Keeping Advent
Every year it seems that the cultural observance of Christmas starts a little bit earlier. Stores are constantly seeking to lengthen the time they have to sell holiday items; this year I even saw some stores with Christmas decorations in stock before Halloween! While this is understandable from a commercial point of view, it clashes with the Church’s observance and understanding of Advent — that time of both preparation for Christmas and anticipation for the Second Coming of Christ. How can we keep Advent in a culture that has forgotten this important liturgical season? Put up an...
Read MoreExperimenting with Prayer – Media Divina
I spent the last two days conducting a retreat/workshop on social media for the principals of the Diocese of Belleville. For the opening prayer on Wednesday I decided to experiment with a variation of lectio divina that used the parable of the sower and the seed (Matthew 13:3-23) across various media. I began with reading the parable from Sacred Scripture, asking the participants to listen for a word or phrase that spoke to them. We meditated for a few minutes, then went around the room and shared our word or phrase. Next I showed this video version of the parable: I asked the...
Read MoreOpening Prayer for Peace
This morning I am leading an opening prayer for a meeting. I had prepared a perfectly serviceable Liturgy of the Word for the Feast of St. Athanasius. However, given last night’s news on the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. military forces, I decided to go in a different direction. Without getting into politics, praying for our enemies and for peace is one of Christ’s commands to us. In that spirit I have prepared a brief Liturgy of the Word for Peace. Feel free to copy and use...
Read MoreSetting the Context for the Roman Missal, third edition
At our January 20 meeting of DREs in the diocese, our director of worship and the catechumenate, Eliot Kapitan, delivered a great presentation addressing four common questions about the new translation of the Mass. Because of bad weather, many DREs couldn’t attend so we recorded the...
Read MoreYou/Who/Do/Through
[Welcome to new readers directed here from Joe Paprocki's Catechist's Journey blog -- and thanks to Joe for the shout-out! You can subscribe to my blog by clicking on the RSS link at the top of the page or following me @sullijo on Twitter. You might also be interested in a free webinar I will be giving November 17: Reaching Parishioners with Facebook.] Tuesday’s webinar on Leading Prayer as a Catechist by Joe Paprocki (catechist extraordinaire and brother to my boss) was excellent. I was especially impressed with the section on extemporaneous (or spontaneous) prayer — something...
Read MoreAging, Prayer, and the Divine Office
It’s been a while since I took “Spirituality and Human Development,” but one of the themes I recall from the class is that our spirituality and prayer life change as we age. The accumulation of experience allows us to gain new insights into the divine and opens us to new ways of communicating with God; this, of course, has an affect on our relationship to God. This has hit home for me a few times in my life. A year after completing my graduate studies I found myself engaging in new types of prayer — particularly an increased use of the Rosary and a greater sense of...
Read MoreOn the Feast of St. Patrick
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Patrick. In our secular culture, St. Patrick (and his feast day) is remembered simply for his connection to shamrocks, leprechauns and green beer. In fact, St. Patrick was a native of Britain. While still a teen Patrick was captured and taken to Ireland; he spent six years there as a slave. After escaping and returning home, Patrick had a vision. As he later wrote: I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: “The Voice of the Irish.” As I began...
Read MoreThe Roman Missal: Re-Focusing Our Attention
I am reluctant to enter into discussion of liturgical theology and practice. It is not the field in which I work and I have little education on the subject. That having been said, my diocese, like many others, is preparing for the Vatican’s recognitio of the translation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal. While we may not know when the final approval will come (most people seem to suspect it will be sometime this spring, with mandatory implementation at Advent 2011) we will need to prepare for its use in our parishes. This means a concerted catechetical program for all: priests,...
Read MoreMarch for Life Prayer for Pilgrims
This morning, across the nation, many people will be setting out for Washington, D.C., to participate in Thursday’s March for Life. Please keep these pilgrims in your prayers: Our Lady of Guadalupe, we turn to you who are the protectress of unborn children and ask that you intercede for us, so that we may more firmly resolve to join you in protecting all human life. Let our prayers be united to your perpetual motherly intercession on behalf of those whose lives are threatened, be they in the womb of their mother, on the bed of infirmity, or in the latter years of their life. May our...
Read MoreMary's place in the Creed
A Protestant clergyman was visiting an orphanage, and the children were each reciting their prayers for him to hear. On little boy, who had previously been at a Catholic school, after finishing the Our Father began the Hail Mary. ‘No, no!’ said the clergyman. ‘We don’t want to hear about her — go on to the Creed.’ The little boy did so, but stopped suddenly when he came to ‘born of the…’ and said: ‘Here she comes again — what shall I do now, sir?’ Indeed we cannot have Jesus without Mary. - Rev. F.H. Drinkwater, Catechism
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