I know Theodore Roosevelt had no love for Thomas Jefferson, but these quotes come to mind as I watch the news this evening...a sad day for our country and her citizens.The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. -- Thomas Jefferson
It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws. --Theodore Roosevelt
I have been asked to write a bimonthly column for our local newspaper, The Chelmsford Independent. Stop by every other Thursday to give it a read, and feel more than free to leave comment over there!
God love you,
Father V.
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There has been a lot of discussion about the upcoming new translation of the Roman Missal (the texts used by priests to offer the Holy Mass). The translation we use now, hastily constructed after Vatican II, has been shown by Latinists, and declared by the Church, to be a translation that is wanting. The evidence of this? Very simply, the fact that there is a substantial new translation being promulgated! One can argue that this is not the right time, one can argue that the translation is sufficient. I would argue that the translation of the Holy Mass, the source and summit of our faith, must not simply be sufficient, and that if we do find it simply sufficient, we must move immediately to bring it to excellence.
We have become minimalistic in so many ways. Our dress, our entertainment, our music, our films, our literature...the list goes on and on. We are content with simply, trite, casual distractions and tasks, and as a culture have grown complacent with ordinariness. The Holy Mass must never be viewed as ordinary, but as extraordinary, as it is the pluperfect expression of our faith, the highest and most perfect form of divine worship, and the closest man can get this side of death to Heaven. We must never be satisfied with sufficiency, but strive for excellence, we must never be content with what is ordinary, but always reach for the extraordinary. Why? King David tells us in the 8th psalm: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him but little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet...
Every priest who offers the holy Sacrifice should recall that during this Sacrifice it is not only he with his community that is praying but the whole Church, which is thus expressing in this sacrament her spiritual unity, among other ways by the use of the approved liturgical text. To call this position "mere insistence on uniformity" would only show ignorance of the objective requirements of authentic unity, and would be a symptom of harmful individualism.This subordination of the minister, of the celebrant, to the mysterium which has been entrusted to him by the Church for the good of the whole People of God, should also find expression in the observance of the liturgical requirements concerning the celebration of the holy Sacrifice. These refer, for example, to dress, in particular to the vestments worn by the celebrant. Circumstances have of course existed and continue to exist in which the prescriptions do not oblige. We have been greatly moved when reading books written by priests who had been prisoners in extermination camps, with descriptions of Eucharistic Celebrations without the above- mentioned rules, that is to say, without an altar and without vestments. But although in those conditions this was a proof of heroism and deserved profound admiration, nevertheless in normal conditions to ignore the liturgical directives can be interpreted as a lack of respect towards the Eucharist, dictated perhaps by individualism or by an absence of a critical sense concerning current opinions, or by a certain lack of a spirit of faith.
Upon all of us who, through the grace of God, are ministers of the Eucharist, there weighs a particular responsibility for the ideas and attitudes of our brothers and sisters who have been entrusted to our pastoral care. It is our vocation to nurture, above all by personal example, every healthy manifestation of worship towards Christ present and operative in that sacrament of love. May God preserve us from acting otherwise and weakening that worship by "becoming unaccustomed" to various manifestations and forms of eucharistic worship which express a perhaps "traditional" but healthy piety, and which express above all that "sense of the faith" possessed by the whole People of God, as the Second Vatican Council recalled.(70)We hear the phrase "cultural Catholic" and what comes to mind is a person who, while still identifying themselves as Catholic, no longer practices the faith. This is a problem on a host of levels. However, one antidote to that is a Catholic Culture, which is only built by a Catholic people who take their faith seriously.
This culture is composed of Catholics who realize that to be a member of the Mystical Body of Christ is not to simply attend the Holy Mass on Sundays, but to pray with our families and by ourselves. It means Catholics not to relegate religious objects to churches and Christmas decorations, but have pictures and statues of Our Lord and Lady in our homes as we would have of any people who are dear to us. It means that we behave as a Catholic at work, in the ballot box, at a ball game or in a restaurant; it means to think like a Catholic who is informed about and embraces all that the Church teaches about things "seen and unseen," it means that when people think of us, they know immediately that we are a Catholic, and that the faith is not simply important to us, but essential to who we are.
One fruit of this Catholic culture we see in the names we give to those things which are important to us: namely our children and our businesses. Think of all the Francis X. (insert Irish last name here!) and Margaret Marys and Mary Catherines there used to be. I can think of such businesses as "Little Flower Florist," "Domino's Pizza (after the Latin word for Lord) and, here in my area "Trinity Ambulance". We do this because the faith matters, and we with to inculcate our lives, and our society, with the Faith. To live the Catholic culture means to not so much be a member of the Church, but to "be" a Catholic.
This article from the Catholic News Agency about the New Orleans Saints points to a small piece of Catholic Culture. One note not mentioned in the article: the owner of the Saints choose the name "Saints" because he was awarded the NFL franchise on All Saint's Day, 1967. He saw the hand of God and the intercession of His saints in the gift of the franchise, and wanted to honor them through the name of the team. He then went to Archbishop Hannon, the then Archbishop of New Orleans, for his approval, and the rest is history!
May we all want to be in that number, when the saints come marching in!
God love you,
Father V.
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As many of you undoubtedly know, we are in the midst of a "Year of the Priest", as declared by our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. As a priest, this year is meant to be a time of great grace, in which my heart, and the hearts of all priests, is renewed and more closely conformed to the Sacred Heart of the One High Priest, Jesus Christ. A great means for that grace is the prayers of so many faithful who recognize and cherish the essential and unique gift of the priesthood.
I was once told that the shortest vocations pitch ever given was:
To know and to love this Truth is to love not only Our Lord Jesus, but to love the means by which He loves and transforms us on Earth in preparation of Heaven. It is to love the sacraments by which He touches us and makes us more like He who loved us first. It is to simply Love God and recognize that every gift and the fullness of Truth He has given us finds its home and earthly repository in the Church.Without the priest there is no Eucharist.
Without theEucharist, there is no Church.
Without the Church, there is no hope.
Hello, faithful readers (if there are any left.) It has been a while. I've been feeling compelled to blog, but haven't been sure what to write about. I'm not out of ideas, per se, but I haven't known what to write. In my heyday I would post two, sometimes three blogs a day. Alas, those were the halcyon days of Seminary, in which time was a commodity we thought would never run out! The parish keeps my schedule full, and tack on to that the two colleges I assist at, (University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Thomas More College in Merrimack, NH- an extraordinary Catholic college), appointments, family and friends, and there is simply not enough time in the day.
That all being said, on the World Day for Social Communications, the Holy Father invited all priests to astutely use all forms of digital communication, and to give a soul to the "fabric of communications that makes up the web." If my Archbishop can make time to blog, and the Pope thinks we should, there should be nothing holding me back.
I spend many hours in the confessional (on both sides of the screen), and know that a firm purpose of amendment isn't always a sure-fired path to perfection, at least the first time around. In any case, I renew my firm purpose of amendment to give some soul to the fabric of the Internet, and pray for the time to blog usefully and fruitfully, and to serve some purpose, however small, in the digital world. If anyone is still out there, leave a comment and let me know you're there, and any ideas you might have for blog topics.
God love you!
Father V.
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