Last Thursday our curial offices had our annual Advent day of prayer and reflection. This year our day was facilitated by our diocesan director for marriage and family life, Deacon Patrick O’Toole.

As one would expect, Deacon O’Toole talked about anticipating both the celebration of Christ’s nativity as well as his Second Coming. He challenged us to be prepared at all times — to live our lives with a sense of watchful anticipation, for “of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:36) When Christ returns we must be prepared and not be too focused on our own designs, or else we may be passed by.

This is good advice — not just in preparation for the eschaton, but for life in general! The deacon’s admonition got me wondering how many opportunities I’ve missed because I was too intent on my own schemes — how many opportunities to evangelize or help someone in need escaped my notice because I couldn’t be bothered to put aside my own ideas and ambitions? If I can’t be prepared for these intrusions, how will I be prepared for Christ’s triumphant return?

As we approach the new year I am going to recommit myself to “watchful anticipation” and awareness that opportunities are always right around the corner. Hopefully, by practicing this in everyday life, I’ll be ready to give an accounting when Christ returns and asks me how I’ve been spending my time!

My paternal grandfather never talked about his experiences serving in World War II. I do know that he repaired radios in the African theater, and made it into Italy, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. It wasn’t something he reminisced about or gloried in. He even refused any military honors at his funeral a few years ago. For my grandfather, the war was something in his past, and while he was proud of his service, he just as soon it stayed there.

(My maternal grandfather also served in the war, in the Pacific, but he died well before I was born.)

Similarly my grandfather never talked much about his faith, but his actions spoke clearly. We always started meals with a prayer, family reunions usually began with a Mass, and his house sported a number of old-fashioned religious paintings and plaques. Even after my grandmother got sick he would still drive her to Mass every Sunday, pushing her wheelchair into church and holding her hand during the service.

By the time I was born my grandfather was already retired but he still volunteered around his parish doing odd jobs: fixing the AC, clearing fallen tree limbs, cutting the grass. The latter I even helped out with when I was older, and while the parish paid me well for my efforts, I never saw my grandfather take a check for his work. Today the parish shed where we kept the rakes and others tools has a small plaque in it dedicated to his memory.

My grandfather’s faith was a strong influence on the family. His three sons all had strong faith lives, and even today the vast majority of his grandchildren practice the Catholic faith — a pretty remarkable feat when you consider current trends among young adults. I am grateful for the example of simple faith and humble service he gave me, and today I remember him and all the veterns who have safeguarded our freedoms over the years.

May the love we share in the Eucharist, heavenly Father,
flow in rich blessing throughout our land
and by your grace nay we as a nation
place our trust in you
and seek to do your will.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Adapted from the Mass for Independence Day; © 2011 International Committee on English in the Liturgy

Last month my office, in conjunction with our diocesan Office for Worship and the Catechumenate, offered a workshop on the Roman Missal, Third Edition to the faithful of our diocese.

The introductory section, which I presented, was a brief (10 minute) overview of why good liturgical celebration is important to the life of the Church. We recorded the workshop and I offer my section below. You may notice from the context that the audience at this particular workshop was almost exclusively Catholic school teachers and staff.

2011 Roman Missal Regional Workshop – Good Celebration of Liturgy by sullijo

My office also created some catechetical materials designed to be used by students in grades 2-12. They can be downloaded from our diocesan web site.

Fr. Z has an interesting post today on the distinction between ministry and apostolate. Fr. Z. makes the traditional distinction between ministers (read: the ordained) and the lay apostolate (which is lived “in the world”), and warns against over-extending the use of the word “ministry.” All good.

A couple of commenters press the issue: What do we call those of us who work for the Church in parish or diocesan positions? We are not “ministers” under the formal definition of the Church, yet neither are we strictly working in the lay apostolate. What are we? And what is it we do?

Lots of people smarter than me have wrestled with this question, but I’ll add my own answers to theirs.

Personally I’m ambivalent about the title “lay ecclesial minister.” It’s too bulky, too theological, and too contradictory. (If I’m a lay person, how can I be a minister under the Church’s definition?) On the other hand I don’t have a better term to offer, so I continue to use LEM as a shorthand, even while recognizing its deficiencies. (Most of the time I just describe myself as a diocesan staff member.)

At the same time I readily identify my work as “ministry,” in so far as it cooperates with the work of my bishop. My role serves to further the teaching office of the bishop (and, to a lesser extent, his sanctifying and governing office); I am, in a way, a tool of the bishop’s ministry. The same could be said for those who work under a pastor in a parish.

I’d be interested to hear how others describe themselves and their work on behalf of the Church. Do you use the phrase Lay Ecclesial Minister in polite company? Do you think you do ministry?

World Youth Day, I suspect, attracts, inspires and/or meets the spiritual needs of those young people looking for a highly structured, hierarchical, institutionalized approach to spirituality, which is what the official version of the Catholic Church currently offers.

It does not reach the many young people, Catholic and non-Catholic, who define themselves as “spiritual,” but are suspicious of institutional religion, often with good reason. This generation has frequently been praised for their strong service values. Their hearts are in the right place.

The church of John Paul II and Benedict XVI will not reach these young people, no matter how many worldwide rallies they hold. The church of John XXIII and Vatican II, however, is tailor-made for them. It’s too bad the current Catholic Church has been trying its best to sweep that church under a rug.

I wonder if Mr. Trainor has actually talked to any young Catholics lately. From reading this piece I don’t get the sense that he has.

Young Catholics live in a Vatican II Church. It’s what we were raised and formed in; it is all we have known. (I include myself, having been born 13 years after the close of the council.) It would be impossible for us to live out the faith in any other context.

That some of us embrace more “traditional” devotional and liturgical practices is not an indication that we have been hoodwinked by some faceless institution or that we want to roll back the calendar to 1960. Rather, we approach these things with a sense of rediscovery and reappropriation in light of the council. In a very real sense today’s young Catholics are fulfilling Bl. John XIII’s call to the youth to re-imagine and re-articulate the great treasury of our faith in light of the modern world:

The Church looks to you with confidence and with love. Rich with a long past ever living in her, and marching on toward human perfection in time and the ultimate destinies of history and of life, the Church is the real youth of the world.

That Mr. Trainor wants to halt the march in 1962 says more about him, I think, than about young Catholics or the wider Church.

I was especially taken with his discussion of the evangelical counsels, and this passage on chastity in particular:

One of the main goals of chastity is to love as many people as possible as deeply as possible. That may seem strange to those used to defining chastity negatively—that is, as not having sex. But this has long been the tradition of the church. Chastity is another way to love and, as such, has a great deal to teach everyone, not just members of religious orders.

Chastity also frees you to serve people more readily. We’re not attached to one person or to a family, so it’s easier for us to move to another assignment. As the Jesuit Constitutions says, chastity is “essentially apostolic.” It is supposed to help us become better “apostles.” Like all the vows, chastity helps Jesuits to be “available,” as Ignatius would say.

So chastity is about both love and freedom.

As a lay man working in the Church, this resonates deeply with me, even though God did not call me to this kind of love. Instead he called me to love a particular woman and particular children in a way above and beyond anyone else. Of all my earthly concerns they come first. Period. Finite.

And that means having to say no to things that, if I had the freedom to love as a religious, I could say yes to; indeed, there have been times in my catechetical work that I wished I had taken a vow of chastity! Whenever an invitation to speak comes along or the notice of another interesting workshop to attend, part of me wishes I had the freedom to go without thought of my wife and kids. But that would be trying to live a different vocation — indeed, it would be a betrayal of my vows.

So I have a great appreciation for religious chastity and those who practice it, even though I was not called by God to be one of them. They live God’s love in a way I do not, with much more freedom to exercise that love. Without them, love would be diminished in the world. So thank God for chastity!

Like many people my age I made my first Reconciliation in second grade and then didn’t make it back to the confessional for over ten years.

(Of course, come to think of it, my first Reconciliation wasn’t in a confessional. In fact, I don’t think I used a confessional until I was 24 years old!)

When I did make my way back to the sacrament I felt awkward, unsure of myself and, in my normal fashion, probably over-thinking the whole thing. This made me even more reluctant to go. In fact, it wasn’t until I moved to Michigan for a year that I finally resolved to make Reconciliation a regular part of my practice of the faith.

I’ve never liked confessing to priests that I know (which can make things difficult when you work for the Church!) so I turned to the internet for help. I downloaded a good guide to Confession, wrote down the fruits of my examination (my mind usually blanks as soon as I walk in to the confessional), and sat myself in a pew on a Saturday afternoon. When it was my turn I walked inside with my list and guide in hand, knelt down, thanked God for the anonymity of the screen, and started in with the Sign of the Cross.

I wish I could say that it was a grace-filled, holy experience. Truth be told it was a bit of an anticlimax! I launched into the list, read it off without pausing, and sighed with relief as the priest gave me my penance and recited the prayer of absolution over me.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a believer in what the Second Vatican Council calls “full and active participation.” But recently I’ve been wondering if rote participation in the sacraments isn’t sometimes a good thing. Especially for those who have fallen away from the faith, I wonder if we don’t do them a disservice when we lead them to expect that every liturgy, every prayer service, and every interaction with the Church will be a mountaintop experience. Sometimes I can barely get through Mass because I’m so distracted by kids, the lousy sound system, or thinking about what I’ll be doing that afternoon!

Fortunately the sacrament doesn’t depend on how much I do or how I feel. Even when I’m not giving 100% I can be sure that God is giving his all. We need to remind people that it’s OK to be rote sometimes. It doesn’t diminish the grace of the sacrament. Jesus is still really there! We shouldn’t expect perfection of ourselves every time — that path leads to scrupulosity. Rather, we should recognize that, at this particular time, rote participation gets us where we need to be. Better participating in a rote manner than not at all! And eventually, as we get more comfortable and familiar with the prayer or ritual, we can move towards deeper, fuller, more active participation.

Have you  had any experience with intentionally praying or participating int he sacraments in a rote manner? Have you found it helpful in your spiritual journey?

The character whose attitude to death least resembled Jesus’ attitude is Dumbledore. So here is the problem. Knowing what we know about Dumbledore’s manliness regarding death, and his turning his nose down at Voldemort’s running away from death, we can only conclude that if Dumbledore had been in the garden that night of Jesus’ agony, he would have mocked and belittled Jesus the same way he did Voldemort. He would have shook his head in disgust at the sight of Jesus laying there on the ground weeping at the approach of death. “Dont’ you know”, he might of said, “that to the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure”?

Personally this seems like an idiosyncratic reading of the series — and reading a bit too much into a few lines. I read the series very differently: Voldemort’s fear of death has never struck me a natural, human type of fear, but an unhealthy obsession due to his belief that there is nothing else after death. Voldemort believes that this life is all we have and so resorts to grotesque measures to control death and unnaturally prolong his life. Dumbledore recognizes, however, that death has lost its sting — death is not an end, but a transition. This isn’t necessarily flippant — he is certainly serious about the deaths of Cedric and Sirius.

I think we also need to remember that Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is facing not just death but hours of torture and humiliation beforehand. I don’t think Jesus is fearing simple death there, but the whole Passion as it will unfold.

While Dumbledore’s lack of fear regarding death may not resemble Jesus’, it certainly resembles some of the saints, such as St. Francis who welcomed Sister Death at the end of his life, and even St. Lawrence who famously told his executioners, while being roasted on a grill: “Turn me over; I’m done on this side.”

Have I misread the series? Any other Potter fans have a different take?

It’s an honest question, and one I don’t mind answering, but it definitely belies a certain attitude that if you’re male and interested in “churchy” stuff, then you must be called to the priesthood.

The truth is that I’ve never felt called to the ministerial priesthood. I thought about it when I was very little, in the same way I thought it would be cool to be an astronaut or doctor, but at no point did I ever feel the tug on my heart. Similarly, I was never told by anyone that I would make a good priest – except for one priest, right after I had asked him to celebrate my wedding Mass. (I don’t feel slighted in this; I don’t think I would make a good priest!)

At the same time there have been times during my theological studies when I asked myself if I shouldn’t have been more interested in the priesthood. Knowing that the Church is in need of priests, should I have at least “tried it on” by going to a seminary? With the need so great, wouldn’t the Church have been better off with me as a “bad priest” than as a “good lay man?”

The answer, of course, is no. I am quite certain that God has put me where he needs me to be right now.

And it’s not as if my life won’t contribute to the priesthood. My wife and I get comments on a regular basis that our two oldest boys would make good priests. And a month or so ago my wife and I found out that our fifth child, due in September, will be our fourth boy. We were disappointed at first – we had been hoping for another little girl – but I’m beginning to wonder if this, too, isn’t part of God’s plan for me and priesthood.

Maybe I’m not being called to the priesthood, but it sure seems as if I’m being called to raise sons for the priesthood.

The new translation of the Roman Missal we will be using this fall is not a better translation than the old translation.

Now before you head to the combox,  let me explain.

I get very uneasy when I hear people say that the new translation will be “better” than the old. This implies that a) what we have been saying is somehow wrong or deficient, and b) that what we will be saying this fall is what we should have been doing all along.

But I think this is comparing apples to oranges. You can’t really compare the two because the rules for translation changed. If the rules had been the same, then we might be able to claim that one is better based on a shared criteria. But the old translation was a “good” translation in so far as it followed the rules of dynamic equilelency in force at the time; the new translation is a “good” translation in so far as it follows the rules of formal equilelency that are now in place.

Now we can debate which set of rules is “better”; but we can’t fault the old translation for following the rules the Church had in place at the time.