Three Christmas Stories

 

Christmas is a time for stories. And tonight, I have three of them.

The first is about Papa Panov, an old and lonely cobbler, who reads from his Bible on Christmas Eve, then falls asleep and dreams that Jesus will come to see him the next day.

He wakes excited that he will welcome the Prince of Peace and sits gazing out the window when an old vagabond knocks on his door. Catching anxious glimpses down the street for Jesus, he nonetheless invites the shivering man into and pours him a puts on a pot of coffee to ward off the chill.

Then, as the impatient Papa Panov keeps looking down the street, a poor woman approaches with her child. He gives the baby some milk and a pair of baby shoes he has been saving as the finest from his hands.

And once they all leave that Christmas morning, he sits there wondering why God did not come to see him, until he falls asleep and hears the voice of Jesus: “I was hungry and you fed me…I was naked and you clothed me. I was cold and you warmed me. I came to you today in everyone of those you helped and welcomed.”

Tolstoy continues: 

Then all was quiet and still. Only the sound of the big clock ticking. A great peace and happiness seemed to fill the room, overflowing Papa Panov's heart until he wanted to burst out singing and laughing and dancing with joy.

And then there’s O’Henry’s story about Della and Jim, and how all she had been able to save was “one dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. And [how] the next day would be Christmas.” 

He tells us how Della sat on the couch and cried because she could not afford to buy a gift for Jim, whom she loved with all her heart, and wanted nothing more from life than to “greatly hug” him.

There was nothing Della and Jim loved more than each other, and no pain deeper than not being able to show that love at Christmas. Surely, Jim had loved his grandfather, who had left him a treasured pocket watch, and Della was more than a little proud of her beautiful long hair, the one thing that made her feel like the Queen of Sheba. 

But they loved each other most of all. So Della went to the wig maker and had him cut off her hair for twenty dollars, which she traded for a beautiful golden chain to hold Jim’s watch.

And as, that Christmas Eve, Jim came home and her saw her newly shorn hair, he was in shock, as he slowly drew a package from his overcoat pocket, which once unwrapped revealed a set of combs which Della had worshipped for a long in a Broadway window, and which Jim had bought with the money he got from selling his watch. 

Thus, O’Henry sagely observes these “two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house” were the wisest of all who gave gifts that Christmas night.

And finally, there’s the best Christmas story of all, for it is true. That on this night, in a backwater town, when the world seemed very dark, a star rose in the east, and led we shepherds and wise men to a young virgin and a little baby, who came from God to tell us we were loved.

That baby grew to be a man and taught us how to love each other, how to forgive and lay down our lives for each other, as he opened his arms on a Cross for our salvation.

As, on that night angels told us to never be afraid again, for today in the city of David a Savior has been born for you, who is Christ the Lord: an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

And so then they sang: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

On the Third Sunday of Advent

 It’s getting awfully cold lately.

Oh, I don’t mean the kind of cold that bites your cheeks when the wind picks up and mixes with bits of snow and ice. I’m talking about a far more fierce kind of cold. The kind that freezes your heart.

And there are lots of frozen hearts out there.

I think of the guy who’s really intent on having more money than anyone else. He works 35 hours a day and sets the alarm for an hour earlier than he should because he wants to be one step ahead of all the others. He’s convinced that once he has enough money, he’ll finally be happy (“has anyone ever gotten to the point where they have enough money?”). The last time he prayed was when his grandmother died, and that was probably out of guilt or habit, and he spent most of the Funeral trying to keep his mother from seeing he was reading a text from his broker. He certainly doesn’t have time for Church, or even for Christmas.

And then there’s the gal who’s been let down so many times and finds all that pious chatter boring. Each relationship, each boss and every institution had been disappointment to her. They’re all fakes, each trying to take advanatage of her. They are like those little pop-ups on the internet, following her around to sell her something, make a buck off her. And despite the nagging of her mother, she knows that Church is just one more fake. She couldn’t care less, even at Christmas.

And then there’s the people who have been hurt, over and over again. So deeply hurt that their hearts are frozen and brittle and trembling. And they don’t want to be hurt again. So the last place they want to be is sitting is on a hard pew surrounded by gullible people singing about comfort and joy.

Yup, it’s very cold out there. Way down deep inside of them, it’s very very cold. 

Perhaps that’s is why Pope Francis recalls Dante’s description of hell as the place where the devil sits on a throne of ice “in frozen, loveless isolation.” Hell is the place, he says, where “we prefer our own desolation rather than the comfort of God’s word and his Sacraments.” And such desolation is characterized by a stone cold refusal to love, to a “cooling of charity, [with] selfishness and spiritual sloth, sterile pessimism, the temptation to self-absorption, constant fighting with other people, and a worldly mentality that makes us concerned only for how stuff looks…”

So maybe in these coldest and darkest days of the year, you can spare a thought or a prayer, or even a kind word for those who dwell in the cold darkness.  Maybe even invite them to come to Church with you at Christmas. They’ll probably say no again, but maybe it will be a little sign to them that you love them.

And perhaps you might teach them the Christmas prayer of Saint Catherine of Siena, who used to ask God to preserve her ‘from every evil thought; warm me, Lord, inflame me with your dear love, that every pain might float away.’

On the First Sunday of Advent

I’m not sure how old I was, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

I’d press my little kid’s nose to the cold window pane in the front of the house and stare up the street as the shadows began to lengthen and I began to hope. I was waiting for my father to come home from work, so I could show him what I had done in school that day. An A with a little superscript of a plus hovering over it’s right side told me and my classmates and my mom and my dad that I had done good. And 

I don’t know if I’ve ever known such joy or such a sense of accomplishment as when I heard the sound of his truck pulling over the graveled driveway and ran out to meet him, with my yellow-lined pride waving above my head.

He swept me up into his arms and cherished me, and carried me into the house as my mother enshrined the sacred text with a bright yellow refrigerator magnet.

That’s what it could be like, as the ancient Collect of today’s Advent liturgy reminds us, when we “run forth to meet the Christ with righteous deeds at his coming...”

Imagine! Our arms so brimming with righteous deeds, that we run forth to meet our judge with joy! Will the fervor with which we celebrated the Sacraments and the devotion with which we ate his Body and drank his Blood have so detached us from the darkness of this world, that we will glow with the bright sanctity of the redeemed? 

Will we run out to meet Christ when he comes, so clothed in the ways of this Mystical Body that they will call us “a man of the Church, a true woman of the Church”? What will Christ do, when we run out to meet him, our arms embracing all the righteous deeds of our lives? 

The ancient Collect give us the answer. He will gather us to his right hand, sweep us up into his arms, recognize us as his obedient children, and carry us into his heavenly kingdom, where we will sit with him and all his children at the Heavenly Banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So, Be watchful! Be alert!

On the Patron Saint of Sacred Music

The patron of this little church on French hill is also, famously, the patron saint of musicians and composers, a reality most dearly celebrated by our wondrous tradition of Sacred Music: from talented composers, instrumentalists, singers and our wondrous Cassavant organ.

Saint Cecilia was declared as patron of the Church’s music because, we are told, she frequently “sang in her heart to the Lord,” so beautifully that a member of the heavenly choir heard her voice, and was so enthralled with the beauty and of her voice, that he became her guardian angel.

She is, of course, our patron because of her martyrdom, her willingness to lay down her life, joined to the sacrifice of perfect love offered on the altar of the Cross. But allow me tonight, with the help of a couple of her literary admirers, to reflect for a moment on how beautifully the idea of music and martyrdom, song and sacrifice go together.

C.S. Lewis, in his reflection on Church Music, asks the question “What is music?” He suggests that it is an opening up of a little window between heaven and earth, and that through that portal we see the beauty of the light which comes from the face of God and pierces all the darknesses of our lives.

How true that is, when we think of music in our own lives. When we think of the teenager coming home from school, the music blaring through his AirPods quelling the savage turmoil of adolescence. He longs for that music. He longs for that music to quell the sin-sick soul.

Or the old lady, sitting at home listening to the music of her youth, freed miraculously from the chains of her age and her lonliness, freed from time and space, and hearing only the most beautiful moments of her life. 

Such music is, in the words of a 17^th century poet, like unto the voice of God; Music which

…the fiercest grief can charm,
And fate's severest rage disarm:
Music which softens pain to ease,
And make despair and madness please:
Our joys below it can improve,
To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is giv'n;
To lift the soul to heav'n.

Saint Cecilia knew that music lifts us up, despite everything which weighs us down. 

Which is why CS Lewis suggests that:

When singers succeed…[they are the most enviable of men; privileged…to honor God like angels and, for a few golden moments, to see spirit and flesh, delight and labour, skill and worship, the natural and the supernatural, all fused into that unity they would have had before the Fall. 

And which one of us has not known that moment when soothed us  brought us into unity. 

Even Paul Simon, perhaps the most famous popular composer of our time once wrote a song call Cecilia, from the Bridge over Troubled Waters album. And while at first listening, you might think it was about a girl he loved who walked away, Simon himself admits in a recent interview that he was really writing about his relationship to music, which is why he named the song after the patron saint of music. For the music which the composer seeks to create is often breaking his heart, and shaking his confidence dear, as down on his knees, he’s begging the lyric please to come home.

This music for which Paul Simon searched on bended knee is described by our Bishops as a gift of “God, who dwells within each human person in the place where music takes its source.” It's “a cry from deep within our being, music is a way for God to lead us to the realm of higher things.”

So let us thank our patron, Saint Cecilia, for reminding us of the gift of music. For in the words of the poet John Dryden, 

bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r; 

and sang the great Creator's praise 

         To all the bless'd above; 

So when the last and dreadful hour 

   This crumbling pageant shall devour, 

The trumpet shall be heard on high, 

         The dead shall live, the living die, 

         And music shall untune the sky.

A Thanksgiving Homily 2023

Sixty years ago this month, the President of the United States issued a proclamation at the beginning of November, declaring the last Thursday of the month to be Thanksgiving. He wrote:

"Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving…for the faith which united them with their God.

Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers--for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.

The man who wrote those words died six days before Thanksgiving from an assassin’s bullet.

But still we gather to give thanks to God for such good men, and for the ideals of honor, faith and decency, and ask God for the graces we need to live them with courage and humility.

On Keeping our Lights Burning

Almost a hundred years ago, a young Yale Professor by the name of Clark Hopkins was chosen to lead a small group of archeologists for a dig in the sands of a remote part of modern day Syria called Dura-Europas. There Hopkins uncovered the oldest-known Christian Church, complete with a Baptistry.  

On one wall, to the right of the baptismal font, he found a fresco depicting today’s Gospel, the story of the wise and foolish virgins going out to meet the Bridegroom. It makes sense to paint such a picture on a baptistry wall. For Picture, if you will, the freshly washed, white-robed newly baptized standing there with candles in their hands, as the wise virgins look down and see to ask,“Will you be ready to welcome the bridegroom when he returns?”  “Will your lamps be still burning, or would you be left in the darkness, banging on a big locked door?”

When you were baptized, the priest placed a candle into the hand of your Father and said to your parents and godparents, “this light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. This child of yours has been enlightened by Christ. He is to walk always as a child of the light. May he keep the flame of faith alive in his heart. When the Lord comes, may he go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom.”¹

When the Lord returns, will he see your light still burning, or will you be left in the darkness, banging on a big locked door?

So, how do I keep the light burning? Three ways.

First, as in any relationship, I keep the light burning by spending time with the one I love. Spending time with God is called prayer. I pray when I wake up. I pray in the middle of the day, and I pray before I go to sleep. I beg for God’s help when things get tough, and I thank God for his mercy when things are going pretty good. Perhaps, most of all, I carry a grateful heart…looking for all the ways God has loved me, and thanking him with all my heart.

I pray, and I worship. I long to go to Mass and to receive Holy Communion, to heart his word and to join the pains and joys of my life to his Cross. I confess my sins and I hear him forgive me through the voice of his priest. I strive to stay faithful to all the promises I have made and I seek out ways in which to do better, to lead a more virtuous life.

I try to be prudent, to figure out in each and every moment, whether big or small, what does God want me to do, and then I dig way down deep inside and beg the Holy Spirit for the strength to do it. I try to be temperate:, to practice restraint and self-control, not to fly off the handle, but to think before I speak and before I act.

I pray, I worship, and I seek to do what it right at all times. But there is one more thing I need to do if I am to keep that light burning until the master’s return. I open my arms on all the crosses he sends me and try to love others and he loved me. 

No matter how much the person he send me reminds me of that person who hurt me, no matter how much they drive me crazy, I try to love them. To love the least, the littlest and the ones whom everyone else pushes away. To love them with a love that is quick to praise, anxious to forgive and ready to serve.

It’s a simple as that. For there are but three things that last, three oils that fill our lamps as we await the master’s return: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

 

NADD on Deacons and the Eucharistic Revival

 I

The Deacon as Servant of the Eucharist 

We begin by asking a simple question: In relationship to the Eucharist and the People of God, just who is the Deacon?

Like its predecessors, the newest edition of the Roman Missal echoes the Council Fathers who saw normative Eucharistic celebration as Mass celebrated in the local church by the Bishop "surrounded by his presbyterate, deacons, and lay ministers ... in which the holy people of God take full and active part, for herein is the preeminent expression of the Church."

From the Council Fathers to the latest edition of the Roman Missal, then, the Deacon assumes an indispensable, normative role in the celebration of the Eucharist. 'Two significant changes in the new Roman Missal reinforce this point.

Strikingly, the structure of the General Instruction has been altered to describe just two basic forms of Mass: Mass without a Deacon and Mass with a Deacon. Thus, while describing with greater precision the specific roles assumed by the Deacon, the new Missal emphasizes the all-pervasive effect that presence has to enhance and alter the shape of the celebration.

Secondly, in an entirely new section, we are told that "after the priest, the deacon, has first place among those who minister in the celebration of the Eucharist.”

‘Two points should be made here. First, this concentration on the importance of the role of the Deacon is nothing new. It echoes the words of Pope Paul VI, who in 1972 observed that: "Since the apostolic age itself the diaconate has had a distinctive and superior rank among these ministries and has always been held in great honor by the Church." In this regard he recalls how Saint Paul explicitly greeted not only the Bishops but also the Deacons (cf. Phil 1:1), and describes in detail the qualifications for this important ministry (cf. 1 Tim 3:8-13).

Likewise, he recalls the great martyr, St. Ignatius of Antioch who described the ministry of the Deacon as the same as "the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before all ages and has been manifested in the final time." As Saint Ignatius equates the Deacon's ministry with Christ's, he also recalls the Lord's command to his disciples to love others as he had first loved them.

The Deacon is called to be first of all the minister, after the model of Christ, who came to serve and not to be served. The same Christ who told us that he who would be first should put himself last, should become like a little child and should be the servant of all, is the same Christ who through his Church calls the Deacon first of all the minister. The same Christ who died upon a Cross as they cursed and spat upon him, is the one who calls the Deacon to love others as he has loved him.

Thus, right from the start the definition of diakonia as kenotic self-giving and service at both the table of sacrifice and the table of charity must guide us in our reading of the identity and function of the Deacon as envisioned by the latest revision of the Roman Missal.

Transition

This closeness of the Deacon to the Liturgy and to the People of God uniquely empowers him to play a role in addressing one of the most urgent problems faced by the Church in the United States today: the drastic diminishment in the number of people who take part in the source and the summit of our faith, the Holy Eucharist.

Diminishing Numbers

Just over 80% of Catholics in the United States attended Mass each Sunday in the 1950s. Today that figure seldom rises above 25%, and in many of our parishes is significantly lower.

While pandemic restrictions reduced weekly attendance to as low as 17%, the General Social Survey indicates that, by the end of 2021 “just fewer than a quarter are attending Mass weekly…”

Perhaps we can be heartened that more than 40% of Catholics attend Mass at least once a month, and two-thirds attend Mass at Christmas, Easter, and on Ash Wednesday. But why do fewer people go to Church today than in previous generations?

A major factor has been the general diminishment of confidence in institutions of any sort, but most notably in churches. Between 2010 and 2016, confidence in Churches dropped more significantly than any other institution, save the banks (due, presumably to the financial crisis of 2007-2008).

Only 25% of people think that most religious leaders care about others and 17% believe you can get fair and accurate information from them or that they handle our resources responsibly.⁴ 

This lack of confidence is reflected in an even more disturbing way in regard to Catholic clergy. Just 8% of U.S. Catholics say they are “very close” to their clergy, as opposed 25% of Protestants. Similarly, fewer Catholics than Protestants trust the guidance of their religious leaders. One answer, therefore, to why Catholics do not trust “the Church” is that they often do not view the clergy as trustworthy or capable of providing them with reliable guidance.

So how can the Deacon enhance Eucharistic engagement? By deepening his understanding and effective practice of his role in the Mass, the source and summit of our lives.

How the Deacon can help

So let’s return to the General Instruction gives us the reasons for its high estimation of diaconal ministry. The predominance of the Deacon is due both to the high honor in which this order has always been held and to the functions of the Deacon at Mass.

It is precisely those functions which I suggest give us an even clearer picture of who the Deacon is in the eyes of the Church, lex orandi, lex credendi. For as the Deacon serves the Liturgy, so he is called to serve the Church and the place he takes in the former is descriptive of the place which belongs to him in the latter.

These five roles described by the new Roman Missal are Deacon as Servant, Proclaimer, Voice, Invitatory, and Dispenser. 

Servant of Bishop, Priest, and Altar

As we have implied above, the Deacon's first role is one of diakonia. That role takes on concrete form at Mass as the Deacon is called to assist the Priest or Bishop, but especially at the altar in the Preparation of the Gifts and during the Communion Rite.

St. Polycarp of Smyrna is the first to tell that the Deacon is called upon to be "disciplined in all things, merciful, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all." Likewise, the Didascalia Apostolorum, recalls the words of Christ, "Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant" (Mt 20:26-27).

All of this is echoed in each Ordination of a Deacon, which is replete with reminders of the diakonia to which Deacons are called. In his homily the Bishop reminds us that the Deacon "will help the bishop and his body of priests as ministers of the Word, of the altar, and of charity. They will make themselves servants to all." 

Shortly thereafter, the Bishop turns to the man who will soon be ordained a Deacon and says: 

My son, ... the Lord has set an example for you to follow. As a deacon you will serve Jesus Christ, who was known among his disciples as the one who served others.

An intimate and reciprocal connection between the Deacon as minister of charity and servant of the Priest and the altar has been with the Church through the ages, as we are reminded by the following early twelfth century description of the Deacon that mirrors almost to the letter the roles assigned by the new Roman Missal:

It pertains to deacons to assist priests and to minister in all things which are done in the sacraments of Christ; that is, in baptism, in chrism, in the paten and chalice, to carry the oblations and place them on the altar, to take care of and decorate the table of the Lord; to carry the cross, and to read the ... gospel to the people .... To deacons also pertain the recitation of prayer and the reading of names of new catechumens. The deacon admonishes all to hear the Lord; he gives peace and he announces ... deacons receive the texts of the gospel that they may know themselves to be preachers of the gospel of Christ.

How does the new Roman Missal call upon the Deacon to serve the altar and the Priest?

• ïIn the preparation of the liturgy, the Deacon should see to it that the necessary vessels and vestments are properly arranged for the celebration. he should also see that the liturgical books are properly prepared, and that the texts for the celebration are marked with ribbons.

• ïThe Deacon accompanies the Priest at almost all times and may offer the introductions and directions in place of the Priest. he assists with incense and the sprinkling with Holy Water and is seated near the chair so that he might be available to direct any and all practicalities. If catechumens are present, the Deacon may dismiss them before the Profession of Faith.

Most importantly, the Deacon prepares the altar and assists the Priest in receiving the assembly's gifts or may receive them himself. he prepares the chalice and hands the gifts to the priest, who places them upon the altar.

The Deacon assists with the breaking of the bread. As an ordinary minister of Holy Communion, the Deacon also assists with the purification of sacred vessels.

During the Eucharistic Prayer the Deacon assists with the care and even elevation of the chalice and the incensation of the consecrated elements. Thus the rites of the Church make clear that diakonia means service and expresses the inextricable link between the diaconal ministry of charity and the liturgical diakonia. For just as the Eucharistic celebration is the source of all authentic Christian spirit and the summit of the entire Christian life, what the Church does at Liturgy is the prototype for what she does in life. The Deacon servant of the poor is thus the Deacon servant of the altar.

Proclaimer of the Gospel

The second role of the Deacon in the new Roman Missal is that of Proclaimer of the Gospel.

From the tenth century, the presentation of the Book of the Gospels at the ordination of a Deacon has signified that the Deacon was a minister of the liturgical proclamation of the Gospel. The Ordination Rite recognizes the diaconal ministry of the word in the rite of presentation:

Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you are. 

Believe what you read,

teach what you believe,

and practice what you teach.

When he carries the Book of the Gospels in the entrance procession, the book is "slightly elevated." When arriving at the altar with the Book of the Gospels, he does not bow, but immediately places the Book of the Gospels on the altar and then kisses the altar at the same time the priest does. Greater detail is given to the Deacon's role in the proclamation of the Gospel as well. he is to bow when asking for the blessing and when taking the Book of the Gospels from the altar," A description of the optional kissing of the Book of the Gospels by the Bishop is likewise included. The Deacon may proclaim the readings, but only in the absence of a qualified reader. Likewise, the homily may, on occasion, be given by the Deacon.

Voice of the Needy

The third role envisioned by the new Roman Missal is the Deacon as the Voice of the Needy.

From the earliest days of the Church, the intention of the Apostles in establishing the diaconate as first expressed in Acts is made clear. As one early Church document relates, it is the role of the Deacon to be the "one who shows love for orphans, for the devout and for the widowed, one who is fervent in spirit, one who shows love for what is good."

This is why the Deacon is the ordinary minister of the Kyrie, all litanies, and even the general intercessions. he articulates the "cry of the poor"because he is the minister most intimately acquainted with the pains, sorrows, and struggles of those most in need of our prayers. he is, in a very real sense, their voice, both in the Liturgy and in the world. For, in a sense, the general intercessions are the prototype of diaconal prayer.

 

Invitatory to Prayer

The fourth role of the Deacon is to be the issuer of invitations, the invitatory of a rite made flesh. The Deacon assumes this role not because he is removed from the people, but precisely because he is a man chosen from among men to serve the needs of all. It is his intimacy with the assembly that empowers him to be the one who directs common posture and gesture and exhorts the members of the liturgical assembly to pray. Thus does he call upon the people to exchange the Sign of Peace, direct them when they are to kneel, to bow their heads, or perform some ritual gestures, as at the solemn blessing or prayer over the people at the end of Mass, or in the solemn intercessory prayers of the Good Friday Liturgy.

Bearer of the Cup of Salvation

From the earliest days of the Church, the Deacon has been the minister of the Precious Blood. he bears the cup of eternal salvation and ministers it to God's holy people. Thus the new Roman Missal prescribes that at Communion, the Priest himself gives Communion to the Deacon under both kinds. When Communion is given to the faithful under both kinds, the Deacon ministers the chalice. After Communion has been distributed, the Deacon, at the altar, reverently consumes any of the Blood of Christ that remains.

All this begins with the sixth promise taken by the Deacon at his ordination: to shape his way of life"always according to the example of Christ, whose body and blood [they] will give to the people." This promise, in turn, is rooted in the earliest prayer for the ordination of a Deacon found in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, which mentions but one specific task assigned to the Deacon: "to bring forward [in your holy of holies] the gifts which are offered to you by your appointed high priests."

Diakonia in the Model of Christ Jesus

We began this brief reflection by recalling Saint Ignatius' description of the Deacon as a minister in the model of Christ Jesus. I wish to conclude by calling all Deacons to see everything they do at Mass as an opportunity to make themselves vessels through which Christ Jesus can be made present to his holy people. Yet just as Christ's perfect sacrifice was accomplished through his kenotic self-emptying, so Deacons are called to empty themselves each time they seek to serve the Sacrifice of the altar.

When the Deacon comes to serve, he must empty himself from all selfish concerns. he must see himself as servant of the Liturgy and never its master. he must minister to the priest and to the altar with the humility of him whose very Body and Blood were offered on the altar of the Cross.

When he comes to proclaim the Gospel, the Deacon must empty himself of all his worldly wisdom that he might be filled only with the wisdom of God. he must decrease so that the Word of God might take root in him and those who hear his voice may hear not him, but Christ Jesus who lives in him. his acclamation of "the Gospel of the Lord"must ring authentic and true.

When he proclaims intercessions or invites the people to prayer, the faithful must recognize in the Deacon the trustworthy and compassionate man to whom they may go with any of their needs. 

 

The poor must know him as their friend. Orphans must see him as their father, and all who are alone, afraid or confused must see in him a refuge in the model of Christ Jesus. All must have such trust in his prudence and charity that his wise guidance is spontaneously welcomed.

Finally, all who receive the Savior's Precious Blood from the Deacon's hands must receive the chalice as from one who knows the meaning of sacrifice, of being poured out for God's people, and of striving for holiness of life. The Deacon, too, must take up the cup of salvation as one whose very life is a hymn of praise to the Lord. For the cup he bears is his salvation and a model of the life to which he is called as a Deacon.

What the new Roman Missal and the Church ask of the Deacon is to become more like Christ. To participate in his Paschal Death and Resurrection by how he lives and how he prays, by what he does and who he has become.

This is the mystery of diaconal ministry at the altar. It is the hope of the Church and holds one of keys to drawing all God’s children to the mystery of the Church and the mystery of all who are called to the Supper of the Lamb!

Thank you.

II

The Deacon as Missionary Disciple of the Eucharist 

This morning we explored the ways in which the deacon’s effective ministry can help to get people back to Church and more deeply participate in the sacred mysteries which are the source and summit of our faith.

This afternoon, I would like to reflect on how the Deacon can assist the Bishops in the second problem which their initiative at Eucharistic Revival seeks to address: a lack of appreciation of what the Mass is all about.

Without a doubt, the single study which most influenced the USCCB to decision to initiate “a three-year grassroots revival of devotion and belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist” was the 2019 Pew Research Center poll which asserted that “just one-third of U.S. Catholics agree with their Church that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ.”

Shortly thereafter, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) took the Pew poll to task for the wording of their questions, noting the different results CARA reported on a similar question in its 2011 poll. 

In November of 2021, The Pillar commissioned its own “Survey on Religious Attitudes and Practices” with the marketing research firm Centiment. Asking people to respond to the question “I believe the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ,” they reported that approximately fifty percent of Catholics who attend Mass weekly replied in the affirmative. 

Eucharistic practice and belief

The Eucharistic Revival embarked upon by our Bishops, therefore, has two purposes: to enhance Eucharistic practice and Eucharistic belief. 

So let’s spend a few minutes reviewing just what this Eucharistic practice and belief is all about.

The Eucharist is nothing less than the gift of Christ himself, offered on the Cross for our salvation. For Christ Jesus, the giver and the gift, the priest and the sacrifice has left us the Sacrament of his own Body and Blood as an invitation and means to join our lives to his.

At the heart of every Mass are the Lord’s own words, spoken by the priest as he changes bread into the Body of Christ:

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT,

FOR THIS IS MY BODY, 

WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.

“He did this,” the Council fathers reminded us, “in order to perpetuate the Sacrifice of the Cross down through the centuries until he should come again, and in order to entrust until then to the Church, his beloved Spouse, the memorial of his Death and

Resurrection: the sacrament of love, the sign of unity, the bond of charity, the Paschal Banquet “in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory is given to us.”

What, then, is the Mass? It is Christ’s Holy and Living Sacrifice, “an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ.” We are called to participate in the Mass by joining the sacrifices of our lives to his perfect sacrifice.

This means that the Mass is not our action, but Christ’s, who is “ever present in his Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations.” Then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said it best: “…God acts through Christ in the liturgy and we cannot act but

through him and with him.”

This presence of Christ in the Mass is manifested in four ways: 

In the celebration of Mass the chief ways in which Christ is present in his Church gradually become clear. First he is present in the very assembly of the faithful, gathered together in his name; next he is present in his word, when the Scriptures are read in the Church and explained; then in the person of the minister; finally and above all, in the Eucharistic sacrament. In a way that is completely unique, the whole and entire Christ, God and man, is substantially and permanently present in the sacrament. This presence of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine “is called real, not to exclude other kinds of presence as if they were not real, but because it is real par excellence.”

Christ is Present in the Gathered Assembly

Jesus, who assured us that he is present where two or three are gathered in his name, (cf. Matthew 18:20) gathers a people made holy by Baptism to himself at Mass, a ministerial priesthood, to join the sacrifices of their lives to his perfect sacrifice. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” he told his disciples,

“there are I am in their midst.” (Mark 18:20)

Christ is Present in the Scriptures Proclaimed

The introduction to the Lectionary for Mass is clear: “Christ is always present in his word, as he carries out the mystery of salvation, sanctifies humanity and offers the Father perfect worship.” This is why, at the end of each reading we acclaim

Christ’s presence as the Lector announces that what he has just read is “The Word of the Lord,” and the Deacon proclaims: “The Gospel of the Lord.”

Christ is Present in the Priest

The Roman Missal describes the role of the priest at Mass as “acting in the person of Christ.” For Christ “chooses men to become sharers in his sacred ministry…to renew in his name the sacrifice of human redemption” and “to strive to be conformed to the image of Christ himself and offer you a constant witness of faith and love [to God].”

But, in these years of Eucharistic Revival, we have we also embarked on an intensive reflection on the ultimate presence of Christ, described by the Council fathers as his presence par excellence: the presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species.

Christ is Present in his Body and Blood, and Received in Holy Communion

The earliest testimony to the presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine comes from the Lord himself, who in every account of the Last Supper says explicitly “this is my Body…this is my Blood.” Likewise, the great Eucharistic

discourses he tells us that “he who eats my Body and drinks my Blood will live in me and I in him.” (John 6:56)

Similarly, Saint John’s relating of Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum reinforces our belief in Christ’s presence in the consecrated bread. As the crowds seek out Jesus following his multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, he tells

them that they have been looking for him because they saw signs and had their fill. But he tells them “do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6:27)

Then he tells them about a bread which does not perish, the “true bread” which comes from the Father “and gives life to the world.” (John 6:33) Here he sets out the foundation of our eucharistic understanding. “I am the bread of life; whoever

comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” (John 6:36)

In response, the crowds murmur and grumble. It is a hard saying. So he repeats it. “I am the bread of life (John 6:48)…the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh

for the life of the world.” (John 6:51) “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” (John 6:56)

Immediately after this teaching, John reports, many of his disciples abandoned him and “returned to their former way of life,” (John 6:60) complaining that “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” (John 6:61)

Down through the centuries, men and women have often grappled with this hard saying. But the Lord’s words perdure, echoing down through the centuries: “This is my Body, this is my Blood.”

Just a few decades after the books of the New Testament were written down, Saint Ignatius of Antioch lamented that the Gnostics “do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.”

By the mid-eleventh century, the doctrine of “transubstantiation” was proclaimed as a dogma of the Church by the Fourth Lateran Council. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Council of Trent declared that:

Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.

This teaching is reiterated today in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.

Thus, at the heart of the Church’s tradition is a constant belief in “the substantial change of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, a reality which surpasses all human understanding.”

A Timeless Reality

For, the sacrifice of Calvary and the Heavenly Banquet which will take place at the end of time, are present on the Altar at Mass. We stand at the foot of the Cross and partake of Christ’s glory, for we are the blessed ones who are “called to the Supper

of the Lamb.”

Our Holy Communion is with Jesus in heaven, on earth, and in our hearts. The Mass is a participation in the heavenly banquet, a communion with the Church in heaven. As Pope John Paul II tells us in his encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “in celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the

heavenly ‘liturgy’ and become part of that great multitude which cries out: ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Revelation 7:10) 

The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on

earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey.”

If we look all around us, we should be able to imagine what is really going on there, though unseen. Angels and Saints rejoicing and sharing in communion with Jesus. Look around you and you will see them: Grandmothers who have gone

before us in faith, ancestors who intercede for us from the place of the blessed. This Church, like every celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, is crowded with our invisible friends.

We get a glimpse of that at every Mass when the priest raises the consecrated Bread and Wine and declares: “Behold the Lamb of God...How Blessed are they who are called to the Supper of the Lamb!” Not just this supper, but the heavenly supper and the supper in the upper room…for in the Holy Eucharist all time and

space disappear and we are made one with Christ upon the cross and Christ in glory and Christ as he comes to us on the altar.

Participating in the Cross

Thus, as we pray in the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I), “we celebrate the memorial of the blessed Passion, the Resurrection from the dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven of Christ,” offering nothing less than the pure, holy and spotless victim, “the holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting salvation.”

In this regard, the Council Fathers recall a venerable prayer, which is prayed over the offerings at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday and which has been prayed in the Mass for over a millennia and a half. It asks that “we may

participate worthily in these mysteries, for whenever the memorial of this sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished.”

That means that our memorial of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection is not a simple recollection or recreation of the Paschal Mystery. Rather, the Mass is a participation in the saving mysteries of our redemption.

For “the sacrifice of his Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass, which Christ the Lord instituted at the Last Supper and commanded his Apostles to do in his memory, are one and the same, differing only in the manner of their offering; and as a result, that the Mass is at one and the same time a sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving, propitiation and satisfaction.”

One final story.

The presence of Christ in the Eucharist, then, cannot be understood without an appreciation of the presence of Christ upon the Cross, the great Sacrifice of our Redemption.

Which brings me back to an old story, one I heard from the late, great Christiane Brusselmans. You may recall Dr. Brusselmans’ extraordinary work in promoting a catechumenal model of religious formation, most concretely expressed in the sacramental preparation series, We Celebrate the Eucharist and 

We Celebrate Reconciliation.

The academic origins of her work are to be found in her doctoral dissertation at Catholic University, which bore the title Les Fonctions de Parrainage des Enfants aux Premiers Siecles de l’Eglise. The sponsorship at the heart of her research concerned not just the role of godparents, but the family itself as the domestic church responsible for the passing on of the faith from one generation to the next.

Dr. Brusselmans loved to tell stories of going from door to door in an urban Washington parish, seeking to actively engage parents in the sacramental preparation of their children, at task at which she was equally ingenious and ruthless.

If a parent were unwilling or unable to come to information sessions on the preparation of their child for First Holy Communion, she would ask permission to designate “a substitute parent,” since you cannot fulfill the promises you made when Johnny was baptized.”

And when even that effort would produce no result, she would dig deep into the big, floppy bag she dragged behind her everywhere and take out and wooden crucifix, hammer and nail and ask permission to hand a crucifix prominently on the dining room wall. 

“That way, when I left,” she would proclaim, “Jesus would continue working on them."

Perhaps it is this kind of “down and dirty” evangelization which is so desperately needed today. It is also the kind of “down and dirty” evangelization which is right up the diaconal alley. For, as Saint Therese of Lisieux reminds us, authentic mystical experience is deeply grounded in the everyday experiences of peoples’ lives. 

God bless you in the good work you have done and continue to do in this regard, by your preaching in words and your preaching with your live.

My prayer for you and for all who work for Eucharistic revival in the Church is the one which the Bishop prayed at your ordination: “May the Lord who has begun this good work in you, bring it to conclusion.”

Thank you.