Some Litugical Comments From Cardinal Schoenborn:

A biretta tip to Gerald at The Cafeteria is Closed for finding and translating this gem on the direction the priest faces during Mass.

"The question "people's altar or high altar" has become a reason for dispute. A Viennese parish decided, to once more celebrate Mass using the baroque high altar. A movable people's altar will only be used for "family Masses". Someone told the media about this which resulted in some clamoring, including the hilarious statement that from now on the priest would "preach to the wall" in this church!

First and foremost: It is not decisive in which direction the celebrant faces, but rather what happens on the altar. We are called to focus on the "mystery of faith", on Christ who is in our midst, whose dedication to the Father, for us and for all people we celebrate in the Eucharist. We proclaim His death and His resurrection because they become present among us. That is the center and the source and the highpoint of the Christian life, as the Council stated several times. So this question arises on occasion of this "altar controversy" - are we sufficiently aware of this ?

Second: Both directions of celebration are justified and neither should be suspected or "ideologized" . Mass isn't celebrated "to the people" or "to the wall",but to God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. The celebration turned "to the people" has the meaning that we all, priests and laypeople, gather around Christ who symbolizes the altar and whose Body and Blood become present on the altar. The celebration "with the back to the people" is not a turning away from the faithful but facing in the same direction in prayer, expression of the path we walk walk towards God as pilgrims, His wandering people.

Third: Vatican II did not say anything about the direction of the celebrant. It wasn't until 1969 that the GIRM said (Nr. 262): "The main altar should be built separated from the wall, so that it can be walked around easily to make the celebration versus populum (towards the people)" In the 2002 edition the following is added: "This should be the case wherever it is possible". The Roman Congregation has declared this as a recommendation, not a requirement.

Fourth: The oldest direction for prayer is towards the East. The Jews prayed towards Jerusalem, the Muslims towards Mecca, the Christians towards the rising sun which symbolizes the Risen Christ. Thus the respective orientation of the synagogues, mosques and churches. The orientation, ie the "Eastwardness" of churches is one of the "original laws" of church architecture. St. Peter's in Rome faces westward for practical reasons. therefore the Pope celebrates facing the doors, which are in the East, and because of that towards the people. It is good to remind oneself what "orientation" means.

Lastly, a personal comment: I love both directions of celebrating Mass. Both are full of meaning for me. Both help me to encounter Christ - and that is, after all, the purpose of the liturgy."

Homily:  First Sunday of Lent

Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil.

                Lent, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is a time when we too are led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.  The image of Lent as a desert goes back to this passage from the Gospel of Luke, but it has its roots buried even deeper in the Scriptures.  The idea of going out into the desert goes all the way back to when the Hebrew people wandered the desert of Sinai for forty years seeking the Promised Land.

                I have never been to a desert, but I am told that the desert is a place of extremes.  It is freezing cold at night, and boiling hot during the day.  The wind can be strong, or it can be nothing at all, and the silence…the silence is deafening.  The desert, because of its utter loneliness forces a person to face themselves, for there is no one else there, and there is nowhere to hide.  Lent is a time to do just that: to enter the starkness of the desert and there encounter our truest self, with all our strengths and defects, with all our virtues and vices, but not only to encounter ourselves, but also Jesus himself.

                Even the liturgy calls us to enter the desert.  The Church, in her desire to strip away all things that might in any way distract us from focusing on God and our conversion to him, has certain liturgical regulation for this season.  For instance she forbids the use of flowers to decorate the sanctuary as well as requiring that we scale back and tone down the music during lent, which gives the liturgy a more silent and desert like atmosphere.  Here at Holy Spirit we have also scaled back the Altar Cloth so that it only covers the top of the Altar, we have removed some of the candlesticks, stopped the baptismal font from running, and later on in the season we will cover all the statues adding to the starkness of this season. 

How do these things help us to enter the desert?  They reminds us that the real reason we come to Mass is to encounter Jesus, to hear His word and be united with Him in the Eucharist.  We do not come to Mass only because of the decorations and flowers and music, as wonderful as they might be.  If we are coming to Mass only for those things, this Lent may be a good time to re-examine our priorities.  If we find ourselves saying that the only reason we come here is because of the music, or the architecture, or the priests or anything other than Jesus Christ, then we should examine our priorities.  Jesus Christ is #1, everything else is secondary.   By toning down the secondary things during Lent, it helps us to focus on what is essential, namely Jesus Christ.

Sometimes, because of our fallen human nature, we tend to hide behind those secondary things, those projects and activities which we are involved in.  We tend to use service and involvement; as good as those things can be, as a way to avoid a real and deep relationship with God.  This, my friends, is an occupational hazard of being a Christian.  In our desire to serve, to help, to provide for others, we forget to nurture our friendship with Christ; we forget to pray.  Lent is a time of year when this occupational hazard tends to creep in.  We get involved in all sorts of charity activities, we go out and serve the poor, we do, do, do…but often we forget to just be; we forget to just be a Child of God, to sit in his presence in silence, to experience His Love, to talk to Him.  Without a doubt, my friends, we do need to help the poor during lent, we do need to get involved in various charities, but never at the expense of a real and deep relationship with Christ.

Maybe this Lent we can all take a breather.  We can pull back from the noise and business of the world we live in and make just being, just praying, just growing in our relationship with God a priority.  Then, when we are in a right relationship with God, we can start doing those good deeds. 

Maybe this Lent we can strive to truly enter the silence and starkness of the desert in order to get rid of those things that distract us from what is essential…actually…from who is essential.  For what is essential is not a “what” at all, it is a “who,” and his name is Jesus Christ.

St. Valentines Day Homily

A couple of people asked me to post this homily given at the local Catholic High School on St. Valentines Day.

Good Morning.  I must admit that I have been looking forward to being with you for quite awhile.  There is something very energizing for a priest to be able to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice with a group of young men and women like you; and not only do I get to celebrate Mass, but I get to celebrate Mass on St. Valentines Day.

                I think we know from experience that little children have an amazing capacity to tell the truth with all simplicity.  They have this uncanny ability to get right to the heart of things without having to think too much.  Yesterday I came across series of answers that little kids gave when asked the question:  “What is love.”  Here are a few of the answers:

Rebecca- age 8  "When my grandmother got arthritis,  she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

Karl - age 5  "Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."

Chrissy -  age 6  "Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."

Terri -  age 4  "Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."

Danny -  age 7 "Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

Bobby - age 7 "Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

Elaine-age 5 "Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."

Chris - age 7 "Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Brad Pitt."

You know…it’s wonderful to hear the innocence of these children coming through their definitions of love.  If only we still had that innocence and purity, but I fear that many of us are blinded by lust.  In our gospel we hear about the blind man who was healed by Jesus.  This story from the gospel teaches us that Jesus has the power to heal physical blindness, but more than that, he also has the power to heal spiritual blindness.  We all in our own way suffer from spiritual blindness.  In one way or another we all need to see more clearly…we all need to be healed of spiritual blindness. 

One of the greatest forms of spiritual blindness in our world today is love blindness…aka:  Lust.  For many of us here today the only thing we think of on St. Valentines Day is “Let’s get it on!”  Which is a symptom of Lust, cause it certainly is not love.

Love, by brothers and sisters, is not about getting it on; it’s not about hooking up, it’s not about sex at all.  It’s about heaven.  If you love someone you want the best for them, and as Christians we know that the best, the very best of the best, is heaven and nothing less.  That means if someone say’s they love you, they had better want heaven for you and be willing to help you get there, otherwise it’s not love. 

Ladies, your boyfriend, if he really loves you, should be leading you to heaven. Men, your girlfriend should lead you to heaven. Young people, if your boyfriend or girlfriend is not helping you to get to heaven, if they are encouraging you to do things that are sinful, or if they are encouraging you to even begin to do something that you couldn’t do with your grandma, drop them like a hot potato.  And for crying out loud, if anyone ever tries to use that stupid, worn out, old line “if you love me you’ll do it” just look them in the eyes and say “if you love me…really love me…you wouldn’t have asked.”  And then dump them.  If they don’t care about your eternal salvation then it’s not worth it.  They don’t love you, and you can do better than them.

My brothers and sisters, today is St. Valentines day, the feast day of people in love.  Let us pray that, for all of us gathered here, today will be a day of true love…a love that leads us to heaven.

Homily:  6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours…but woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”

As we move through the cycle of Sunday readings we periodically encounter some of the hard teachings of Christ.  Those teaching that are not easy to hear and challenge us to examine ourselves and change if need be.  Today we encounter one of those readings. 

The series of blessings, curses and woes that we hear in our first reading and the Gospel are at the same time both consoling and challenging; they are both a blessing and a curse depending of what side of the fence we are on.

For example, let’s take the phrase about poverty and riches.  Jesus says “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.”  When we hear this we can easily assent to it.  It may even give us a warm, peaceful feeling.  It seems right and just that those who are poor, the destitute, the homeless, people who lack any material possessions in this life would be rewarded with the greatest possession of all:  The kingdom of God.  These phrases help our hearts and minds to come to terms with the horrible poverty of our world.  It reminds us that something great lies in store for the poor.

But that’s not the end of the story; on the other side of the blessing is a curse:  a hard saying of our Lord.  After all, it seems only logical to question in our minds what happens to the wealthy if it is the poor who inherit the kingdom of God.  If the poor suffer in this life but are consoled in the next what happens to those who are consoled in this life?  I admit that if we take the gospels as true, which I hope we do, things don’t look so good for the wealthy.  Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “The precept of detachment from riches is Obligatory for entrance into the kingdom of heaven.  It is obligatory, i.e. not optional.”  Now that’s a hard saying.

So, does this mean that those of us who have much need to give it all away?  Does it mean that we should all be destitute?  No.  We don’t have to be street people to enter the kingdom of God.  We do, however, have to be detached from what we have.  Our possessions should not own us; we own them.

The bottom line is this – we will be detached from material possessions if we realize, like Jeremiah in the first reading, that they cannot save us.  Only God can do that.  Riches and material posses are not evil in themselves, they only become evil when we put our trust in them rather than in God, they only become evil when the pursuit of money and possession takes priority over our relationship with Christ, they only become evil when they lead us away from God rather than towards Him.  Riches and possessions are worthwhile only…only…if they lead us closer to God.  If they are not leading us to God, they are not worth having and should be gotten rid of as soon as possible.

This teaching of Christ and the Church has many practical applications and you all know how much I love practical ideas…so here are some examples.

1.       Maybe you have a condo in the Caribbean…in and of itself…not a problem.  You can use such a place as a place of retreat and prayer.  A place to truly renew yourself in body and soul.  Or you can use it as a place to have wild parties, with wild women and booze…a place of sin rather than holiness.  If you use it for the first reason.  Halleluiah!  Praise the Lord!  You are using your material possessions well.  But if you use it for the second reason, get rid of it.  Sell it and give the money to CSFA or the poor priest fund, which is how I affectionately refer to my bank account.

2.       Maybe you have a nice boat.  Nothing wrong with that in and of itself.  You could use it to take your family boating or fishing.  You can use it as a way to find God in nature.  Or, you can use it to cruise the lake looking for babes in bikinis or muscular men, whichever the case may be.  If that’s the case, and your boat is an occasion of sin for you, get rid of it.  Better to lose a boat than your eternal salvation.

3.       Maybe you have a TV in the kitchen…not a huge material possession, but a material possession nonetheless.  You could use it to watch EWTN while cooking…or it could be something that takes away from good, healthy, and holy conversation during your family dinner.  If it isn’t helping you and your family to grow in love for each other and love for the Lord get rid of it.  It’s not worth it.

These three examples are not the only examples of how material possession can either help us to grow in holiness or not.  I am sure you can think of many more from your own lives, I know I can think of myriads of examples from mine…but just thinking about them won’t make a stitch of difference, we have to act.  So I encourage and exhort you, if you have things or money that keeps you from being the saint God is calling you to be.  Get rid of them.  For it is only the poor in spirit, it is only people who are willing to give up anything and everything to follow Christ, who will inherit the kingdom of heaven.  May our Mother Mary intercede for us that we may have the courage to do just that.  Mary, Mother of the poor, pray for us.

You Just Have To Love This Man!

Round 2

The South Dakota House of Representatives yesterday introduced a new abortion ban for the state, this time carrying harsher penalties. The new bill increases punishment for illegal abortion to a class 4 felony, punishable by 10 years in prison.

Last year, South Dakota became the first state since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973 to pass a near total ban on abortion.  The law, however, was challenged by a voter referendum, where it was narrowly defeated.  Many voters said they opposed the referendum only because it did not include exceptions for rape and incest.

According to the AP, This year's bill would allow rape victims to get abortions if they report the rapes to police within 50 days. Doctors would have to confirm the report with police and would have to take blood from aborted fetuses and give that information to police for DNA testing.

In the case of incest, a doctor would have to get the woman's consent to report the crime along with the identity of the alleged perpetrator before an abortion could be performed. Blood samples from fetuses would have to be provided to police in incest cases, too.
 
About 870 abortions take place in South Dakota every year, according to the most recent statistics listed with the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute.

Earlier this year, Georgia also introduced a bill to ban abortion that contained no exceptions. 

Let us start praying now for the success of this Bill.

The Great Build Up

Wow, things have been piling up for quite some time.  It's been a long time since I posted, but pastoral ministry clearly takes precidence over posting here.  Nevertheless here I am, posting my last two homilies.  Some of you might be wondering why I don't have a homily every week.  Here at Holy Spirit the tradition has been that the homilies given for all the Masses on any particular weekend are given by one priest.  This gives both of us a chance to have a week where we do not have to prepare a Sunday Homily.  It's actually kind of nice to switch off this way.  Thus you will notice that the homilies I post are roughly for every other Sunday, not every Sunday.

Also, next week I will be on retreat at Shellbourne Retreat Center making my annual retreat.  Please keep me in your prayers that I will have a deeper conversion to Christ during my retreat.

Homily:  4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In our second reading today from the First Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul tells us right off the bat to “strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.”  He tells us there is nothing wrong with wanting to be given great and mighty spiritual gifts, but he also reminds us that these great gifts are not the be all and end all of the spiritual life, for in his own words, there is a “still more excellent way;” the way of love. 

You know we may be able to speak in tongues; we may be able to prophesy or have unbelievable knowledge of hidden things; we may have faith to say to the mountains “move” and they are right then uprooted and moved to another place; we may have the courage to be a martyr, but, according to St. Paul, if we don’t have love we have nothing.  Zip.  We can be the greatest human being that ever lived, we could have famous friends, we could have cars, boats, summer homes in the Riviera, and a spouse that turns the heads of people all over the world , but if we do not have love, we have nothing.  In other words, it might be a good idea to seek love, because without it we have nothing.

So what is this love?  St. Paul makes a strange comment in this reading, but I think it gives a very profound into the kind of love St. Paul is talking about.  He said “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.”  In other words, the love he is talking about is not an immature, sappy, emotionally based, puppy love that children fall into.  He is talking about a mature, serious, will based, sacrificial love that people seeking holiness fall into.  He is talking about the kind of love that Jesus lived when he gave himself for us on the cross.

In this reading there are a lot of nice phrases.  Things like

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it is not pompous,
It is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Yes, those phrases are nice.  They are popular.  They are quoted left and right on wedding announcements and in greeting cards.  They are sweet.  It’s true; they are.  But when we get down to the real nitty gritty of living those sweet phrases they tend to lose a little bit of the sweetness, don’t they?  Married couples, you know this.  It’s not easy to live a love that is patient and kind when your spouse is annoying you.  It’s not easy to love without jeaousy and pompousness.  It’s not easy to bear all things…to endure all things…it’s hard and requires sacrifice. 

Love; true love; adult love requires sacrifice.  It requires dying to self out of love for the beloved.  You have heard me speak about this before, in fact, just a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating.  If you want to experience true love, a love like the love of Jesus, be willing to sacrifice.  Be willing to lay down your life so that the beloved might have eternal life.  That’s the kind of love Jesus had, and it’s the kind we are called to have as well.

Homily:  Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

In our scripture readings today the theme of the Marriage is presented to us.  In the Gospel we have the first miracle worked by our Lord at the wedding feast of Cana and in our first readings we hear these mysterious words: “As a young man marries a virgin, so your Builder shall marry you.”  If you were following along in your missals you may have noticed that in that sentence the world Builder is capitalized…because it refers to God.  God, our Builder, wants to marry us.  Yes, you heard right, God wants to marry us!  It might sound a bit strange but this very same marital language is used frequently throughout scripture to speak about God’s relationship with us.  In fact, in many places in the New Testament Jesus’ relationship to us is spoken of as a marriage.  For instance in Ephesians Chapter five St. Paul points out that the love between a husband and a wife, and their mutual love and self sacrifice refers to the mystery of Christ’s self giving in his marriage to the Church.

So what does this mean?  What does the fact that when God talks about his relationship to us he uses marital language teach us?  One thing, among a multitude of things, it teaches us is that marriage should be lived in such a way that it reflects and imitates God’s love for us.  If you, my Holy Spirit family, want fulfilling, rich, and holy marriages, and I know you do, then do everything you can to make your marriage reflect the love that Jesus showed to us in giving himself for our sake.

In that passage from Ephesians I made reference to a few moments ago St. Paul urges husbands to “love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her.”  Holy smokes!  Do you know what that means men?  That means we, as men, are called to love our wives as Christ loved the Church…notice I said we and not you.  Yes, we priests are indeed married to the Church.  We priests are called to love our bride, the church, aka, all of you, as Christ loved the Church.  All of us men, priests or otherwise, are called to love our wives in the same way Christ loved the Church.  And how is that?  How did Christ love the Church?  (Point to the cross!)  He suffered torture, mockery, hatred, and ultimately death as a sign of his love for His bride, the Church.

Men, we must be willing to do all of that out of love for our bride.  Granted, we probably won’t have to physically suffer death, but we will certainly have to die to ourself out of love for our wife.  You may have to go shopping with her, or take out the trash, or God forbid, clean the bathroom.

Dying to  ourself as a sign of love for our wife is our calling men. It is God’s will for us to imitate Christ in this way so lets not be afraid to do it.  Yes.  It’s hard, but we, will be happy only to the extent that we do the will of God, which means dying to ourselves.

But why?  What is the purpose of this, at time heroic, dying to self?  The next phrase in that passage from Ephesians tells us. It says that we love our wives as Christ loved the Church so that she “might be sanctified.”  That she might be made holy, that she might get to heaven.  In fact, that is the purpose of marriage. 

God has called you to marriage in order to lead you to heaven.  Wives, your marriage to you husband should lead you to heaven. Husbands, your marriage to your wife should lead you to heaven, and if either party is not doing that; if you are not helping your spouse to grow in holiness, then sadly, your marriage is running a serious risk of being an eternal failure.

When I meet with a couple preparing for marriage I always make sure that sometime during the time of their preparation they are aware of this.  Every couple preparing for marriage should realize that it is their duty to lead their future spouse to heaven.  Young people, if your boyfriend or girlfriend, if you fiancé is not helping you to get to heaven, if they are encouraging you to do things that are sinful, or if they are encouraging you to even begin to go down a path that may lead to sin, drop them like hot potato.  If they don’t care about your eternal salvation then it’s not worth it.  You can do better than them.

My brothers and sisters, Christ sanctified marriage by his own attendance at the wedding in Cana.  He shows us his high regard for this sacrament by working his first miracle there.  Let us do our best to make marriage what God means it to be, a mirror which shows to the world his own great love for us, his Church.  Today as we gather at this altar to celebrate the great sign of Christ’s love for us, the sacrifice of Calvary; as we gather to become one flesh with our God in Holy Communion, let us ask for the grace to live God’s love in our lives and in our marriages.  Amen.