Thanksgiving

We are a people blessed with abundance.  Most of us have sufficient food, plentiful clothes, and warm and safe homes. It is all too easy to take all of the blessings we enjoy for granted.  Thanksgiving bids us pause to stop and take stock of our abundance and to give thanks to the Creator from whom all blessings flow.

In his encyclical, Laudato Si’, Pope Francis urges us to adopt an attitude of attentiveness, an attitude of mindful presence that takes nothing for granted.  One way to maintain this attitude, says the Pope, is to pray both before AND after we eat, not just on Thanksgiving Day, but at each meal:

“One expression of this attitude is when we stop and give thanks to God before and after meals.  I ask all believers to return to this beautiful and meaningful custom.  That moment of blessing, however brief, reminds us of our dependence on God for life; it strengthens our feeling of gratitude for the gifts of creation; it acknowledges those who by their labors provide us with these goods; and it reaffirms our solidarity with those in greatest need.” Ladauto Si’ #227.

Here is a prayer that can be used before and after any meal, any day of the year.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation

       through your goodness we enjoy the fruits of the earth

             and we are grateful,

               for bread broken amidst family and friends,

               for food that nourishes and sustains,

               for drink that quenches our thirst,

            May we be ever mindful of what we often take for granted ,

                your bounty that transcends our scarcity,

                your self-giving that outshines our selfishness,

                your faithfulness that trumps our fear.

            We are witnesses to your grace and mercy. 

            In tales told and lives lived, may we be ever willing and ready to share your blessings with others

            as generously as you have shared yourself with us,

                lavishly,

                lovingly,

                unconditionally.

            AMEN

Happy Thanksgiving!

How Many Verses???

When rehearsing songs for a liturgy, it is not uncommon for musicians to ask, “How many verses are we doing?” The short answer is, “It depends.” Longer answers to this question are given in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.  Here are several examples:

Music during the gathering:

When the people are gathered, and as the Priest enters with the Deacon and ministers, the Entrance Chant begins. Its purpose is to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, introduce their thoughts to the mystery of the liturgical time or festivity, and accompany the procession of the Priest and ministers. GIRM#47

Music during the procession with and preparation of the bread and wine:

The procession bringing the gifts is accompanied by the Offertory Chant which continues at least until the gifts have been placed on the altar. Singing may always accompany the rite at the Offertory, even when there is no procession with the gifts. GIRM#74

Music during communion:

While the Priest is receiving the Sacrament, the Communion Chant is begun, its purpose being to express the spiritual union of the communicants by means of the unity of their voices, to show gladness of heart, and to bring out more clearly the “communitarian” character of the procession to receive the Eucharist. The singing is prolonged for as long as the Sacrament is being administered to the faithful. GIRM#86

As we can see, singing during the liturgy serves several purposes: to accompany the ritual actions taking place, to unite the members of the assembly and to help them to pray.  So the length of a song will depend on the length of a particular procession.  The number of verses sung will depend on how many verses it takes to adequately gather the praying community. In this way, music serves the liturgy, not the other way around.  The liturgical action is primary.  Music sustains the flow of the prayers and the rituals of the liturgy.  Done well, this creates a liturgy that is a seamless garment of praise.

Funeral Planning

November is the month when we the Church remember and honor our dead.  One of the Church’s Corporal Works of Mercy is to bury the dead.  At some point in our lives, we will be involved in planning a funeral liturgy either for a loved one or perhaps for ourselves. The Funeral Rites offer ritual prayers that encourage the Body of Christ to be present and to accompany the dead as they transition from this world. There are rites for use After Death, in the Presence of the Body, during the Transfer of the Body to the Church, the funeral Vigil, Morning and Evening Prayer for the Dead, the Funeral Liturgy, and the Rite of Committal.  These rites are also designed to comfort the family and friends from the time of the death of their loved one to the burial. The familiar rituals of the liturgies help to create order at a time when life is in disorder.

Taking the time to plan a well-designed funeral liturgy is of utmost importance. The readings, songs, prayers, and rites that are chosen should not only reflect the life of the deceased, but should also be an expression of our Christian hope in eternal life. 

Because the Church honors the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Church prefers that the body, rather than the cremains, be present for the funeral liturgy. It is the body that we have known and loved so having the body present can also bring a sense of closure that can aid the grief process more so than the presence of the cremains.

The primary symbols of the funeral liturgy echo the symbols of the baptismal liturgy.  These symbols, the Paschal Candle, the sprinkling with holy water, the placing of the pall, and the procession into the church remind us that the foundation of our faith began at baptism. But the most powerful symbol is the human community journeying with the deceased thereby practicing a work of mercy by assuring the family of God’s eternal presence.

All Saints

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints. Keeping memory of holy men and women is a tradition that began early on in the life of the Church. In the first centuries, during the persecution of Christians, those who died for their faith were venerated because of their witness to Christ.  Early Christians honored these martyrs not on the day of their birth, but on the day of their death because that day was believed to be their true birth into eternal life.  Local communities celebrated Eucharist at the tombs, praying both for and to the dead as martyrs were believed to possess great intercessory power. 

The age of martyrdom ended when Christianity became an official religion, but the cult of saints continued.  Persons who were venerated as saints soon included Confessors, those who were persecuted for their faith but not killed, ascetics, virgins, and bishops.  Eventually, that list was expanded to include priests, those in religious life, and laypersons. All of the saints had one thing in common:  their witness to Christ.  They embodied the dying and rising of Jesus by the way they lived.  They allowed the grace of God to triumph in their lives, and were models of Christian living.

Throughout the year, like the early Christians did, we remember individual saints by honoring them on the day of their death. But on this day, the Solemnity of All Saints, we pray in union with the communion of saints, all men and women, living and dead, on earth and in heaven.  This day tells us that God’s grace is embodied and witnessed through many varied personalities and different walks of life.  All Saints reminds us that we are already counted among the blessed, that we too are called to holiness, to model God’s extraordinary grace by the way we live our everyday, ordinary lives.

Nostra Aetate

As a Catholic, I am fortunate to have a group of close friends who happen to be Jewish.  I’ve known Robert for more than 20 years.  The friendships I now share with Cathy, Patricia and Diane started when they welcomed me to sit in on their weekend Mah-Jongg game.  While I feel socially connected to them, I can’t help feeling a spiritual bond.  Perhaps that’s because that’s because our Catholic liturgy has its origins in Judaism.

The story of Passover, as told in the book of Exodus, is in many ways the foundation of our liturgy. Passover celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  The story speaks of the covenant relationship between God and God’s people and God’s unfathomable faithfulness.  We believe this covenant is renewed and fulfilled in Jesus Christ and we express this renewed covenant in our liturgy by using elements from the Seder, a Jewish ritual feast held to commemorate the Passover.  The prayers of blessing that are said during the Seder form the basis of our Eucharistic Prayers. The food and drink consumed during the Seder, unleavened bread and wine, are the primary food and drink of our Eucharistic meal. 

The covenant relationship that began between God and the Israelites, and was renewed in Jesus is a model for all human relationships.  But the Church has not always shared a good relationship with non-Christian religions, specifically with the Jewish people.  For one thing, the Church had long held that the Jews were responsible for the crucifixion.  This was partly due to the negative connotations in the New Testament, in particular the gospel of John, which describes “the Jews” as the enemies of Jesus.   This is one reason Pope John XXIII placed the Church’s relationship with the Jews on the agenda of the Second Vatican Council.   He wanted the Council to discuss and to respond to the anti-Semitism which led to the Holocaust.  The Council ultimately approved a compromise statement in a document called Nostra Aetate.  In that document, the Council stated that the Jewish people as a whole did not bear responsibility for the death of Jesus and it decried any forms of anti-Semitism.  The document was a new starting point in the Church’s relationship with the Jews.   On Wednesday, October 28, exactly 50 years to the day Nostra Aetate was promulgated, Archbishop Gregory and Rabbi James Rudin will celebrate the anniversary of the declaration at the Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech, beginning with a reception at 6:00pm.  Nostra Aetate means “In our Time.”  Let us pray that renewed relationships with all people will happen in our time.