The Question of the Week

I am the proud owner of a new stove! I couldn’t count on my old stove to heat anything, much less cook.  Not being able to cook offered a good excuse to eat out more, often chowing down fast food.  But my new stove has inspired me to cook more, which means spending more time at home preparing, cooking, eating and digesting food.  As a result, I feel more rooted and grounded, more connected to myself and to the world around me.  And as I have discovered, food tastes much better.

The Church asks us to approach the Word of God in a similar way—as food that needs to be prepared well, chewed in small bites and slowly digested.  One of the ways we can do that is by discussing the scriptures we hear on Sundays.  This is one reason our parish offers a question of the week that is based on the gospel proclaimed on Sunday.

The question of the week comes from the parish staff who gathers, proclaims the gospel for an upcoming Sunday, shares the way the Gospel impacts their lives, and then creates a question meant to foster further discussion.  The staff goes to great lengths to come up with a question that can be discussed by people of all ages.  Along with being discussed in our faith formation classes, the question is posted in the bulletin, on the website, on the electronic bulletin boards, and announced at the end of each Mass.  This question can be utilized in many ways.  Families can discuss it on their way home from church, or at a family meal.  Parish ministries and groups are encouraged to discuss the question at the beginning of their meetings during the week, and so on.  In this way, the entire parish is discussing the gospel together.

The question of the week is meant to deepen our faith.  Discussing the scripture can help us to feel more rooted, more grounded, and more connected to God, to one another and to ourselves. 

The word for word in Hebrew is dabar, which also means talk and act.  The Word of God is meant not just to be heard, but to be talked about and acted upon. The question of the week can lead us to action, as this week’s question testifies:

As a disciple of Jesus, where am I being sent to serve, heal and free?  

Altar, Ambo and Cathedra

Recently we celebrated the anniversary of the Dedication of our Archdiocesan Cathedral, Christ the King.  The word cathedral comes from the Latin word cathedra which means chair.  In each diocese or archdiocese, the cathedral is the church which contains the chair of the Bishop.  

Similarly, at St. Thomas Aquinas and in each local parish, the chair of the priest-presider is considered "a symbol of his office of presiding over the assembly and of directing prayer." (Ceremonial of Bishops)   The priest’s chair is one of three key ritual furnishings which are designed for the sanctuary.  The other two are the ambo and the altar.

The ambo is the place where the word of God is proclaimed during the liturgy.  It is intended to reflect the dignity and nobility of God’s word.  “Here the Christian community encounters the Living Lord in the word of God and prepares itself for the ‘breaking of the bread’ and the mission to live the word that will be proclaimed.” (Built of Living Stones)

Because the altar is the table on which the ritual meal, which makes Christ present, is prepared and offered, it is considered the centerpiece of the sanctuary and of the celebration of the Mass.  The Church requires the altar to “be so placed as to be truly the center toward which the attention of the whole congregation naturally turns.” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal)

The Introduction to the Lectionary recommends that the design of the ambo and altar bear an "harmonious and close relationship" to one another in order to emphasize the close relationship between word and eucharist.  “The Church is nourished spiritually at the table of God’s word and at the table of the eucharist:  from the one it grows in wisdom and from the other in holiness.”  From the ambo the covenant between God and God’s people is announced.  From the altar the covenant is renewed and ratified.  Both are considered tables from which we are fed.

The Feast of Thomas Aquinas

This Wednesday, January 28, we celebrate the feast of our parish patron, Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas was born in Roccasecca, Italy in 1224.  His parents were aristocrats who had big plans for their son.  They expected Thomas to become the Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery, Monte Cassino.  But Thomas had more simple aspirations—resolving to join the Order of Dominican Friars instead.  Hoping he would change his mind, his parents imprisoned him for a year.  But Thomas persisted, eventually becoming a Dominican in 1244.

At that time, the Dominicans, more commonly known as the Order of Preachers, had only been in existence for a little more than 25 years.  Their mission then, as it is today, was and is to study, to teach and to preach the Word of God.

 

Thomas became a highly sought-after writer, preacher and teacher, working in universities in France and Italy.  He was offered the position of Archbishop of Naples, but he turned it down, choosing to remain committed to the mendicant simplicity of the Dominicans.

Thomas wrote an enormous body of literature, but at the end of his life, he compared everything that he had written to straw.  One day after praying at the Dominican convent in Naples, the Lord was believed to have spoken to Thomas saying, “You have written well of me Thomas!  What do you desire?”  To which, Thomas replied, “Only you, Lord Jesus.”  Thomas knew that only in Jesus would he find true joy.

Throughout his life, Thomas chose to follow his heart, rather than his ego.  He chose to focus on the will of God rather than other person’s ideas of who he should be or what he should become.  Over and over, he chose simplicity and humility over pride and self-importance.

The work of Thomas Aquinas continues to influence our thinking and our faith.  He is considered the Church’s greatest theologian and philosopher.

Ordinary Time

This Sunday marks a return to the Sundays of Ordinary time.  The word ordinary in this sense doesn’t mean common, mundane, or humdrum.  Rather, ordinary comes from the word ordinal as in ordinal numbers.  Ordinary Time is simply the way the Church counts the weeks in between the other liturgical seasons such as Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.  From the beginning, Sunday has been a day meant to be extraordinary, as we hear in the book of Deuteronomy:

Observe the sabbath day—keep it holy, as the LORD, your God, commanded you.  Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or donkey or any work animal, or the resident alien within your gates, so that your male and female slave may rest as you do. Remember that you too were once slaves in the land of Egypt, and the LORD, your God, brought you out from there with a strong hand and outstretched arm. That is why the LORD, your God, has commanded you to observe the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

The Church calls Sunday the first holy day of all, because the first time Christians began to gather on a regular basis happened on Sunday.  We are encouraged to keep the day by setting aside weekly routines and giving ourselves permission to relax, be still and partake in only those things which refresh our spirits.  Our work, after all, will never be complete.  As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Labor is a craft, but perfect rest is an art—the Sabbath teaches all beings whom to praise.”

Small Faith Communities

Whew!  That describes the feeling I have when I consider the Christmas season that is about to end.  I contemplate the number of people who entered our church on Christmas Eve—two-thousand alone for the 4:00 Mass and I contemplate if this is the megachurch that Jesus envisioned.  He did, after all, choose an intimate number of friends to begin with.  So how in the world do we recreate the intimacy Jesus shared with the first disciples in a parish of our size?

Small Christian Communities or small faith groups, as we call them, are one way to do this.  These groups are made up of a small number of parishioners who get together frequently to ponder the Scripture, to share their faith and to live it out together, often in service to others.

As the members of my small faith group testify:

My small faith group has made a large church seem more personal. They have helped me to grow in my faith through the telling of their stories and by allowing me to tell mine.  

Since I don't have a family in Georgia, they are my family.

I know I can count on my small faith group for all kinds of support.

My small faith group helps me to prepare for the following Sunday’s liturgy and helps me to realize the importance of prayer.

I love my small faith group because it has allowed me to have a safe place where there is no condemnation or judgment of anything I share...only love and encouragement.   It is also a place where I have learned that God is ever present in all circumstances. 

Our small faith group provides an avenue for fraternity amongst a diverse gathering of people and provides an opportunity to share our good fortune through Christ's charity with our fellow human beings.

I love the way that our small faith group comes together to serve others.

We will hear more about these groups during today’s mass as we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord.  Small faith groups help us to recall the mission of our own baptism--to love and serve others—making Christmas last all year long!