother’s womb..  He will be there at the end of time, sitting on a cloud to judge the living and the dead.

And he is there at every moment in between.  

Stilling the hearts of an anxious seminarian, overwhelming him with his grace, and with an unlimited supply of enthusiasm, hope and passion.

He is there.

Inspiring the soul of the newly ordained, urging him on to save the world, to evangelize the margins and to do great things for Christ and for his Church.

He is there.

Guiding the actions of the middle aged pastor, making him wise and patient and slow to judge…kind and giving but unwavering from the truth.

He is there.

Strengthening the limbs of the aging priest, weighed down by the burden of his years, tired of everything except the altar of God, which even in his dotage brings  joy to his youth.

He is there.

Quietly closing the eyes of the priest about to die, singing the Nunc Dimittis and granting him eternal rest in the arms of God.

He is there.  Always and at every moment of our lives.

There on the day when Francis J. and his wife Margaret brought their son Frank to Saint John’s in 1957.   Little did Frank know on that day what lay ahead of him: that he would become a priest and teacher here on the College Faculty, that he’d be sent for his Ph.D. or that he’d live the last years of his priesthood caring for the children at the Nazareth Center in Jamaica Plain or the Sisters of Charity at Mount Vincent in Wellesley.  

But God was always there, in every moment of the life of this good priest. And with him when he died and left a bequest to Saint John’s for a new tabernacle before which we pray throughout the day and even at night.  A tabernacle which is, likewise, a sign that God is always there.

When this Tabernacle was first blessed, Bishop Matano prayed for three things: That through our adoration of the Body of Christ reserved in this tabernacle we might be drawn closer to the mysteries celebrated on the Altar, that God might make us more holy, and that we might find in him an inexhaustible fountain of living water, leaping up to provide eternal life.

One at this Altar in Holiness

To be one with Christ at this Altar means we are one with every person who prays before every altar throughout the world.  I remember when I first went off to seminary, it seemed so far away from my home, my family and my old friends and the life I used to have.  And no matter how many times I meditated on the calling of the disciples or tried to hear the Lord’s voice saying “Come, Follow me,” it was still so hard not to look back and to focus ahead.

One seminarian, not of Saint John’s, had just such a tough time his first year, away from home, away from friends and everything which had provided him with such support and security.  He thought of leaving innumerable times and prayed repeatedly for God’s grace…just to do his will.  I spoke to him recently after he had returned from his summer apostolate and he was a completely changed man.  His eyes are now firmly fixed on the extraordinary surprises God has waiting for him over the next horizon.  His heart no longer clings to the securities of the past.  He has abandoned himself to following the Son of Man, who often has no place to lay his head.  He only wants to be joined to that Altar, to be obedient to God.

In Holiness

The God who invites us to holiness, to be transformed in him.

When I was a little kid I thought I knew what holiness way.  It was to look like those dusty old plaster statues, with a placid look on your face, gazing longingly beyond this vail of tears to the eternal glories of heaven.

What I was missing was how you get to be holy.  It’s hard work accepting God’s grace and struggling to reflect the love of Christ and let go of my own stubborn desires for fame and fortune and calling the shots.

But God can make you holy, if only you let him.  God can so change our hearts by the mysteries we celebrate here that we forgive rather than judge, that we seek out the ones whom everyone else would reject just to love them.  God can so change us that we speak the truth, even when they will hate us for it.  God can so change us that we rejoice, like Mary, in our littleness rather than trying to grab for all the gusto we can get.  God can so change us that we seek only to decrease that he may increase.  God can so change me that you no longer see me, but Christ Jesus in me.

Through the mysteries of this altar God can do anything, even make me holy.

Eternal Refreshment and Peace

And so come, my friends, come be refreshed and strengthened by the Holy Eucharist celebrate upon this altar and reserved in that tabernacle, as was Frank Murphy in every moment of his life, as are his friends and relatives who join us today, as are my brother seminarians and priests, as are each one of us who are led to this table by the Good Shepherd, by still waters, where he refreshes your soul.

For he is always there. 

Seminarians, Family, Friends and Bach

Thanks to Dr. Janet Hunt and the great musicians who joined her tonight in Saint John's Chapel, we all enjoyed a wondrous evening of Bach arias and a concerto.  I am deeply grateful to them all!

Praying for our Dioceses...

As another year begins, we pray in thanksgiving for our nine sending dioceses, most recently the Diocese of Rochester!

It was just about a year ago that we completed the painting of the shields of each of these dioceses in the hands of the angels who soar over the Refectory.  I just recently came across these great photographs of those seals (and was reminded that we need to begin work on the Shield for the Diocese of Rochester!)

As you admire the artwork, please pray for the seminarians from each of these dioceses, men who will, God willing, serve the Churches in these great Dioceses for decades to come!

The Archdiocese of Boston

The Diocese of Burlington

The Diocese of Fall River

The Archdiocese of Hartford

The Diocese of Manchester

The Diocese of Providence

The Diocese of Springfield

The Diocese of Worcester

Preparing for Bach...

I would like to encourage all our loyal readers to attend the Bach concert on Saturday evening (details at the end of this post).  

With the help of Dr. Hunt, I have tried to regularly schedule live concerts of classical music for the benefit of our community and our benefactors.  I have done this because I truly believe that the great art which has served the Church throughout the ages provides the kind of reflection and majestic expression of beauty which our culture so desperately needs.

“Sitting through” a concert of sacred music is unlike watching a Netflix video or surfing the internet.  It demands my emotional and intellectual engagement in a way which few other experiences do.

This is why such music means so much to our Holy Father Emeritus, Pope Benedict.  I’ve always been touched by what he once said of a Bach Concert he had attended in Munich many years ago:

"I remember a concert performance of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach –- in Munich in Bavaria – conducted by Leonard Bernstein. At the conclusion of the final selection, one of the Cantate, I felt –- not through reasoning, but in the depths of my heart – that what I had just heard had spoken truth to me, truth about the supreme composer, and it moved me to give thanks to God. Seated next to me was the Lutheran bishop of Munich. I spontaneously said to him: Whoever has listened to this understands that faith is true – and the beauty that irresistibly expresses the presence of God's truth.”

Let us follow the good example of our dear Pope Emeritus and allow these great works of art to lead us closer to the Author of all beauty and life!

Saturday, September 20, 2014 at 7:30 pm

J. S. Bach Aria Concert

Saint John's Seminary Chapel

127 Lake St, Brighton

Vocal soloists and a string quartet join organist and music director Janet Hunt in a concert of sacred arias selected from Bach's cantatas, as well as a performance of his cheerful Concerto for Harpsichord in E Major.

Our New Websites are Live!

After several months of development, our new websites are live this morning!  To go to the Seminary Website click here.  To go to the Theological Institute site click here.  Make sure to bookmark these great sources of current and standard information on the exciting goings on at Saint John's Seminary!

My sincere thanks to Matt Doyle, our webmaster, who has worked so hard to develop these sites and who will assure they are regularly updated with the newest and best information!

Some things never change...

Some of the brothers were inspired the other day by an ancient photo of seminarians and an unnamed faculty member which hangs in the student lounge.

Feeling a certain kinship for the subjects of the photo, they recreated this image.

Having found this pose a bit too dour for the SJS they know and love, however, they added a bit more joy.

All great fun and thanks to all involved!

Are we like Fortunatus or Cyprian?

A Homily for

Saints Cornelius, Pope, 

and Cyprian, Bishop, 

Martyrs

I want to be God.  And I’m not alone.  Everybody does.  But, failing that, I want to be Emperor of all the world.  Or at least King of the world.  Or, President.  Or something, where everyone will do everything I tell them to.

I want to sit upon my royal throne and cast down edicts and decrees, which my faithful acolytes will implement gratefully.

Such lust for power is, I’m afraid, very much a part of the human condition.  Even though Saint Paul begs to differ: It cannot be like that among you, he says…no, the Body into which you have been baptized is something quite different than a child’s game of king of the hill.

In this body, he says, there are many parts: some Apostles or Bishops, some prophets, some teachers, some who work mighty deeds (maybe I’d like that one?), some who heal, some who speak in tongues, some who interpret tongues, etc. etc.

And each of these parts build up the body, making use of their unique charisms and competencies.  But the problem comes when one part of the body fails to recognize the role of another part and wants to Lord it over all the others parts as well.

Such was the case with Novatian and Fortunatus who declared themselves Bishops of Rome and Carthage during the persecutions of the early third century.  They didn’t like what Pope Cornelius and Bishop Cyprian, the rightful Bishops, were preaching.  So they just got their friends together and had themselves elected as anti-pope and anti-episcopus.

And while Cornelius and Cyprian were supported by local Councils of Bishops, the pretenders to their episcopal sees still refused to recognize that ubi episcopus, ibi ecclesia: that God chose their Bishops and that the teaching of these divinely chosen men must be received by every loyal son of the Church with humility and joy.

It’s just that simple.  Easy?  No.  For there will be times when you, like Novatian and Fortunatus, will find a teaching hard to understand, or unpopular with the flock to whom you will be called to preach it.  But God has not called you to take the easy road…you’ve been put on the narrow road, like those brothers of ours who will stand in the sanctuary in not a few months will profess these words in preparation for ordination:

With Christian obedience I shall follow what the Bishops, as authentic doctors and teachers of the faith, declare, or what they, as those who govern the Church, establish. I shall also faithfully assist the diocesan Bishops, so that the apostolic activity, exercised in the name and by mandate of the Church, may be carried out in communion with the Church.

So help me God, and God’s Holy Gospels on which I place my hand.

Tough words.  Words which Novatian and Fortunatus never professed.  Words which both Cornelius and Cyprian professed unto death.

NCEA Consultation

I’m at a consultation of the Executive Committees of the National Catholic Education Association this weekend (I serve on the Executive Committee for Seminaries), which has just completed a study on the future of the organization.  At the center of members’ concerns from across the country is the declining number of Catholic Schools (23.2% decline in the past ten years) and Catholic School students (22.7% decline in the past ten years).  Several hundred leaders in Catholic Education are brainstorming on this important area for the life of the Church.

Archbishop Chaput on the Film "Calvary"

Lots of folks have been talking about the new film "Calvary", in which an anonymous man in the confessional threatens to kill a priest because he has been molested years before.  The man was not molested by this priest, however, but by another priest.  Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.P. offers some very telling reflections on the film which I offer here in case you have seen or plan to see the movie.  By the way, Archbishop Chaput is also the author of one of the best books ever written on the relationship of Church and State: “Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life” (Random House, 2008)

    ‘Calvary’ is an unblinking, unforgettable film

by Archbishop Charles Chaput

“Calvary” is the kind of film that leaves a theater silent at the final credits. It’s not the silence of boredom or a morgue, but the silence of people collecting their emotions in order to breathe again.

Friends who’ve seen the film, some of them already two or three times, have noticed the same effect. From the first frame to the last, “Calvary” has an understated power – a blend of everyday pain, faith, despair, humor, candor, bitterness, and forgiveness – that brands itself onto the heart with spare simplicity. It’s also the best portrayal of a good priest in impossible circumstances I’ve seen in several decades.

Plenty of good reviews of Calvary already exist. I can’t improve on them here. It’s enough to say that the cast – led by Brendan Gleesonin an extraordinary performance – gives us a menagerie of human foibles, and the County Sligo setting has a raw Irish beauty that few viewers will ever forget.

But it’s the story that makes the film.

Gleeson plays an innocent man, a good priest, in the aftermath of Ireland’s devastating sex abuse scandal. A late vocation, a widower with a troubled adult daughter, he’s surrounded by people he knows better than they know themselves, characters ripe with indifference, resentment and cynicism, sprinkled with just enough courtesy to mask their contempt.

Into his confessional comes a man, the victim of clergy rape as a child, who informs him that he will murder him on Sunday in a week’s time – not because he’s a bad priest, but precisely because he’s a good priest. The rest of the film is the priest’s day-by-day path through the needs and circumstances of his people, and his own fear, to a meeting on the beach with the man who intends to kill him – a man whose voice the priest recognizes, but does not disclose, from the very beginning.

This is not a film for the young or the naïve. But along with the darkness come moments of great beauty: the priest’s kindness to an aging writer friend; his love for his daughter; his awareness of his own flaws and his patience with the flaws of his people; his humor and mentoring with a young altar server; and an astonishing scene with a young French woman, widowed in a car accident, about faith, death and gratitude for a married life filled with love.

Near the end of the film is a scene – a telephone conversation between the priest and his daughter filled with mercy, reconciliation, and forgiveness – that stays in the memory long after the screen goes black.

The Irish actor Chris O’Dowd, who plays a key supporting role in the story, has described himself as an atheist and organized religion as a “weird cult” in recent interviews. But he’s also said that “the relationship I have with priests in my own life is very, very positive. Even though I wouldn’t consider myself a Catholic anymore, I wouldn’t have done this film if I felt it was a hatchet job on priests.”

O’Dowd may be the voice of a “post-Christian” Ireland, but it’s curious: Amid all the ruin, suffering and unbelief caused by the abuse scandal of the past decade, the witness of a good priest who loves his people can somehow, so often, remain intact.

Or maybe it’s not so curious. One of the truths at the heart of this film is that the sins of the past bear a bitter kind of fruit in the present, in pain, anger, and revenge. Hypocrisy never stays hidden forever. But the opposite is also true: Love also leaves its indelible mark on the world.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). It’s the easy sort of passage from Scripture that Gleeson’s priest would admit sounds like a tired cliché, and yet he gives his life to it.

The result is an intimate, unblinking, unforgettable film.

The Smile of God...

Sandy Barry, our Director of Annual Giving, has been out on leave as she and her husband Craig have been welcoming their newborn son. Dillon Barry was the center of everyone's attention as Sandy brought the newest member of the Saint John's community for lunch during this past week. His presence reminded me of Pope Benedict XVI's homily at a Baptism he celebrated in 2008: "Each child born," said the Holy Father, "brings to us the smile of God and invites us to recognize that life is His gift, a gift that must be accepted with love and protected with care, always and at all times." (Pope Benedict XVI, January 8, 2008)

New SJS Website Goes Live Next Friday!

For many many months we have been hard at work on the new SJS website, both in its public version and the internal website for faculty and seminarians.  I am grateful to all who have worked so hard on this complex and vital resource, especially our webmaster, Matt Doyle.  I am delighted to announce the new website will go live next Friday, 19 September, with Faculty previews beginning this weekend.

By the way, I love this cartoon and have been looking for a chance to use it!

A Liturgy Conference with Fr. Briody

Father Joseph Briody presented a Liturgy Conference to the seminarians this evening.  Here is the text of his presentation on The Liturgy and the Seminary.

What we do here and why we do it?

In this brief presentation I would like to reflect on what we do here and why we do it?  This will involve a brief look at the Liturgy in general, the Paschal Mystery, interior and exterior dimensions, the Mass, adoration, the Liturgy of the Hours, beauty in the Liturgy and some practical applications.

What is the Liturgy?

The Liturgy is the official, public prayer of the Church and yet it is also the primary expression of our personal and intimate relationship with the Lord.  Its essence is communion with God and fellowship with Christ.  It allows us to encounter Jesus Christ in time (YOUCAT, 165).  God himself is present in sacred signs and ancient prayers. The Liturgy is given to us as a gift.  That is why the Second Vatican Council made clear that “no one, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, pr. 22,3).  The Liturgy is a gift from God through the Church.  St Paul says “this is what I have received and in turn pass on to you.” We receive it in faith and obedience.  It transforms us, shapes us, moulds us into Christ.  Were we to invent our own liturgy, it would have little transformative effect. It would be in our own image and likeness, not God’s.  

The Liturgy gradually shapes us “that Christ be formed in us” (Gal 4:19), as St. Paul says.  God pours out his grace in the Liturgy. Christ acts through the Liturgy and the sacraments just as he did when he visibly walked this earth.  “Our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments” (Pope St. Leo the Great tells us in his Ascension sermon).

The Paschal Mystery and the Mystical Body

The Liturgy continues “the work of Christ the Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to God” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, pr. 5).  It flows from the side of Christ crucified, and now risen and glorious at the right hand of the Father interceding for us.  From his pierced heart flowed blood and water, the “wellspring of the Church’s sacraments” (Preface of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus).  From his death and resurrection flow the Mass, the sacraments and all graces.   The passage of Christ from death to life is called the Paschal Mystery i.e. his passion, death, resurrection, ascension into glory and sending of the Holy Spirit.   This passage from death to life is the substance of every Christian Liturgy.  All Liturgy has the shape of the Paschal Mystery in order to form us into the image of the crucified and risen Lord.

All of this is for the glory of the Father and the sanctification of man (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 17).  This is the purpose of the Liturgy – the glory of God and our sanctification.  The Liturgy then is the worship offered by the members of the Church united with Christ their Head.  It is the worship of the full Christ, the Mystical Body of Christ (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 20).  We could summarize as follows:

• The Liturgy is the continuation of the work of Jesus Christ.  
• It is the action of Christ and the Church (the whole Christ)
• It directs our whole life towards God.  
• Through it we offer ourselves with Christ to the Father in the Spirit.

Interior and Exterior Dimensions

The Liturgy has both an interior dimension and an exterior dimension since it is the action of a body i.e., the action of the entire Body of Christ along with Christ her head.  The Liturgy necessarily involves external things – readings, bread and wine, oil, water, the altar, vestments etc.  We are led by what we see, to the things of God that are unseen.  Through “God made visible” in Christ, we are “caught up … in love of things invisible” (Roman Missal, (2011) Preface I of the Nativity of the Lord).  We are drawn into the mystery of Christ, the Paschal Mystery and enabled to live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us (cf. 2 Cor 5:15).  

Interior attitude should correspond with exterior celebration.  Otherwise, the Liturgy could become something artificial, like a theatrical performance, “formalism without meaning” ( Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 24), an empty shell, and not our spiritual worship. In contrast, St. Paul urges the Romans: “I urge you … to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1).  A good test is how I offer Mass when there is no congregation or how I act before the Blessed Sacrament when there is no one else around.

The chief element we bring to the Liturgy is interior – our dispositions, our openness, our preparation: “For we must always live in Christ and give ourselves to him completely… so that … the heavenly Father may be … glorified” Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 24).  The Liturgy is not merely the outward or visible part of divine worship or just “ornamental ceremonial” (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 25). Mind and heart are to turn to the Lord.  We are to “have the mind of Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5), as St. Paul indicates.  As members of the Body of Christ we unite ourselves with Christ the Head. We have to dispose our hearts to receive his grace.  This is what is meant by “active participation.”  It is not so much doing things physically or moving around, as uniting ourselves with the action of the Liturgy, the action of Christ himself.  

Today we are going to look very simply at the pillars of the Liturgy for the priest or seminarian i.e. the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

The Mass

The Holy Eucharist is the

SACRAMENT in which Jesus Christ gives his Body and Blood—himself—for us, so that we might give ourselves to him… The … sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is made present … in a hidden, unbloody manner. Thus the celebration of the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium [LG], 11, in YOUCAT, 208).

The Mass is possible because, (as Pope Benedict XVI expressed), Christ transforms his death into an act of love.  The Crucifixion becomes “an act of total self-giving love” (POPE BENEDICT XVI, August 21, 2005).  This act of total self-giving love is made present in the Mass.  Christ, glorious at the right hand of the Father, still bears his wounds (Easter Gospels) and presents them to the Father for us. He lives now forever to make intercession for us (Hebrews).  He is “the Lamb standing (risen) as if slain (still bearing the wounds of his passion)” (Revelation).  The Mass then clearly makes present the Paschal Mystery – the passage of Christ from death to life for us.

We might note two vital points about the Mass that we cannot repeat enough: Sacrifice and Real Presence (from Pope Paul VI’s Credo of the People of God, [June 30 1968]):  1) “The Mass is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars … the bread and wine … are changed into the body and blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven (35) … 2)  [T]he bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us…(36).

By adorable we don’t mean adorable in the sense that “that baby is cute or adorable” or “my girlfriend is just adorable.”  We mean it in the sense of “must be adored” because He is the Lord.  Jesus Christ is Lord! This evokes the same response in us as it did with those who fell on their knees before Christ and the New Testament is full of this.  Saint Augustine asserts about the Eucharist that, “No one eats that flesh, without first adoring … not only do we not commit a sin by adoring …, but we sin by not adoring ...”  Reverence and posture are important. I know this has been spoken of in orientation and human formation, how to avoid certain casual habits in the chapel, like hands in pockets, slouching and so on.  

Adoring the Lord: Posture and Practice

Kneeling and Standing:  Because kneeling is probably the most distinctive posture, let’s look at it first. “Kneeling doesn’t come from any (particular) culture … it comes from the Bible and its knowledge of God” (Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 185).  The New Testament is full of “kneeling” – the verb is used fifty nine times there, twenty four times in the Apocalypse, which presents the heavenly liturgy as model (Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 185).  Kneeling expresses adoration, the recognition of Jesus as Son of God, and it also expresses supplication.  As with all bodily gestures, it is “the bearer of spiritual meaning” (Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 190).  The act of kneeling or genuflecting affects the whole person.  Cardinal Ratzinger states that “the man who learns to believe learns also to kneel” (Ibid., 194). 

When we kneel or stand in the liturgy we look out from ourselves to the One who comes to us and draws us to himself.  This is very different from the lotus position or the sitting position of oriental meditation.  There “man looks into himself.  He does not go away from himself to the Other but tends to sink inward, into the nothing…” (Ibid., 197)  Kneeling and standing in the liturgy are distinctively Christian postures of prayer, as we are drawn out of ourselves and towards the face of Jesus Christ in whom we see the Father (Jn 14:9).  

Bowing low expresses respect, humility, worship, supplication and dependence on God.  Again it expresses “the spiritual attitude essential to faith.”  It expresses the truth of our being.  Monsignor Moroney referred to this act and spirit of bowing low before God in his opening Rector’s Talk, when speaking of the Supplices of the Roman Canon.  Check it out again on the Blog.

Sitting expresses attentiveness, receptivity, readiness and willingness to learn from Christ the Master at whose feet we sit.  And so we sit for the biblical readings, except for the Gospel which merits special reverence. On the other hand, other actions such as forms of dancing and applause are not part of the liturgy and are more on the level of entertainment, when we focus only on ourselves, our own closed circle and what is merely human.

At Mass: Sometimes there is some confusion over when we should genuflect or bow.  We genuflect to the Blessed Sacrament when entering and leaving the sanctuary at the beginning and end of Mass.  However, during Mass, we bow low to the altar because the altar is the focus during Mass.  After the Consecration, the Body and Blood of Christ on the altar are the focus, and so we genuflect if passing or approaching the altar after the Consecration.  After Communion, once the Blessed Sacrament has been reposed in the tabernacle, the altar becomes the focus again and we bow low before the altar.  

Outside of Mass we genuflect before the Most Blessed Sacrament, when passing before the Tabernacle.  During Morning Prayer, if a server is coming to read at the ambo he bows low to the altar.  At Evening Prayer, because the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, a genuflection is made because at this point the exposed Blessed Sacrament on the altar is the focus.  Many people like to make a double genuflection during Exposition if entering the chapel late or leaving early.  This is commendable and praiseworthy.  However, if you are reading or serving during holy hour then a single, reverent genuflection towards the Blessed Sacrament is sufficient.

Last year, a new tabernacle was installed and blessed in the college chapel of St. John’s.  This makes it very clear the Jesus Christ is the center of our lives here.  Everything we do revolves around him.  He is the living heart of our churches and our lives.  Pope Paul VI reminds us that the unique presence of “the Lord glorious in heaven” is made present “on earth where Mass is celebrated” and  

 …[T]his existence remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament which is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of our churches. And it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore in the blessed Host which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word whom they cannot see, and who, without leaving heaven, is made present before us. ( Paul VI, Credo of the People of God, 26)

Before the Blessed Sacrament our prayer could well be that of St. John Chrysostom.  He suggested that when we see the Body of Christ we should say:  “Thanks to this Body, I am no longer dust and ashes. (Cf. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 144)

The Liturgy of the Hours 

By becoming man, Christ introduced on earth the hymn which is sung always in heaven.  In the Divine Office we are united with this hymn, sung always before the throne of God and the Lamb.  

YOUCAT 188 explains it like this:

The Liturgy of the Hours is the universal, public prayer of the →CHURCH. Biblical readings lead the person who prays it ever deeper into the mystery of the life of Jesus Christ. Throughout the world this gives the Triune God the opportunity at every hour of the day to transform gradually those who pray and also the world … The seven “hours of prayer” are like a treasury of the →CHURCH’S prayers. It also loosens our tongues when we have become speechless because of joy, sorrow, or fear. (When we don’t have the words, or feel we cannot pray, though God can be very close at those times).  Again and again one is astonished in reciting the Liturgy of the Hours: an entire reading “coincidentally” applies precisely to my situation. God hears us when we call to him. He answers us in these texts—often in a way that is so specific as to be almost disconcerting. In any case he also allows us to have long periods of silence and dryness so that we can demonstrate our fidelity.

Every year, before we begin again with Volume One of the Liturgy of the Hours, it is very useful spiritually to read the General Instruction which explains why we do this and how to do it.  The Psalms and the Divine Office in general should become our food, the daily bread of our mediation and our own personal prayer.  After the Mass, the Breviary and the Psalms will be perhaps your greatest consolation and companion as a priest.  As Bishop Barber reminded us in his retreat conferences: the Mass, the Divine Office and the Rosary are the staple diet of the diocesan priest.  In a sense, the spirituality of the diocesan priest is built around these.

Final word on the Importance of Beauty and Dignity in the Liturgy

Beauty draws people to God in a way that rational argument may not.  Beauty moves us in a way that helps us to encounter God.  Beauty helps us experience the presence and glory of God.  I’m sure you’ve heard the story, I’m not sure how true it is, of the messengers of Prince Vladimir of Kiev sent out to discover which version of Christianity they should adopt.  It was said that when they entered Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, they were so caught up in the chant, the incense, the icons, the liturgy, and the sense of the holy presence of God, that they were completely overcome.  In their report to the Prince they said they did not know if they were in heaven or on earth -- they had never experienced such beauty!  They could not describe it except to say, "there God dwells among men…" (http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2011/07/we-did-not-know-if-we-were-in-heaven-or.html#sthash.ogCyZCre.dpuf)  Beauty is important in the Liturgy.  The Church’s Liturgy, in communion with the heavenly Jerusalem, makes the same point: “here God lives among men.”

Some practical points

Please don’t opt out of the singing, especially the singing of the Office hymns and psalms and the parts of the Mass.  

A clear outline of the various roles and functions in serving Mass is being completed and will be circulated shortly by the Masters of Ceremonies.  We have been trying to see what works best.

The only practical change to be introduced at this stage is in the Liturgy of the Hours and it is this: we should all sing the entire Gospel canticles together at Morning and Evening Prayer.  When we recite/say the Office, we recite the gospel canticle together, so it makes sense to also sing the entire canticle together.

This serves to heighten the importance of these gospel canticles which express so powerfully the Incarnation, the Coming of the Savior and the salvation he brings.  In the words of the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (50), these canticles are sanctioned by age-old use and are “expressions of praise and thanksgiving for our redemption.”  So as a general rule we will chant the entire gospel canticles together at Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, except on Sunday at Morning Prayer when the verses of the canticle alternate between the cantors and the congregation. This doesn’t affect the way we sing the psalms. We will continue to sings the psalms antiphonally, that is, from side to side, as is appropriate.  

The Gospel Canticle at Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer is a high point: the Benedictus or “Canticle of Zechariah” at Morning Prayer and the Magnificat or “Canticle of Mary” at Evening Prayer.  We stand for these, as we do for the Gospel at Mass.   Indeed the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours states that “The Gospel canticles of Zechariah, of Mary and of Simeon are to be treated with the same solemnity and dignity as are customary at the proclamation of the Gospel.”  

We will sing the entire gospel canticle together.  It also makes sense, during the gospel canticle to face the altar.  The altar is the focus during these canticles.  On Solemn occasions, the altar may even be incensed during these canticles, as we do from time to time at the discretion of the celebrant.  At Evening Prayer the Blessed Sacrament is on the altar, so it makes even more sense to face the altar.  If we face the altar together during the gospel canticles of Morning and Evening Prayer then it makes sense to maintain that direction and focus for the Intercessions, the Lord’s Prayer and the Concluding Prayer.  We can then turn to whichever priest is leading the Office for the blessing.  To summarize, during Morning and Evening Prayer we face each other during the chanting of the Psalms and the Scripture reading.  We face the altar for the gospel canticle, the intercessions, the Our Father and concluding prayer.  And for the blessing we face the priest, if that is convenient.  This can be reviewed after a few weeks.

Sacred Silence

If you are lector at Morning or Evening Prayer, leave some time after the psalms before you go up to do the reading.  Don’t rush up immediately.  Also leave some time for reflection between the reading and the short responsory.  Don’t rush directly into the short responsory.

Please come to any serving practices/rehearsals organized by me or the Masters of Ceremonies.  These are mandatory. Generally speaking there will be a rehearsal for the servers for Sunday Mass immediately after Morning Prayer on Sundays.  On a normal Sunday, if things are organized and everyone is there, this should only take 10-15 minutes at the most.  So if you are serving on Sunday, the default position is that there will be a rehearsal immediately after Morning Prayer for ten minutes.

Conclusion

Thank you for your cooperation and patience in these matters.  Whatever we do here is for the Lord.  That should be our motivation and intention.  We all make mistakes.  There are things we could improve on, things we should do better, things that irritate us.  But if we lose sight of what we are doing and why we are doing it, then we lose out on many of the graces and blessings God offers us in the Sacred Liturgy, as well as losing out peace, our tranquility.  We shouldn’t let ourselves become distracted from what really matters – the one thing necessary, what takes place right here at this altar.  

We shouldn’t be afraid of celebrating the Liturgy properly.  Jesus makes this clear when he asks his apostles to go and prepare the room for the Last Supper and to ensure that everything was suitable and in order.  He also makes this clear in the scene at Bethany where the woman came in with a bottle of costly, sweet-smelling ointment and wasted it on him.  Judas thought it should have been sold and the money given to the poor.  Christ said of the woman: “she has done a beautiful thing for me; she has pleased me well.”  Let us celebrate the Liturgy always well and always for the Lord.

Tomorrow is the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary so let us pray: Hail Mary…