BE THE SACRAMENT OF CHRIST

              

Some years ago, a sick call came into the parish office. I was away. The parish manager contacted one of our parishioners who was a very prayerful woman. She did not relate as smoothly as she needed to with people. She went to the hospital. She prayed with the family of the dying relative.

 

Now the family involved were not people who ever shared the life of the faith community. They knew this woman was a woman of prayer and they were so appreciative that the ‘holy woman came.’ They were very touched by her prayer and the way she was so welcoming to them in their hour of need.

 

We have not given sufficient attention to the reality of the ‘holy’ person. The family recognized this wonderful quality about her. Her prayer was good. They were touched by the hand of Christ.

 

This is where our sense of sacrament blossoms forth. A sacrament is anything that puts us in touch with the very reality of the divine. A sacrament is a material thing that brings forth the presence of Christ.

 

We have limited our understanding of sacrament to the official seven sacraments of the Church. But sacraments are much broader than the ‘high holy sacraments.’

 

Holding a new born child can put you in touch with the great love and creative power of the Creator God. As you hold this child you may experience (but not necessarily in words) the force of God bringing this new life into being. As you hold this child you can feel gratitude that you were so wonderfully created. Holding this child makes you so appreciative of the great love and compassion that God is showering on you at this very moment.

 

In the early morning you are sitting outside on our deck with your cup of coffee. It is so enjoyable watching the birds swoop down to pick up insects and seeds for food. They flit around so gracefully and  quickly. Here is the hand of God! You are so close to the great love that our creator God has for each one of these birds. This is a moment of sacrament. Birds put you in touch with God. You are moved with a moment of joy.

 

And then there is the most challenging concept of sacrament. You have been joined to Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism. You share in the very life and mission of Jesus Christ. Your body is the very temple of the Holy Spirit. Your life, your body, your soul are all rooted in and nourished by the very life-force of Jesus Christ. 

 

The reality of Jesus with in you is meant to make you a sacrament of the very Son of God. Your life, your attitude is meant to manifest the very presence of Jesus. Your face is meant to become the very face of Jesus. 

 

It is in this way that we are to understand ourselves as the living sacrament of Jesus. This is the direction of our Christian faith.

 

How well do you understand yourself as the living sacrament of Jesus Christ?

 

 

THE STRUGGLE FOR WORSHIP THAT IS REAL

 

One of the great joys and great sorrows of the past fifty years of our Catholic Church has been the renewal of our liturgy (Our worship).

 

The big struggle is trying to bring our worship to actually be an action of the entire community. What we do at the Sunday Mass must never be something that is done to us but rather an action that we do together.  

 

The fundamental value is that as everyone is meant to live and practice their faith, so everyone is meant to be an active participant in the Sunday liturgy.  We must never sit there and remain as someone who just  ‘receives.’ We are far enough away from the liturgy of the pre-Vatican council that we cannot remember that almost everything at the Sunday Mass was focused on the priest and the choir. 

 

There have been many mistakes that have happened. For example, too many Catholics considered receiving Holy Communion was the only important part of the  Sunday Mass. 

 

The goal is not to ‘do’ the liturgy, but for everyone to enter into the mystery of Christ, give thanksgiving and then be sent forth into the world to make Christ present in our daily dealings with each other. The Sunday liturgy is very much about being empowered by the Holy Spirit to go worth and make Christ a reality in our world.

 

The prayers and proclamation of the leader are meant to bring the gathered people into the sacred mysteries that are being celebrated. The reader proclaims the Word of God in order to bring the congregation to encounter God coming among them. The leaders of song are meant to lead the congregation to give praise to the most Holy Trinity. Sharing in Holy Communion is meant to nourish the people with the very person of Jesus Christ. The final blessing is to send us forth to bring the presence of Christ into our society.

 

We mus always work to bring all pesons to fully participate in the sacred mysteries. This is an empowering act. It must never be something that is done to and for the people.

 

One of the best part of our Sunday mass is the final command: Go forth. Make Christ happen in your part of the world!

HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH SUCH A BIG GOD?

        

The gospel reading (Lk. 13,22-30) for this Sunday is challenging. It is meant to expand our hearts and the breath of our loving for our fellow human beings. 

 

Jesus was dealing with a religious / political mentality that saw the religious rule keepers as being much more important than the multitude of peasants (who were illiterate) who were not very good at the ‘rule keeping.’  This is a story of those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out.’

 

The image of the narrow door may be difficult for many people. There are people who will come a knocking, claiming to have eaten and drunk with Jesus. They claim to know him. But he will say, ‘go away!’ What is happening here.

 

In the society of Jesus, the doors to houses did not have hinges. The door would have been narrower than the doors we have in our houses. The door was strong (so it could not be busted into) and had to bolted shut every evening. It was quite a process to open the door in the morning and move it into closing position in the evening. 

 

It is not good enough to know the teachings of Jesus and to even have walked with him. Entering the narrow door means living and loving human beings the way Jesus loves human beings. To walk through the door Jesus was talking about is entering into his love and compassion for his fellow human beings. You do not get through the door just because you have kept all the religious rules.

 

Enter through the narrow door by reaching out to your elder sister who is suffering dementia and seems so lost in her own home. Never fret over any conversation you might want to have with her (this would be working on your own agenda), but gently share with her some of the memories. The narrow door is your sharing human kindness with your own sister. There may be long periods of silence but your presence and the warm feeling of your hands is making the love of God tangible.

 

At work, you have a newly arrived refugee from the Ukraine. Enter the narrow door by helping her learn  English. Try to place yourself in her shoes when she does not have the words to share her life and experiences with you. Your patience in teaching her the English language is entering through the narrow door. It does not matter that she might move to another job in another location in the future. Today, you are reaching out to her in this new country.

 

Your sister is going through a very rough time. Her son is out on the West Coast. She knows that he is a recreation drug user. This is so dangerous. She worries and frets that he might overdose on the drugs and she will lose her only son. Family life is very tense these days. You pick up the phone call to be a sympathetic voice. Your patience in listening and caring is walking through the narrow door.

 

Not everyone who feels that they will be saved will make it. We all have to do our part and respond to the life and mission of Jesus. Words are never enough.

 

How are you entering through the narrow door?

 

 

THE PARISH COMMUNITY IS THE LVIING FACE OF CHRIST

 

One part of our Church life that does not receive enough attention is the parish community itself. We want to stress that the mystery of Christ must be lived out and witnessed in the individual lives of believers. If you have been baptized into Christ, you have been missioned to become the living extension of the person and mission of Jesus. The mystery of Christ must be realized in a personal way: it must come to life in the way you live your life.

 

The local parish community must also share and live this mystery. The people must become the living extension and witness to Jesus Christ. Being a living witness  was never meant to be limited to the parish priest.

 

The first area that we want to focus on is the people as a praying people. These are people who definitely make the effort to be attentive to, share in and are nourished by their prayer life. These are people who are in tune with the movements of the Holy Spirit. Our adult children can look at us and say, “Now these people do listen to the Word of God. These people are filled with praise and thanksgiving for the work of God.” 

 

Now we, their adult children, may be absent from a prayer life, but we can see that prayer and attentiveness to the Holy Spirit is very nourishing for our parents. The local parish is a nourishing source of God presence, shared and lived together.

 

Welcoming the stranger was a significant part of the ministry of Jesus. In our local parishes we want to help everyone be sensitive to the new comers. We do not limit this to the ushers whowelcome people but rather we look around to see who is new (they may be new to me!) and go over and welcome them. Jesus stands right in our midst as a stranger – and you welcomed me! 

 

In our very mobile society we need to stress the ministry of welcome for all parishioners. People who are long-time members of the parish community will say, “But I know everyone here!” This is not true because their familiarity with their fellow parishioners can blind them from seeing who is new and unknown to others. 

 

We must examine how alert we are to differences. How much of an effort do we make to getting to know parishioners who are different ethnically, racially, economically or age-wise?  How often do we ask someone who might be different to come “\’and help me set the tables or serve the coffee?’ Reaching out means helping people who might be different from the majority to help them fit in and feel they belong. 

 

If we are a long-standing parish community we need to be alerted to what we are meant to be. How we live, treat each other, reach out to the strangers ae all meant to be living signs of the presence of Christ. A parish community is never a brick building that once erected is meant to stand unmoveable for a century. A parish community is like your tomato plants in the garden. They need to be tended to, worked with, pruned in order to bear a harvest of tomatoes.

 

So too, our parish community needs to work hard to become the living witness of Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POPE’S MASS IN EDMONTON

 

Last Tuesday, (July 26,2022), Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. There are many mixed reviews of this event.

 

One of the most disappointing moments was the switch to the Latin language for the Eucharistic prayer. What was going on here?  Who made this decision to use the Latin language?

 

One of the very important insights and values that the renewal of the Second Vatican Council brought to the Church was the priority of the language spoken by the people to be used in their prayer. We had come through four and a half centuries of using the Latin language for our Mass. The people who could not understand this language reverted to their private devotions – in their own language. We had the very awkward situation of the priest up in front using the Latin language and the people doing something different (i.e., praying the rosary) in their own language. At the time, we did not have the tools to see how mixed-up this actually was. 

 

The people must always pray in the language they speak. It must be the language that resonates with their daily lives.  If you are with Chinee people, you must pray in their language, and if possible, in their dialect.

 

The prayers must also be understandable. Here there can be some serious issues. The prayers that are officially used at the Sunday mass may be doctrinally very correct but hard to understand. There are many times the people in the pews need to ask after the prayer is uttered: “Now, what was that all about?”

 

English is a very clear and succinct language. We do not try to use a lot of words to express complicated ideas. We try to be to the point, concise and understandable. The French, Spanish, and Italian languages want to use more words than the English are comfortable with in their prayers. 

 

There are a small group of Catholics who want to use the Latin in their Sunday Mass. A very strong feeling here is that the Latin is more holy and brings us closer to the divine. This feeling must be challenged.

 

Be on guard that our prayers become too polite! We do not embrace the hard and difficult parts of our lives. For example, there are people who will not touch the question of climate change in their prayer life. An honest and mature approach to prayer is to grapple with the issues that threaten our very existence as human beings. Prayer never runs away from the reality right in front of us.

 

We bring before God the tough issues of life. We ask the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and courage to tackle that hard issues like nuclear weapons, food shortages, unemployment and the opioid epidemic. Prayer must never be polite, inoffensive and escapist. We pray out of the nitty-gritty of our lives!

 

Officials in the Church can make bad decisions. The choice to use Latin was a mistaken decision.

 

May your prayer always be earthy. May your prayer always arise out of the awareness that God is working through all the struggles, the hopes, the failures and the blessings of human life.