Living the Liturgy

It’s a picture I will never forget.  So many times when I went to Grandma’s house, I would find her sitting in the kitchen near the window with prayer-book in hand.   She prayed often and always near that window.  It’s as if she had one eye on the ways of God and one eye on the ways of the world.  Grandma was a faithful Catholic who knew that her devotion to God and her existence in the secular world were as interwoven as her homemade spaghetti and sauce.  She knew that her faith called her to action and that her action motivated deeper faith.

Each time we gather for Eucharist, we too celebrate our devotion to God and our living in the secular world.   We come to Mass from our secular homes, jobs and communities.  We bring our worldly cares and desires and offer all of it at the table of the Lord.  We too are called to action by the word of God and the sacrament of the Eucharist.  In the liturgy, we are filled and fueled for mission, for living Christ-like lives in our homes, jobs and communities.    Two of the dismissals in the New Roman Missal summarize this call to mission:  “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” and “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord with your life.”

These new words seem to capture Grandma’s wisdom, along with the wisdom of our Jewish ancestors in faith who said:  “Never pray in a room without windows.”  Never pray without one eye looking out on the world.  Never pray to escape the world.  Only pray for the grace and the courage to take it in.

AMEN.

Memory and Hope

The Amen Corner – Connecting Liturgy and Life

by Kathy Kuczka

I recently had the opportunity to attend my high school reunion.  What a wonderful occasion to walk down memory lane!   Our memories were percolating as we recalled the relationships and events that marked those glorious and tumultuous teenage years!   Our coming together helped us reconnect to our roots.   Even our gathering over dinner gave us the chance to remember the times when sharing a meal brought us together, binding our friendships:  cafeteria conversations, post-game pizza parties, sports and band banquets.  Our greeting, our meeting and our eating filled us with laughter and joy.    Our remembering   made us grateful for our school, our experiences and each other.    Though we are scattered all around the world now with different lives and relationships, our reuniting helped us remember that we still share many things in common and that we are still one with each other.

Each time we gather for Eucharist, a similar reunion takes place.  We come together to share a meal.   Our Eucharistic prayer, which forms the heart of our liturgy, helps us to remember our roots as the people of God:

“From age to age, you gather a people to yourself.”

It reminds us of the great deeds God has done for us in Christ:

“Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven.”

Remembering God’s act of love, we have no choice but to give thanks:

“We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you”

And, it helps us to remember that despite our differences, our destiny is to become one for the sake of the world:

“Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ… …Lord may this sacrifice which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the world.”

Many words in our Eucharistic Prayers will be changing in the New Roman Missal, but the meaning will remain the same.  Let us pray that our remembering will unite us in thanksgiving and hope for the sake of the world.  AMEN.

This I Believe

This I Believe is a program that invites people to write essays about the core beliefs which guide their daily lives.   The essays are often heard on National Public Radio.  The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.  Murrow created the series at a time when America was divided and worried about the Cold War, McCarthyism and racial tensions.  He hoped that hearing the core beliefs of others would help Americans come together by finding common ground in spite of their divisions.

This is the spirit in which we profess our faith, or Creed.  We come from many diverse backgrounds, cultures and beliefs.  Yet, we find commonality in the beliefs we profess in the Creed.  The word creed comes from the Latin word credo, meaning “I believe.”  Credo is a derivative from the Latin cor dare, meaning to give one’s heart.  So when we profess the Creed, we are uttering the beliefs to which we give our hearts.   You will notice some changes in the Creed as a result of the new translation of the New Roman Missal.  The first words will be “I believe” and not “We believe.”  This reflects the Latin original as noted above.  It also reflects the original creeds professed by the ancient Church.  The first creeds came in the form of a question-and-answer dialogue with those about to be baptized.   We still use this type of dialogue with those about to be baptized, as well as with the entire community on Easter Sunday.    A big change in the Creed will be the word “consubstantial,” which replaces “one in being.”   Consubstantial is a closer translation of the Latin original and means that Christ shares the divinity of God.   The Nicene Creed, which we profess each Sunday, is a combination of the creeds which originated at the Council of Nicaea (325) and the Council of Constantinople (381).  We now also have the opportunity to profess the simpler Apostles’ Creed, formerly reserved for Masses with children.   Let us pray that whatever Creed we use and whatever new words we use, we will become a people united in faith, hope and love, for the life of the world.  AMEN.

Glory and Praise

“I love you.” “I love you to the moon and back.”  “Love ya.”   There are so many ways to say “I love you.”  Perhaps that’s because loving another human being is so powerful, having only one phrase to express our emotions just won’t do!   When we truly love, we are so filled with happiness, so filled with life, we often have no choice but to spill out awe, wonder, praise and gratitude on everyone around us!

This sense of praise is captured in the Gloria which we sing at the beginning of our liturgy.   The Gloria is a song of praise to God.   This is why we sing it more often than we recite it.   The words of the Gloria are being changed in the New Roman Missal to reflect the original Latin.   The revised Gloria gives us more ways to say “I love you” to God:  “We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you.”  The first line of the Gloria is also being changed to “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to people of good will.”  This line comes from the scriptural account of the birth of Jesus:

“Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in high heaven, peace on earth to those on whom his favor rests.’”  Luke 2:14

The angels’ burst of praise to the shepherds is now echoed by the human voice of the assembly of believers each time we sing the Gloria.  May we sing this hymn with the awe, the wonder, the vitality and the gratitude of people who are in love, in love with the God who first loved us into being.  May our praise resound far beyond the walls of our church each Sunday, spilling out even into the world.  Amen.

Lost and Found

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to spend two summers in Austria with the American Institute of Musical Studies.   I was in Graz, Austria’s second-largest city in the country’s southeast corner.   What a glorious experience, except for that one day.   A friend and I were riding across town to a laundromat.   When we got off the bus, I noticed that something was missing—my purse!    Panic doesn’t come close to what I felt.  My purse had everything in it, including my passport.  I left my laundry with my friend and hopped on the next bus, trying to explain my crisis with my limited German.   A kind man who understood more English than I understood German took me to the city’s center for transportation.  There they looked at me with sympathetic eyes, explaining that there was little to no chance I would get my purse back.  But, they encouraged me to check again later.   After a couple hours (and a hundred prayers to St. Anthony),  I went back.  This time, their eyes were brighter.  They reached into a lost and found cabinet and out came my purse.  I looked inside and everything—EVERYTHING was just as I had it.  No words can capture the humble gratitude I felt. 

Humility and gratitude are the fundamental elements of our liturgical prayer.  This is why we begin our liturgy with the Penitential Act.   We humbly acknowledge that we often lose our way, and recognize that God is always there, waiting to ‘find’ us.  Our only response is sheer gratitude.   Some of the prayers we pray during our Penitential Act will be changing in the New Roman Missal.  The Confiteor, for example, the prayer that begins “I confess to almighty God” has been changed to reflect a more accurate translation of the original Latin.   Let us pray that these new words lead to a deeper awareness of God’s mercy, on whom our every breath depends.  AMEN.