Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Ordinary Time

  • The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Rite of Welcoming of Candidates for Full Communion

    The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Rite of Welcoming of Candidates for Full Communion

    Today’s readings

    There are a lot of experts out there.  And those experts will be happy to give you their opinion.  Really, there is no shortage of places these days from which you can get information.  Television, print media, and especially the internet – God knows what we did before the days of Google! – all of these will gladly disgorge information on just about any topic, and so the days of searching high and low for information are pretty much long gone.

    But one has to wonder about the quality of the information that we get.  Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it true!  We know that.  And ask any teacher and they will probably tell you that they are sick of students quoting Wikipedia and their lot.  Even if a site isn’t intentionally giving poor information, there’s almost no way to verify what they’re telling you, unless they have provided proper sources or footnoted their claims.

    And the same is certainly true for those who would give us opinions on religion.  I can hardly count the number of religious opinions I have been given that began with the words “In my opinion…” or “I think…” If you hear someone start a comment on religion or morality with those words, you have my permission to stop listening to them, because quite frankly, it’s very likely going to be a waste of your time.  When it comes to matters of faith and morals, one’s opinions don’t really matter; what is important is what is truth.

    In today’s Gospel, the people are astonished at what Jesus was teaching them.  They couldn’t believe their ears.  And what is striking about that is that they are astonished because Jesus was obviously preaching with authority, “and not as the scribes.”  That’s a pretty sad condemnation of the scribes of the day, because the scribes were charged with copying the Scriptures and making sure the faith was taught to all people.  If they couldn’t be trusted to speak the truth, well then, who could?

    What is astonishing for them is that they finally found the One they could trust: the One who spoke with authority.  Jesus didn’t give them some lame opinion or say “I think…” No, he gave them revealed truth, revealed in his words, and in his miracles, and ultimately in his sacrifice.  The religious leaders of his day might not like what he was saying to them, but they certainly could not refute the Truth he preached.

    And that Truth wasn’t just for that one time and place.  That Truth is authoritative today.  Against the widespread opinion that one can be “spiritual but not religious” – whatever that means; against those who think that human life is expendable, or that it can be manufactured for research, or that it can be regulated by government mandate; against those who think that matters of conscience and freedom of religion don’t matter when they become inconvenient; against those who think that any religion is just as good as another, or that religion should never tell people what is right and wrong – against all these lies, Jesus’ Truth stands eternal.

    Today, our Candidates for Full Communion with the Church have joined us and we have welcomed them.  We are one in Baptism, because our Creed proclaims one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.  But they wish to draw nearer to Christ and to be one with us in the Eucharist, to be Confirmed in our faith.  They will receive these sacraments soon, and today we pledge to journey with them.  Together, we embrace the Truth our Christ reveals and we proclaim the truths that make us one Body, one Spirit in Christ.

    Our Psalmist today reminds us that if today we hear God’s voice, we should not ever harden our hearts.  As we continue our worship today, may we renew our commitment to seek the voice of God in every moment, embracing the Truth that is revealed to us.  And may we be a people who open our hearts to that truth, and eagerly live it and proclaim it by the way we live our lives.

  • Monday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time: Respect Life

    Monday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time: Respect Life

    Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that in effect legalized abortion in the United States.  The Church teaches us that abortion is a violation of the fifth commandment, which states: “Thou shall not kill.”  Participation in an abortion – which includes having one, paying for one, encouraging one, performing one, and helping in the performance of one – is a mortal sin.  Because we oppose abortion, we as a Church are committed to making alternatives to abortion more available, including adoption, financial assistance to parents and especially mothers in need, and education about the sanctity of life.

    Since 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, our society has tumbled down the slippery slope of devaluing life and we are seeing the rotten fruits of it all over. War, violence, hatred, lack of concern for the poor and needy, lack of respect for the elderly and terminally ill, all of these things are symptoms of the culture of death that surrounds us. Far from liberating women and giving them choice over the use of their bodies, the legalization of abortion has driven many women to have an abortion simply because they thought that was their only option or because it was more convenient for family or the father.

    And respecting life goes beyond merely opposing abortion.  Our Church teaches us that we cannot claim to be Pro Life if we are in fact only anti-abortion. Our claim to righteousness has to be based on more than never having had the disastrous occasion of having to choose to participate in an abortion, or it’s not really righteousness at all. If we pray to end abortion and then do not attend to our obligation to the poor, or if we choose to support the death penalty, or if we feel like it’s okay to help a person die if they are sick, or if we engage in racial bigotry, then we are not in fact Pro Life. Every single life is sacred, no matter what we may think of it, purely because God created each life after his very own image and likeness.

    And I say this not because I don’t think that abortion is anything short of a disaster: it most certainly is.  Abortion ends the life of a child, it ruins the lives of everyone involved, it damages society in ways we may never fully know.  I say this because it’s way too easy for us to oppose abortion and then call ourselves Pro Life and then go out and violate life in some other circumstance. We must be very careful of doing that, because not being completely Pro Life weakens our witness to the sanctity of life.  The world is watching us closely.  And we absolutely cannot be at all weak in our witness for life: our society needs our strength and passion for life so that there can be conversion and change and unity and peace.

    And so today we pray for the sanctity of life, we pray for all whose lives are in danger, we pray for those who are in the sad position of ending human life.  And most of all, we pray for an end to the culture of death that surrounds us.

  • The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: No Time Like the Present!

    The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: No Time Like the Present!

    Today’s readings

    One of the things that I think plagues us modern people is that we tend to have delusions of eternity.  By that I mean, we tend to have a view that we have all the time in the world, and so we put off things that are truly important, because we always think we have plenty of time.  We put off going to confession, because we don’t have time to think about that right now, and besides it takes time to examine our conscience.  We put off being of service, because the kids have sports and we don’t even know where to start.  We put off our prayer life because we’re exhausted and it’s hard to quiet ourselves and let God speak to us.  It’s no wonder someone once said, “One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.”

    So the readings today really speak to us.  The theme today is that there really is no time like the present.    In our first reading, after some procrastinating of his own, and ending up in the belly of a big fish, God has him disgorged on the shores of Nineveh to do what he was sent to do: preach repentance to the Ninevites.  The Ninevites were unspeakably evil to the Israelites, so it’s no wonder Jonah dragged his feet when it came to preaching to them.  Why would they listen to him?  And who cares if they didn’t?  Let God destroy them, he thought, and be out of our hair forever.  But that was not God’s will.  So he preaches repentance to them, and notice what happens: they immediately put on sackcloth and ashes and take up a fast.  They do penance for their evil deeds right now, and thus God repents of the punishment he had planned to inflict on them.

    In our second reading, Saint Paul is very clear with the Corinthians: time is running out.  And because time is running out, there is no time like the present to cast off the concerns of this earthly existence.  So stop worrying about purely human relationships, stop worrying about weeping, rejoicing, buying and selling and using the world.  Because there’s not going to be a world here for long.

    Now, I should mention that Saint Paul was certainly writing out of the view that people of his day generally had, which is that the second coming of Christ and the final judgment would happen very soon.  It did not, obviously, happen in their lifetimes, but the message is still valid.  We don’t know how much time we will have, and so ultimately we must always be prepared to go to heaven.  We can’t be putting it off: we have to cast off cares that are purely rooted in this life and hitch our wagons to what will bring us to the life to come.

    And so we see the issue brought out in the call of the first apostles.  Jesus passes by a fishing town and calls to Andrew, Peter, James and John.  They don’t hesitate for a second when he tells them to “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”  They leave behind the boats, their fishing equipment, their family and even the workers who were hired to help them and follow Jesus.

    I always wonder what made them do that.  I mean, here Jesus just passes by, gives them a one-sentence command, and they drop everything and follow him.  There was no plan laid out, he didn’t give them a bunch of reasons why they should do what he asked of them.  He just commanded, and they just followed.  Now, it occurs to me that perhaps they knew about Jesus beforehand.  Maybe they had heard him speak or at least heard people talk about Jesus.  So perhaps they were very eager to meet him.

    And one wonders, too, how good they actually were at fishing.  Other stories in the Gospel seem to suggest they didn’t have much success.  They really never catch anything worth noting unless Jesus is there, telling them to put out into deep water, even though they had been hard at it all night.  Then they bring in hundreds of fish.

    So maybe their quick obedience to the call of discipleship is a combination of things: they have a hard life and maybe aren’t making much of a living; they probably heard Jesus talk or heard about the miracles he had been performing; he spoke of a better life and the promise of eternity.  Maybe all of this made them very eager to jump at the chance to follow Jesus.  But whatever the reason is, we need to see that when they are called they follow immediately.  They don’t put it off; they don’t say, hey, let us bring in fish for today and send the hired men home.  They don’t ask for time to say goodbye to their family, they don’t hesitate even for a moment.  There is no time like the present: come, follow me.

    We disciples also are called to be fishers of men.  And there is no time like the present.  We may not have tomorrow, so we have to preach the Good News to those God puts in our path, through our words and most importantly through our actions.  We don’t know when Jesus will return in glory and demand – as he is most worthy to demand – an accounting of our life and our blessings, so we have to reach out and be of service to every person in need, no matter who they are, even if they are as unspeakably evil as the Ninevites.  And on this day of prayer for the Sanctity of Human Life, in remembrance of the sad decision of Roe v Wade in 1973, we have to be a people who pray and write our legislators and take a stand for life in any way we can.  Thousands of babies die from abortion every year, the sick elderly are ignored, racism and discrimination continue even in this day and age, and so much more.  We know, we have been taught that life is precious from conception to natural death.  We need to tell the world how urgent that is so that no more lives would be wasted or suppressed for convenience.

    The work of discipleship is of the utmost importance and is extremely urgent, souls need to be saved, hearts need to be won for the kingdom, lives need to be changed – and so we have to be willing to do it right now, not just when we’re good and ready, not when we have a few moments, not when things settle down a bit.

    The Kingdom of God is that important, brothers and sisters.  When will we respond?  When will we give everything to follow God’s call in our own lives?  It better be now, because the world as we know it is passing away.

  • Friday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time: Christian Unity

    Friday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time: Christian Unity

    Today’s readings (Mass for the school children)

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls his Apostles.  These are the men who will be closest to him and will follow after him throughout his ministry on earth.  Even though these men weren’t the most popular people in the area, even though they weren’t wealthy, even though they may not even have been the smartest, he called them to do something very special.  During the time they followed him, they learned from Jesus how to live the Gospel, how to bring God’s love to others.  After Jesus died and rose and ascended into heaven, it was up to them, then, to continue to bring that Gospel message to every person on earth.  These men became the Church.

    This week is the annual week of prayer for Christian Unity.  During this week we remember that Christ came to found one and only one Church – Jesus didn’t send the apostles out with different messages, it was just one message and just one Gospel, so just one Church.  But sadly, over time, people have messed that up through our sin and pride.  Now there are many kinds of Churches.  There are Catholics and Methodists and Episcopalians and so many more.  You may have friends or family members who are not Catholic, but Christians of other denominations like this.  These are all good people, all our brothers and sisters, but Jesus never meant for us to be apart.

    The good news that we celebrate this week is that some of that is changing.  Slowly, but surely.  Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists are beginning to come to agreement on an essential teaching about how we are saved.  Orthodox and Catholics are beginning to talk about Eucharist and the role of the pope.  Even Catholics and Evangelicals are coming together in many ways to promote the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.

    We still have a long way to go, but these steps are signs of progress.  We focus on what we all believe in: a loving God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the hope of eternal life because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit, our common Baptism and the promise of everlasting life in heaven.  From these we can begin our prayer for unity, that, as Jesus always intended, we may all be one.  Just as he called those Twelve Apostles, he now calls us to reach out to those who are not one with us and to tell them how much God loves them.  And he calls us always to pray that we would be one Church, one Body in Christ.

  • Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Jesus says to us today, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”  This includes all of us, past, present and future.  We will all live, in some way, to see the end of days, either here on earth, or from the joy of heaven.

    So what will we see; what things will take place?  We will see the signs of a new creation.  Just like the first buds of the fig tree and other trees that Jesus spoke about, all of which signaled the beginning of summer, so the signs of the new creation are evident among us.  Sins are forgiven, people return to God, miracles happen.  Granted, all these are imperfect in some ways now, given that they happen to us fallen creatures, but one day they shall be brought to perfection in the kingdom of God.  Then, we will see “the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

    And so, in these closing days of the Church year, we pray for the coming of the kingdom, and hope for the salvation of the world as Jesus promised.

  • Monday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Right at the end of today’s first reading is one of the most chilling lines in all of Scripture: “and they did die.”  The people’s faith was sorely tested: would they give in and worship the false gods of the people around them so that they could have some kind of peace and security, or would they prefer to stand up for what they believed and more likely than not, give their lives for their faith?  Many gave up and gave in and worshipped the false gods.  But many stood their ground and clung to their belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

    But, let’s be clear about this: they all died.  In some way.  Those who were martyred literally gave their lives for the faith, we get that.  But those who chose to give up and give in brought about the death of their culture and the death of their souls.  Sure, they may have had some kind of peace and security now, but who would protect them if the people they allied themselves with were overtaken?  And that is to say nothing of their eternal souls.  They did die.

    The persecution never ends.  It would be easier in our own day to give in and accept abortion as a necessity, or to accept whatever special interest groups think is best for us, or keep our faith private and never share it or show it in any way.  Our culture would like that; they would appreciate our willingness to blend in and not give offense.  But that would be the death of our way of life and our spirituality.  It will surely cost us to witness to our faith, to challenge co-workers when a business deal blurs the lines of morality, to insist that our children attend Church on Sunday before they go to a weekend-long soccer tournament, or whatever the challenge may be.

    But better that we die a little for our faith than that we die without faith at all.

  • The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    The rather obvious and certainly oft-repeated application of today’s Gospel reading lies in the very literal interpretation of the word “talent,” at least as it appears in English.  That interpretation goes like this: we have been given many talents, and it’s up to us to use them wisely for the benefit of the kingdom of God.  Woe to the one who ignores his gifts and buries them out of fear.  And that’s a wonderful message.  I could go there, particularly on the heels of our time, talent and treasure campaign.  But it’s wrong – that’s not what Jesus meant, and I think we have to dig just a little bit deeper.

    The word we have translated “talent” here does not mean what we think it means.  When our English ears hear that word, we think gifts, we think of abilities, of things we can do.  But that’s not what it means in the original Greek.  “Talent” here does not mean gifts; a talent was a unit of money.  It was actually rather a large sum of money, equal to something like one thousand days’ wages, or what a poor person could have lived on for fifteen or twenty years.  So think about it, even the servant who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years!  That’s a lot of money for anyone.

    The next thing we have to look at is who it was that was receiving such a large sum of cash.  On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions.  But that’s not what it says.  It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers.  And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!

    If we think of the master as God, and accept the talents simply as money, I think God comes off sounding rather harsh.  The poor servants differed in their ability; that’s pointed out in the story and certainly the master would have known that.  So why would God be so horribly harsh when a simple slave with limited capabilities does nothing with his gifts?  It makes us bristle, I think, to imagine God treating someone like that so poorly.

    So I think this raises a few questions for us.  Who is the master?  What do the talents represent?  Why would the master entrust such a large sum of money to common slaves?  Who are the slaves?  And what on earth was that third slave thinking when he buried such a wonderful gift in the sand?

    Well, first off, let’s suppose the master is God here – God the Father.  This isn’t supposed to be a perfect allegory, so let’s just bracket the harshness of the parable. And I think it’s our first reading that gives us a clue as to what’s really going on here.  That first reading speaks of the worthy wife whose value is far beyond that of fine pearls.  What, or rather who, could be that valuable?  Our theology teaches us that the husband in the first reading is Christ, the bridegroom, and the worthy wife is the Church.  So we are the ones called to be worthy, to be industrious, to take care of the poor and to fear the Lord.  Hold on to that thought for a bit.

    Now the talents, they’re not abilities or gifts, and they aren’t simply money.  The Gospel parable says the Master called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them.  What we have translated “entrusted” here means, in the original Greek, something more like “handed over.”  In just the same way, God the Father “handed over” his only Son to us, for the salvation of the whole world.  What could possibly be worth more than that?

    Now the slaves of course are the disciples, they’re you and me, people of every time and place who Christ has come to save.  We are slaves to sin, and we need a redeemer.  Some are more open to redemption and to the work of Christ and the call of the Gospel.  They might get five talents or ten, or however many God chooses to give them.  These go forth into the world, pouring out those riches of Christ into a world that desperately needs salvation, healing and hope.  As that message goes forth, proclaimed and lived by disciples ready to embrace it, they are able to earn five more, or ten more, to double or even triple what they were given for the sake of the kingdom.

    But some are not as open to Christ’s life and work and Gospel.  There’s too much at stake.  They worry about what might happen if our world totally embraced Jesus’ teaching.  They can’t get past what discipleship might personally cost them.  And in Matthew’s Gospel, this is the cardinal sin, because in at least a dozen places, Jesus says “do not be afraid” in one form or another.  That was Jesus’ message in Matthew’s Gospel, and so this third servant, who was afraid of what the Master might be like, buried his treasure out of fear.  And the parable points out that that fear wasn’t even reasonable, since he dealt so wonderfully with the other two servants, rewarding their work by calling them to share in his joy.

    So today’s Gospel is a summary of the whole Gospel of Matthew that we’ve been reading with the Church this year.  We are told that the greatest gift is Christ, that we are called to live the Gospel, that we must take up the task before us without being afraid, that we are called to go out and invest Christ’s presence into a world that always needs to be renewed.  As we come here on this second-to-last Sunday of the Church year, we are brought to this little summary so that we might look back and see how we’ve done that this year.  Have we treasured Christ as the greatest of all that we have been given?  Have we taken on the mission without being afraid, knowing that the gift we have been given in Christ can make up for anything that we ourselves may lack?  Have we accepted that wonderful gift and invested it in the world, proclaiming the Gospel by the way that we live, challenging the corner of the world in which we live to take it up also, so that we might bring back another five or ten or a million talents?

    Or have we been afraid, thinking that the Master is demanding beyond reason, afraid to make a mistake, afraid of what living the Gospel would mean for us, afraid of what it might cost us?  Because if we have lived this way, we have failed the mission.  Everything we have will be taken from us.  There will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

    Here at the end of this Church year, we can renew our commitment, make a new year’s resolution, if you will, to live the Gospel and proclaim the kingdom in the year ahead.  It doesn’t have to be huge.  It doesn’t cost us anything, because everything that we need has been given to us.  Maybe proclaiming the Gospel means doing some kind of service for us.  Reaching out at a homeless shelter or at a soup kitchen or our own food pantry.  Maybe we’ll help teach a religious education class, or sing in the choir, or become a lector.  Maybe we’ll make an effort every day to put prayer in the course of our work day, and try to be people of integrity in our business lives.  Maybe we’ll read the Scriptures each day before we go to bed, even just a few verses, so that the Lord can change our lives and our hearts.  Throughout this Church year, we have received the greatest gift we’ll ever get – Jesus Christ the Lord himself.  Soon it will be time for us to bring back the gift with interest, taking a world of watching people with us. The Psalmist sings of our reward today: “For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored.”  Come, share your Master’s joy!

  • Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Increase our faith,” indeed! How often have you had that same reaction to the marvels of God happening in your life? I think about the many times I have had the Spirit point out something I should have seen all along because it was right there in front of my face. Increase my faith, I pray.

    Because, as Jesus tells us today, there are many things that cause sin, and they will inevitably happen. But how horrible to be tangled up in them, right? Whether we’ve caused the occasion for sin, or have been the victim of it, what a tangled mess it is for us. Maybe we have made someone so angry that their response was sinful. Or perhaps we have neglected to offer help where it was needed and caused another person to find what they need in sinful ways. Or maybe we’ve said something scandalous or gossiped about another person and those who have overheard it have been brought to a lower place. None of that makes anyone involved happy; everyone ends up deficient in faith, hope and love in some way. The same is true if we were the ones to have fallen into the trap of an occasion of sin. Don’t we just want to kick ourselves then?

    This is what the Psalmist was talking about when he prayed, “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.” Now, if those are the only words you utter in prayer some day, rest assured they are probably well-chosen. Maybe some days that’s all we can manage. I’ll translate it for you in an even shorter way: “HELP!” Because when we are tangled up in sin, or brought low by suffering of some kind, maybe those are the only words we can manage. But God hears those words and answers them, because we can never fall so far that we are out of God’s reach. Listen to some more of the Psalmist’s excellent words today:

    Where can I go from your spirit?
    From your presence where can I flee?
    If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I sink to the nether world, you are present there.

    Increase our faith, Lord, guide us in the everlasting way.

  • The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time: The New Roman Missal

    The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time: The New Roman Missal

    Yesterday morning on the news, I saw a brief story about the changes to the Mass that are coming up later this month.  It was a pretty neutral piece and just made people aware that a new translation of the Roman Missal will be used beginning on the first Sunday of Advent, November 27th.  Of course, all of us here at Notre Dame have been talking about this for quite a while now, and so I don’t think that story was “news” to us, although it was nice to see it covered in the secular media.

    Father Steve, the deacons, and I have been preaching about this upcoming change on and off now for a while, but I thought today it might be good to circle back and talk a bit about why the change is happening.  So today’s brief homily is going to be an “FAQ” or “Frequently Asked Questions” of sorts about this upcoming change.

    The first question we have been hearing is, “Why change the Mass?”  And the answer to that is that the Mass is not changing.  The fundamental mystery that we celebrate remains the same: the saving sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross, whose Body and Blood we receive to strengthen our witness in the world and lead us to the Banquet of Heaven.  Nothing new about that; and there would be no reason to change something so essentially perfect.  The structure of the Mass remains the same as well.  It is simply that some of the words are being re-translated.

    Which brings us to the second question: “Why re-translate the Mass?”  Well, after the Second Vatican Council, the Liturgy underwent some adjustments.  The most notable adjustment was the permission to celebrate Mass in each country’s local language, known as the vernacular.  So every country’s bishops oversaw a translation.  This resulted in different versions, some richer, some plainer, some less accurate, some very precise.  A secondary result of this was that there was a different version of the Mass in every English-speaking country in the world.  Now all were valid, but as a Universal Church, it makes more sense that we should share the same translation for our worship.  That is what is happening now; every English-speaking country on the planet will use the same translation of the Mass, and it’s a translation that is truer to the original Latin text.

    So that may lead us to another question: “Does this mean that we have been celebrating the Mass wrong all these years?”  And the answer to that is simply “no.”  Whatever may have been the deficiencies of our current translation, it was a translation made in good faith, and accepted by Rome.  We have all prayed it in faith and it has led us to Christ in many splendid ways.  There is nothing so deficient in the current translation that would make it invalid.  Some say this new translation is a move back toward where we “were” before Vatican II.  That is not the case; this is simply a perfection moving us forward in our implementation of that important work.

    And that brings up another question: “So if the current translation is valid, why bother changing it?”  The reason we are renewing ourselves with a new translation of the Mass is that we always want to be perfecting our participation in the Sacred Liturgy.  We’ll never get it completely right this side of the Kingdom of God; the only place worship would ever be done perfectly is in heaven.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t strive for perfection here on earth.  So that means constant renewal when renewal is warranted.  This re-translation is all about bringing ourselves to more perfect prayer and thus to more perfect union with God Almighty.

    So who did the new translation?  The International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) is chartered to prepare English translations of liturgical texts on behalf of the conferences of bishops of English–speaking countries.  They presented draft versions to the various English-speaking bishops conferences.  They made changes and eventually a version was presented to Vox Clara, a group in Rome charged with seeing to the faithful translation of the Mass into English.  At that point the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments examined the texts and gave approval for their use.  This process was not a quick one; it took over ten years.

    So that’s a quick overview of why the Mass is being re-translated.  If you have other specific questions, I am happy to answer them.  We will have two evenings of preparation to which all are invited; please see the bulletin for the details.  It is my prayer that Notre Dame will be as well prepared for the changes as we can be, and that we will celebrate the opportunity to grow in our appreciation of the Sacred Liturgy.

  • Untitled post 2434

    Today’s readings

    Wouldn’t we like to figure out what’s going on in God’s mind? Wouldn’t it be great to just be able to see the big picture as God sees it so that we can always do the right thing? But that’s just the point. The meaning of everything isn’t ours to know. God gives us what we need in order to follow him. If we would just open up our hearts and minds we could see what we need to see in order to be good disciples. But often we forget the grace we have been given and ignore what’s right in front of us in order to see what we want to see.

    I often wonder, if we really could see the whole big picture, would we be more obedient to God’s will?  Maybe it’s our disobedience, and not God, that keeps us from seeing everything as it truly is.

    When it comes down to it, though, God is God and we are not. That is what St. Paul has been trying to tell us these past couple of weeks as we’ve been reading from his letter to the Romans. We have been disobedient and cannot be obedient apart from God’s grace. Thanks be to God, he has poured out his grace and mercy upon us. We cannot see what God wants us to see apart from God’s grace. Thanks be to God, he gives us his vision when we ask for it and are disposed to receive it.

    We cannot give anything to God that he has not already given us. Our desire to thank him is itself a gift from God. God made us for relationship with him. We are called to be obedient to God’s grace and mercy that we might be able to see ourselves, others, and the whole world as we really are, and to know God’s plan for our lives. The Psalmist certainly received what he asked for today, and we can too: Lord, in your great love, answer me.