Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Viaticum

  • The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Well, here we are.

    It’s been a whirlwind these last two months! First we emptied everything out of the church, and the pew refinishing company took apart the pews and shipped them to Nebraska so that they could be refinished. Then the painters moved in a couple of massive lifts that looked like some kind of alien spider that took them all the way up into the cupola so that they could paint. Our artist moved in and began painting the reredos, and later a sign company came in to install the Agnus Dei above the reredos, and the titles of Mary from the Litany of Loreto along the back wall of church. The staff cleaned and scrubbed and put all the furniture back. Perhaps the most herculean task was that of taking our massive Tabernacle off its altar and then putting it back on. I believe it weighs elevendy gazillion pounds. Renovating our church décor was certainly a labor of love, and we hope that you will love it!

    In renovating the church, we didn’t just want to slap a coat of paint on the walls and ceiling. When the church was built, that’s what had to be done because there wasn’t money to do much else. So in painting the church this time, we wanted to take the opportunity to do what art in the Church has always been used to do, and that is to catechize and evangelize. In the early days of the Church, most people could not read and write, so in order to teach the faith, people were taught to read the churches. So the artwork and the decoration of the church was meant to preach the Gospel and call people to repentance and salvation. We wanted to do the same here at Saint Mary’s.

    So we had two main themes that we wanted to convey. First and foremost, we wanted to express the truth that this is the holiest place on our campus, the place where heaven meets earth, the place where Jesus Christ dwells with us until the end of the age. During this Eucharistic Revival in our Church, no message could be more important. So the dome was painted as a night sky, complete with stars; the cupola was painted a light blue to allow natural light to reflect and illuminate the sanctuary; the Tabernacle was raised on a step, and placed on an altar with a stone top; and the reredos was painted with a stunning mural depicting the light of God coming down from heaven and enveloping us all as he calls us into his presence. And to make it very clear what we behold, the text on the upper border of the reredos reads, Agnus Dei Qui Tolis Pecatta Mundi; that is, Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

    The second theme we wanted to convey was that this particular parish church is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Immaculate Conception. So the deep blue which support the architectural features of the sanctuary, and the earthy green on the wings of the church proclaim that Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth. The golden rim around the “sky” above the sanctuary evokes her crown, and the gold rays in the ceiling of the nave symbolize her merciful love reaching out to the world.

    Along the back of the church, we have installed four “medallions” of the Blessed Virgin Mary, including one of the Miraculous Medal, which ask for her intercession for our parish, our families, and our community. The text along the back “ribbon” above the doors are selections from the Litany of Loreto: Mother of Mercy, Mother of the Church, Seat of Wisdom, Help of Christians, Queen of Peace, Cause of our Joy, Holy Mother of God, and Queen of Families. These have been presented in English, Spanish, Polish, and Tagalog, some of the languages spoken by our parish family. Finally, above the doors in the center aisle, the resurrected Jesus has been cleaned by our artist (who knew he was brass?), and the blue from the sky has been painted as a background. This evokes the Ascension of Our Lord, giving us a command as we leave the church: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

    It was our intention that the renovation of this church would help feed our spirits, which Jesus longs to do for all of us. In today’s Liturgy of the Word, we are invited to receive “bread for the Journey,” in Latin, “Viaticum.” Viaticum is usually one’s last Holy Communion, given when we are dying. But in today’s liturgy, we are shown that we always need bread for the journey so that we will have strength to complete the journey and do what God calls us to do.

    In the first reading, the prophet Elijah has had just about enough, thank you very much. Despite some successes in preaching the word of the Lord, he has felt that he is a failure. Today’s reading comes after Elijah, with God’s help, just defeated all the prophets of the false god Baal in a splendid display of pyrotechnics on Mount Carmel. It’s a wonderful story that you can find in chapter 18 of the first book of Kings, and your homework today is to go home and look it up! I promise, you’ll enjoy the story. Well after that outstanding success, one would expect Elijah to go about boasting of his victory. Instead, Jezebel, the king’s wife and the one who brought the prophets of Baal to Israel in the first place, pledges to take Elijah’s life. Today’s story, then, finds him sitting under a scraggly broom tree, which offered little if any shade, and praying for death. The Lord ignores his prayer and instead twice makes him get up and eat bread that God himself provides, so that he would be strengthened for the journey. In the story that follows, Elijah will come quite face-to-face with God, and be refreshed to go on. But he can’t do that if he starves to death under the broom tree. Sometimes God does not give us what we ask for, but exactly what we need.

    Our Gospel reading takes us back to Saint John’s “Bread of Life Discourse,” chapter six of his Gospel, which we are reading in this section of the Lectionary. We began two weeks ago with the feeding of the multitudes; then last week the multitudes sought Jesus out so they could get more of the same and Jesus sets out to feed their spirits. At the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus told them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, but rather God did; and then he made a very bold claim: “I am the bread of life.” So this week, the people are angry with Jesus for that claim, for saying that he came down from heaven. They murmured because they knew his family, and surmised that he couldn’t have descended from heaven. They didn’t yet understand the depth of who Jesus was. They were so hungry that they didn’t realize that the finest spiritual banquet stood right before them.

    The thing is, spiritual hunger is something we all face in one way or another. We all have very difficult journeys to face in our lives. Whether we’re feeling dejected and defeated like Elijah, or feeling cranky and irritable like the Ephesians, or whether we’re just feeling superior and murmuring like the Jews in today’s Gospel, spiritual hunger is something we all must face sometime in our lives. From time to time, we all discover in ourselves a hole that we try to fill with something. Maybe we try to fill that up with alcohol, or too much work, or too much ice cream, or the wrong kind of relationships, or whatever; and eventually we find that none of that fills up the hole in our lives. Soon we end up sitting under a scraggly old broom tree, wishing that God would take us now. If we’re honest, we’ve all been at that place at one time or another in our lives.

    We disciples know that there is only one thing – or rather one person – that can fill up that emptiness. And that person is Jesus Christ. Jesus knows our pains and sorrows and longs to be our Bread of Life, the only bread that can fill up that God-sized hole in our lives. We have to let him do that. But it’s not so easy for us to let God take over and do what he needs to do in us. We have to turn off the distractions around us, we have to stop trying to fill the hole with other things that never have any hope of satisfying us, and we have to turn to our Lord in trust that only he can give us strength for the journey. Jesus alone is the bread that came down from heaven, and only those who eat this bread will live forever, forever satisfied, forever strengthened. It is only this bread that will give us strength for the arduous journeys of our lives.

    We will come forward in a few minutes to receive this great gift around the Table of the Lord. As we continue our prayer today, let us remember the advice God gives to Elijah: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” Only then can we go and proclaim the Gospel of the Lord.

  • The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse III

    The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse III

    Today’s readings

    You may have heard of Viaticum, which we generally think of as one’s last Communion. Indeed, the Church encourages us by precept of the Church to receive Holy Communion in our last moments, if at all possible.  The word viaticum is Latin for “bread for the journey.”  So in our last moments, when we set out on our journey to the life that is to come, we are fed with that Food that sustains us.  It’s a commendable practice and I highly encourage it.

    Today we see the Scriptural basis for viaticum, that bread for the journey.  In the first reading, the prophet Elijah had come to the point where he just couldn’t even.  Despite some successes in preaching the word of the Lord, he has felt that he is a failure.  Today’s reading comes after Elijah, with God’s help, just defeated all the prophets of the false god Baal in a splendid display of pyrotechnics on Mount Carmel.  It’s a wonderful story that you can find in chapter 18 of the first book of Kings, and your homework today is to go home and read it.  I promise, you’ll enjoy the story.  Well after that outstanding success, one would expect Elijah to go about boasting of his victory.  Instead, Jezebel, the king’s wife and the one who brought the prophets of Baal to Israel in the first place, pledges to take Elijah’s life.  Today’s story, then, finds him sitting under a scraggly broom tree, which offered little if any shade, and praying for death.  For him it would be better for the Lord to take his life than to die by Jezebel’s henchmen.  The Lord ignores his prayer and instead twice makes him get up and eat bread that God himself provides, so that he would be strengthened for the journey.  In the story that follows, Elijah will come quite face-to-face with God, and be refreshed to go on.  But he can’t do that if he starves to death under the broom tree.  Sometimes God does not give us what we ask for, but exactly what we need.

    Our Gospel reading takes us back to Saint John’s “Bread of Life Discourse.”  We began two weeks ago with the feeding of the multitudes; then last week the multitudes sought Jesus out so they could get more of the same and Jesus sets out to feed their spirits.  At the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus told them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, but rather God did; and then he made a very bold claim: “I am the bread of life.”  So this week, the people are angry with Jesus for that claim, for saying that he came down from heaven.  They murmured because they knew his family, and surmised that, because they knew who he was, he couldn’t have descended from heaven.  Sometimes we think we know everything about a person, but really we don’t.  They didn’t yet understand the depth of who Jesus was.  They were so hungry that they didn’t realize that the finest spiritual banquet stood right before them.

    The thing is, spiritual hunger is something we all face in one way or another.  We all have very difficult journeys to face in our lives.  Whether we’re feeling dejected and defeated like Elijah, or feeling cranky and irritable like the Ephesians in the second reading, or whether we’re just feeling confused or superior and murmuring like the Jews in today’s Gospel, spiritual hunger is something we all must face sometime in our lives.  From time to time, we all discover in ourselves a hole that we try to fill with something.  And usually we make a pretty poor choice of how to fill up that hole.  Maybe we try to fill that up with alcohol, or too much work, or too much ice cream, or the wrong kind of relationships, or whatever; and eventually we find that none of that fills up the hole in our lives.  Soon we end up sitting under a scraggly old broom tree, wishing that God would take us now.  If we’re honest, we’ve all been at that place at one time or another in our lives.

    We disciples know that there is only one thing – or rather one person – that can fill up that emptiness.  And that person is Jesus Christ.  This Jesus knows our pains and sorrows and longs to be our Bread of Life, the only bread that can fill up that God-sized hole in our lives.  We have to let him do that.  But it’s not so easy for us to let God take over and do what he needs to do in us.  We have to turn off the distractions around us, we have to stop trying to fill the hole with other things that never have any hope of satisfying us, and we have to turn to our Lord in trust that only he can give us strength for the journey.  Jesus alone is the bread that came down from heaven, and only those who eat this bread will live forever: forever satisfied, forever strengthened.  It is only this bread that will give us strength for the arduous journeys of our lives.

    Because this Food is so important to us, because it is such a great experience of God’s presence in our lives, we should be all the more diligent to receive the Eucharist frequently and faithfully.  Certainly nothing other than sickness or death should ever deter us from gathering on Sunday to celebrate with the community and receive our Lord in Holy Communion.  We should all think long and hard before we decide not to bring our families to Sunday Mass.  Sometimes soccer, football, softball and other sports or activities become more important than weekly worship, as if Mass were just one option among many activities from which we may choose.  Or maybe we decide to work at the office or around the house instead of coming to Church on Sunday, a clear violation of the third commandment.  And most especially in this pandemic time, when we may have become used to watching the livestream of Mass in our pajamas with a cup of coffee, or even skipping it altogether, we need to get back in the glorious habit of coming to Mass in church.  I realize that I may well be preaching to those who already know this, and I realize that it’s hard, especially for families, to get to Church at times, but this is way too important for any of us to miss.  Hard as it may be, the effort will always be worth it, in the long run.  It is Jesus, the Bread of Life, who will lead us to heaven – the goal of all our lives and our most important journey, – and absolutely nothing and no one else will do that.  Jesus is absolutely our only way to heaven, so we have to keep our eye on the ball.

    It all comes down to what we believe.  If we believe that Jesus is the Bread of Life, then why on earth would we ever want to miss Holy Mass?  If he is the only way to heaven, why would we think to separate ourselves from him?  Our Church teaches us that this is not just a wafer of bread that we are receiving; we believe that it is the very real presence of our Lord: his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the appearance of a wafer of bread.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we should never allow anything to take its place.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we must return to this Eucharist every week, every day if we are able, acknowledging the great and holy gift that He is to us. We will come forward in a few minutes to receive this great gift around the Table of the Lord.  As we continue our prayer today, let us remember the advice God gives to Elijah: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”

  • The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Bread of Life Discourse III: Bread for the Journey

    The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Bread of Life Discourse III: Bread for the Journey

    Today’s readings

    You may have heard of Viaticum, which we generally think of as one’s last Communion. Indeed, the Church encourages us by precept of the Church to receive Holy Communion in our last moments, if at all possible.  The word viaticum is Latin for “bread for the journey.”  So in our last moments, when we set out on our journey to the life that is to come, we are fed with that Food that sustains us.  It’s a commendable practice and I highly encourage it.

    Today we see the Scriptural basis for viaticum, that bread for the journey.  In the first reading, the prophet Elijah has had just about enough, thank you very much.  Despite some successes in preaching the word of the Lord, he has felt that he is a failure.  Today’s reading comes after Elijah, with God’s help, just defeated all the prophets of the false god Baal in a splendid display of pyrotechnics on Mount Carmel.  It’s a wonderful story that you can find in chapter 18 of the first book of Kings, and your homework today is to go home and look it up!  I promise, you’ll enjoy the story.  Well after that outstanding success, one would expect Elijah to go about boasting of his victory.  Instead, Jezebel, the king’s wife and the one who brought the prophets of Baal to Israel in the first place, pledges to take Elijah’s life.  Today’s story, then, finds him sitting under a scraggly broom tree, which offered little if any shade, and praying for death.  For him it would be better for the Lord to take his life than to die by Jezebel’s henchmen.  The Lord ignores his prayer and instead twice makes him get up and eat bread that God himself provides, so that he would be strengthened for the journey.  In the story that follows, Elijah will come quite face-to-face with God, and be refreshed to go on.  But he can’t do that if he starves to death under the broom tree.  Sometimes God does not give us what we ask for, but exactly what we need.

    Our Gospel reading takes us back to Saint John’s “Bread of Life Discourse.”  We usually read from the Gospel of Mark during this liturgical year, but since Mark is shorter than Matthew and Luke, we have a five-week opportunity during the summer to hear John’s Eucharistic Theology beautifully told in the sixth chapter of his Gospel.  We began two weeks ago with the feeding of the multitudes; then last week the multitudes sought Jesus out so they could get more of the same and Jesus sets out to feed their spirits.  At the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus told them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, but rather God did; and then he made a very bold claim: “I am the bread of life.”  So this week, the people are angry with Jesus for that claim, for saying that he came down from heaven.  They murmured because they knew his family, and surmised that he couldn’t have descended from heaven.  They didn’t yet understand the depth of who Jesus was.  They were so hungry that they didn’t realize that the finest spiritual banquet stood right before them.

    The thing is, spiritual hunger is something we all face in one way or another.  We all have very difficult journeys to face in our lives.  Whether we’re feeling dejected and defeated like Elijah, or feeling cranky and irritable like the Ephesians, or whether we’re just feeling superior and murmuring like the Jews in today’s Gospel, spiritual hunger is something we all must face sometime in our lives.  From time to time, we all discover in ourselves a hole that we try to fill with something.  Maybe we try to fill that up with alcohol, or too much work, or too much ice cream, or the wrong kind of relationships, or whatever; and eventually we find that none of that fills up the hole in our lives.  Soon we end up sitting under a scraggly old broom tree, wishing that God would take us now.  If we’re honest, we’ve all been at that place at one time or another in our lives.

    We disciples know that there is only one thing – or rather one person – that can fill up that emptiness.  And that person is Jesus Christ.  This Jesus knows our pains and sorrows and longs to be our Bread of Life, the only bread that can fill up that God-sized hole in our lives.  We have to let him do that.  But it’s not so easy for us to let God take over and do what he needs to do in us.  We have to turn off the distractions around us, we have to stop trying to fill the hole with other things that never have any hope of satisfying us, and we have to turn to our Lord in trust that only he can give us strength for the journey.  Jesus alone is the bread that came down from heaven, and only those who eat this bread will live forever, forever satisfied, forever strengthened.  It is only this bread that will give us strength for the arduous journeys of our lives.

    Because this Food is so important to us, because it is such a great sign of God’s presence in our lives, we should be all the more encouraged to receive the Eucharist frequently and faithfully.  Certainly nothing other than sickness or death should deter us from gathering on Sunday to celebrate with the community and receive our Lord in Holy Communion.  We should all think long and hard before we decide not to bring our families to Sunday Mass.  Sometimes soccer, football, softball and other sports or activities become more important than weekly worship, as if Mass were just one option among many activities from which we may choose.  Or maybe we decide to work at the office or around the house instead of coming to Church on Sunday, a clear violation of the third commandment.  I realize that I may well be preaching to those who already know this, and I realize that it’s hard, especially for families, to get to Church at times, but this is way too important for any of us to miss.  It is Jesus, the Bread of Life, who will lead us to heaven – the goal of all our lives and our most important journey, – and absolutely nothing and no one else will do that.

    It all comes down to what we believe.  If we believe that Jesus is the Bread of Life, then why on earth would we ever want to miss worship?  If he is the only way to heaven, why would we think to separate ourselves from him?  Our Church teaches us that this is not just a wafer of bread and a sip of wine that we are receiving; we believe that it is the very real presence of our Lord, his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the mere appearance of bread and wine.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we should never allow anything to take its place.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we must return to this Eucharist every week, every day if we are able, acknowledging the great and holy gift that He is to us.

    We will come forward in a few minutes to receive this great gift around the Table of the Lord.  As we continue our prayer today, let us remember the advice God gives to Elijah: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”

  • The Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Ephphatha!

    The Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Ephphatha!

    Today’s readings

    Jesus’ ministry on earth was all about healing.  In today’s gospel, he heals a man who has been deaf and mute with the word of command: “Ephphatha!” – “Be opened!”  So you’ve heard me talk about this kind of thing before. The healing is not here just for us to say “how nice for that deaf and mute man.” The healing he intends, the command, “Be opened!” is for us too.  Mark brings us this story in his Gospel because Ephphatha is what Jesus is about.  He is about healing, and opening up a way for those who have been at odds with God to be back in relationship with him.  So whether the obstacle has been a physical illness or a spiritual one, he commands ephphatha, that the way be opened and the obstacle obliterated, and the illness of the broken one bound up and the way made straight for the person to be in communion with God.

    St. James today invites us to take a look at the issue from another angle.  Have we pre-judged people who are not like us when they come to the Church, or to us in any way?  Do we look down on those who don’t dress like us, or don’t speak like us, or don’t act like us?  Do these people have illness that needs to be healed?  Or is it we that have the illness, being unable to see them as Christ does, as brothers and sisters and children of God?  So whatever the illness is today, whether it is ours or someone else’s, Jesus commands it: ephphatha, be opened, that nothing may be an obstacle to the love of God and the healing of Jesus Christ.

    Since the readings lead us to a place of healing, I want to take this opportunity to speak of one of the sacraments of healing, namely the Anointing of the Sick. I want to do that because I think it’s a sacrament we don’t think of much, until someone is near death, and that’s not what the Anointing of the Sick is all about. In the days prior to Vatican II, that was the understanding of the Sacrament. It was called Extreme Unction, Latin for “Last Anointing” and that’s not what it was supposed to be all about.

    The impetus for the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick comes from the letter of Saint James. It says: “Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.” (James 5:14-15) The sacrament is about healing: physical, sure, but also spiritual. Having God’s presence in the sacrament with us in our time of illness is of great value – just ask anyone who’s been through it!

    So I’d like to identify a few times when it would be appropriate to have the Anointing of the Sick. The first is before surgery that is either life threatening itself, or is for the healing of some illness or injury. Very often people will call, and they might come to a daily Mass before their surgery or the weekend before their surgery, and I’ll anoint them after Mass. This is a wonderful time to receive the sacrament, because they’ve just been to Mass and have received the Eucharist. The combination of those sacraments is a great source of grace and healing.

    Another time someone might be anointed is if they’ve come to the hospital with a life-threatening illness or injury, perhaps even after an accident. Or perhaps a patient is hospitalized for an addiction or mental illness. Very often there’s a priest on call at the hospital who can do that, or if it’s one of the local hospitals here, I’ll be called to go over. Being anointed at that time of crisis can be a great source of peace to both the patient and their loved ones.

    Another time for the Anointing is when a patient is home bound, or after they’ve come home from having surgery and there is going to be a long time of rehabilitation. Then I might come to the person’s home, anoint them, and then we can arrange for a parishioner to come give them Holy Communion each week. We have a number of parishioners who help us with that ministry, and it keeps the patient connected to the parish and to the Lord during difficult days. I always like to say, when you’re well, you can come to us, and when you’re sick, we can come to you.

    The final time for the Anointing is the one that most people think of, and that is near death. At the time of death, we have what is known as the Last Rites. The Last Rites are a combination of three sacraments: the sacrament of Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, and Viaticum, which is Latin for “bread for the journey,” one’s last Communion. If at all possible, it’s good if the patient is well enough to participate in all three sacraments, but very often that’s not the case. Then we just do what we can of them and trust in God’s mercy.

    It’s important that we know about the illness so that we can care for the patient. In today’s society that means a family member or the patient themselves, must call us. Hospitals can’t do that any more, due to privacy laws. So it’s very important that we know, and know soon enough that we can respond. With only one priest at the parish, it’s hard for me to respond at the spur of the moment because of other things going on, but I do want to be there. And if, unfortunately, a patient dies before the priest can get there, there are still prayers we can do. Sometimes we don’t know that the patient is going so quickly. I had that happen just recently, and we still prayed and I was there to spend some time with the family.

    The healing work of Christ is what the Church is all about. Today, he Jesus continues to work through the Church to bring healing to all those who need it. He cries out “Ephphatha” that we might all be opened up to his healing work and that every obstacle to relationship with him might be broken down.