Your Pastor,
Fr. Steve Geer's Messages
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On the Boiling of Frogs
It is said that if you place a frog in a pot of boiling water that he will, quite understandably, immediately jump out; no surprise there. On the other hand, if you place that same frog in a pot of tepid water and slowly turn up the heat, it is said that he will continue to remain in the pot even after it reaches the boiling point; thus boiling to death. This sounds like an old wives tale to me and I doubt that any self-respecting frog would be so inattentive as to allow himself to die in this manner. I have no doubt, however, that this same thing cannot be said to be true of human beings.
Creeping into our practice of faith, several anomalies have arisen in recent decades that are eroding our relationship with God. Their slow appearance and their subtle nature are somewhat like the phenomenon of slowly turning up the heat on a frog in tepid water: by the time we see the effects of such distortions, it’s too late, for we are dead in our sins and blind to the truth. The first of these is what can be called an attitude of religious consumerism. Have we degraded to the point where the Church is simply seen as a purveyor of religious services? Does God exist to serve our needs or do we exist to worship him and to serve his creation as his disciples? Is our appearance in Church an expression of our faith and hope or simply our desire to achieve a religious high or, worse yet, to be entertained? This attitude of consumerism, already so rampant in our society, can easily lead to our reaching the point where our faith is merely skin deep; where we pay lip service to the truths of our religion, but they fail to penetrate deeply into our hearts.
This ritualism has been called irreligion or better still, ‘spiritual tourism.’ A tourist doesn’t get intimately involved with the places or people he visits, he stays on the outside and then returns to his home and to his daily, normal routine. Similarly, a spiritual tourist stays on the outside and is lukewarm in his faith and consequently suffers a lack of relationship with Jesus Christ, his savior. Without this relationship, there can be no faith and certainly no charity. These perversions of Christian faith result in a mutation of true religion under the increasingly dominant values of tolerance and self-fulfillment. Tolerance leads to a state of the ready and quick acceptance of religious diversity (not as an external fact, but as an internal state). In the practice of the faith, such a value leads to what Pope Benedict XVI has called “the dictatorship of moral relativism.” In this state, we hold onto only those beliefs which “work” for us, and jettison all others as superfluous. When applied to the truths of the moral order, this sifting through values leads us to simply embrace those that ‘feel good’ and that affirm us more strongly in our current moral state. Obviously the self-transformation and sacrifice asked of the believer by Christ becomes nothing more than a form of self-fulfillment and aggrandizement.
The manner in which we receive the Eucharist often reflects the degree to which our souls have already been compromised by these wiles of the enemy. Do we dress with respect, or do we simply show up to Mass looking like we just rolled out of bed? Do we approach the minister with awe for what we are about to receive, or do we shuffle forward like mental patients on thorazine? Do we consider the reception of the Eucharist our ‘right’, due to us even if we hold positions out of communion with the Church or engage in dissident or gravely sinful practices (cf. abortion, contraception, divorce and remarriage outside of the Church, missing Sunday Mass or Holy days, etc.)? Or do we see our reception of the Body and Blood of Christ as an honor and a gift that we are not worthy to receive, but nonetheless do so in faith? Are we ‘maturing Christians’ or stagnant ones? In short, are we alive in our faith or are we slowly, but relentlessly, boiling to death?
I ask these probing questions this week because in the past 8 days 34 young people have either received their first Holy Communion or have received the Sacrament of Confirmation here at St. Therese. They all seemed very excited and dedicated to the demands of the Christian life they were entering into with greater depth and commitment. My hope is that they will continue to grow into the graces they have just received. Whether they do or not, however, is in large part going to depend on the religious disposition of their parents. If their parents are lukewarm, then the odds are that their children will soon be as well. Parents who approach the faith as merely another option or as a consumer, have effectively placed their children in the same tepid pot of water in which they reside and turned up the heat!
During Lent, I was struck by how many children confided to me how much they would like their parents to attend Mass weekly and seriously. They wanted to grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus Christ, but it was their parents that were dragging them back. I hope those of you to whom this plea applies are not already too boiled in the water of your spiritual malaise to hear your children. They need you to hop out of the boiling cauldron of indifference and rededicate yourselves to the practice of religion. It is not possible to be a “spiritual person” without religious practice and any belief to the contrary is a self-serving deception. As adults, long steeped in the water of acedia (spiritual sloth), you might not fully comprehend just how serious your state of soul currently is. My prayer and hope is that the vitality and energy and hope of your children can help refocus your energy and reorient your priorities so that you can be the spiritual guides your children so desperately need at this time of their development. After all, this is what it really means to be a mother or father worthy of the name, and deserving of praise and honor on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in the months to come.
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Vitality and Dissipation
On Friday April 27, 2012, the Oregonian newspaper printed an article in its Living section about 14 year old Julien Leitner’s founding of a charity called the Archimedes Alliance whose existence is based on the principle that small acts of kindness from multiple people can make a big impact. He is asking for donations of only $2 per person and to date the charity has collected just over $13,000 towards its goal of $2 million.
When I read the article, I was struck with two distinct reactions. The first was a skepticism that this kid had any idea of just what he was getting into and whether he really believed that the Earth could be moved by paltry acts of monetary kindness. How very adult of me (and how very like a retired CPA!) Then I starting looking at his picture which fronted the article. Here was this gawky looking cute kid with a grin that radiated both vitality and hope. Here was someone willing to do something to help others out. He may (or may not) be naïve; but, by God, he wasn’t sitting on the sidelines griping and doing nothing. And here I was internally chopping him to pieces because he wasn’t acting like a worldly adult! Maybe what we need is a lot more adults who stop acting likely worldly adults, if the truth be told.
Fourteen is a tough age; just ask any of our 8th graders (or remember back!) Yet it is also an age of vitality and adventure, where almost anything still seems possible; a time where for many their souls have not yet been beat down by the labor and vicissitudes of their lives. If just 25% of our school parents and parishioners had a fraction of Julien’s energy and drive, I would be forced to add two more Masses and call for an associate pastor to help out. Alas, there is still plenty of seating available. What is our problem? Why are so many of us tired and worn out? What happens between 14 and 34? Or 44? Or 54?
As Christians, we have access to the energy of the Holy Spirit; a source far more effective than any mythical ‘fountain of youth’ could ever be. Why aren’t we zealous? Why aren’t we fired up about our faith? Is our faith even still alive, or are we just going through the motions? Why do a high percentage of school parents attend less than 75% of weekly Masses? Why do many leave our parish when their kids move on to high school? Why is the altar society struggling to attract new members? Why does the school always have room for more kids even though it has one of the lowest tuition rates in the Archdiocese and serves the entire eastside and Gresham? Why aren’t we flying out of the Church after Mass filled with the same vitality and desire to serve others that Julien so obviously demonstrates?
The answer to me is not just some simplistic distinction between youth and age or hormones or their absence. It’s a far more fundamental problem than biology. The problem is that our lukewarm and convenient faith is inadequate to accomplish the personal spiritual integration of the soul that is an absolute prerequisite to focused, adult drive. As disciples, we should want to reinvigorate our parish community and school with MORE drive and ambition than a new lawyer wants to become a partner or a new doctor wants to establish his own practice.
The fact that so many of us don’t have this drive, zeal and energy is patently evident from the manner in which our parish and school both limp along – neither dying nor flourishing, just surviving. The survival game is a lost cause, for in the end it is a game we will all lose, big time. Dissipation of the soul, with its attendant loss of energy, occurs when you and I pursue multiple end goals in life. Christianity is meant to unify our efforts to the pursuit of one end only: the worship and service of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Each of us seeks to do this within the context of the vocation to which God has called us.
For example, for you parents there can be nothing more important than raising your children in the faith. Attendance at Mass and religious education is of greater long-term importance than attendance at classes whose sole aim is secular advancement or preparation for participation in the national or global economy. Even worse, I am astounded when children miss Mass with their parents because of recreational and/or sports activities! What kind of message is sent as to the relative importance of a faith commitment when Mass is brushed aside for a tournament or even just a practice? Some of you might want to watch the film Chariots of Fire, which concerns a young Christian Olympian who forfeits his chance at Olympic gold since one of his best events falls on a Sunday; a day of Christian Sabbath rest he will not violate for mere Olympic competition. Why don’t we have this attitude? Why has the practice of our religion dropped further and further down on our list of priorities? Even many who attend Mass arrive late and leave early! Why bother to come at all if your heart is not engaged in divine worship? Better to arrive late at work and leave early than to do so at Mass; yet I doubt that most of these folks would ever dream of doing such a thing. What does that say about where we place our heart and our sense of importance?
The faith life and the commitment it demands are effectively all or nothing. When we give 20% to our faith and 20% to our family and 20% to our school and 20% to our friends, etc., we quickly become not just exhausted, but dissipated. Dissipation is confusion of purpose in life and saps vitality and initiative. One can be focused and still exhausted; exhaustion often comes from hard work and can be a good thing. By contrast, dissipation is never a good but always a distraction from our true purpose in life. Multiple end goals lead to both exhaustion and confusion and leave us without both the energy and direction to live a meaningful existence. One of the first symptoms of a dissipated life is the sin of acedia or spiritual torpor with its attendant boredom and sadness. If you find yourself constantly in need of stimulation or flirting with periods of boredom and/or sadness, you might want to examine you faith commitment; it could be that you have allowed your life to spin out of control and lose its center in Christ.
As 23 young children receive their first Holy Communion this weekend, my prayer is that their parents may help them utilize this incredible gift for the good of their own lives and for the good of others. Properly directed, their combined energy alone can motivate their friends, family and community all to the good. Lukewarmly received, however, First Communion quickly becomes simply another empty and meaningless ritual; another excuse to receive gifts and accolades before continuing on through a life of aimless dissipation. May each of these children take the very Presence of our Savior which they are to receive in a focused and powerful way this weekend and use Him to help establish God’s Kingdom here on earth.
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The Good Shepherd
The fourth Sunday in Easter is called “Good Shepherd Sunday” since we typically hear a Gospel reading of St. John from Jesus’ Good Shepherd discourse. Of course, going all the way back to Psalm 23 (‘The Lord is my Shepherd’) and continuing on in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, where the prophet compares the leaders of Israel to shepherds both good and bad, Scripture has often used the metaphor of sheep and their shepherds to represent the relationship between God and his people. Common though this image is, it begs a number of questions: Are we really sheep? Is it wise to think of human beings as sheep? Is God really like a shepherd of sheep? And so on.
To start with the basic facts: Sheep are domesticated animals whose already minimal level of intelligence has been all but bred out of them, leaving them for all appearances, as little more than zombie-like wool or mutton factories. Human beings on the contrary, are highly socialized animals who, being remarkably complex, are radically different than sheep. After all, we have been created in the image (or ikon) of God; sheep have not. Nonetheless, since the consequences of sin are a diminution in authentic freedom and a marring of this image, there is a very real sense in which most human beings are aptly described as, like many barnyard animals, fully domesticated and conditioned, their natural freedom all but eroded away.
Where the metaphor breaks down then has nothing to do with some elevated conception of human intelligence and freedom, for we are most certainly living far below our God-created potential. For sure, human society is very different than a flock of sheep, but only because domesticated humans behave dramatically different than domesticated sheep. In both cases however, each species lacks a genuine freedom proportionate to its nature.
The problem is therefore not in viewing human society as a flock of sheep, but rather with viewing God as being satisfied with human sheep in the same way a human shepherd would be satisfied with docile, mindless, animal sheep. God is not interested in tame humans, he’s interested in free humans, for only a free person can enter into relationship with him. This difference is well worth pondering.
A human shepherd doesn’t want a relationship with his sheep as equals. He wants to use the sheep for his profit (whether for wool or meat). Though in a sense, human beings have created tame species, we have not done so in any manner reflective of God’s creation of mankind. To repeat: God wants a relationship of equals; we want profit; to us, sheep are things, not persons. Appropriate as this image might be with regards to running a flock or a farm, it is inappropriate in the extreme as regards visualizing our relationship with the divine.
A free human is somewhat (metaphorically speaking) like a cat, at least in comparison to a sheep. Cats are thought to be free and independent; sheep, dull and listless. Maybe then a better metaphor to ponder is one of a ‘shepherd of cats’ rather than sheep! There is some accuracy here as well, as least as regards managing a parish, for surely the job of a pastor with his flock is more akin to ‘herding cats’ than leading meek sheep into a sheepfold! But that is as it should be; for pastors, like the Lord they are asked to serve, want authentically free human beings, not mindless drones. When humans truly choose to obey the Spirit of God within them, they are probably best envisaged as cats zigging and zagging behind their leader, more or less going in the same direction, rather than as sheep plodding behind their shepherd, oblivious to their destination.
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Zombies, Cell-phones and ‘Active Participation’
Earlier this week I was watching an old episode of the AMC series Mad Men, which is set in the early sixties. In one scene they showed a female character attending what would still have been the traditional “Tridentine” Mass. The Priest was praying at the altar against the wall, flanked by two altar boys kneeling on either side of him. He spoke in Latin and the boys answered accordingly. The assembly was also kneeling, but seem distracted and out-of-touch with the liturgy. They then came robotically forward, knelt at the altar rail, and received Holy Communion.
The Second Vatican Council, as one of its major reforms, sought to re-engage the assembly in the action of the liturgy. They called this “active participation.” The Mass would be prayed in the vernacular and the people would have plenty of instances where they could respond and sing out their joy. I bring this to the attention of some of you, because it seems like you haven’t gotten the news! This last week, during one of the sung responses, I scanned through the crowd to see how many mouths were moving in song. Perhaps one or two in ten. Then I scanned through the assembly at a different time when a verbal, non-sung response was required of folks; again, one or two in ten were moving their lips. Even during the great AMEN, few sung along with the choir. What is going on here? There is great dignity in fully and meaningfully participating in the Mass. The intent of the bishops of Vatican II was for full and active participation of the assembly - not less. We need engaged parishioners coming to receive communion (blissfully prepared, not bored or on auto-pilot).
And then there’s the cell phones. For the 1,000th consecutive weekend, at least one of the Masses has been interrupted with a cell phone chirping, buzzing or singing (the cell phones sing at a higher rate than do their owners!). Mind you, any of us can forget to turn the stupid thing off, but in the majority of cases, the person simply leaves the phone ringing until the caller gives up. Then, of course, we are soon interrupted again by the sound of another electronic alert signifying that the caller has left a message! In all cases, such forgetfulness or active ignorance is difficult to understand, especially at Mass. In a movie theatre, it’s an annoyance; in a Holy Mass it becomes a disruption of the flow of the liturgical action. This last week, I simply stopped during the Gospel reading and waited while the phone rang, and rang and rang …
A cell phone is a disruption; a baby or a child fidgeting or crying is a part of life that we all love. Whereas it would be nice if parents moved squirming or crying infants to the cry room or narthex, sometimes that is not possible. We do a lot of talking in the Church about the value and dignity of human life, and rightly so; well, babies and small ones are a sign of the renewal of that life and they tend to move about and make noise. Get used to it; hopefully we’ll hear more and more of it.
I think we need to be reminded that Catholic worship is an adult, mature, and committed experience. In general, we do not ship our children off into segregated classrooms while the adults “do worship.” We keep them with us, because it is our hope that they will see our own seriousness and zeal and grow into it themselves. Perhaps one of the reasons young adults are drifting away from the Church is because their parents have already begun to do so, even while sitting in the pews. I offer some ideas for you to try before attending Mass:
- Read and study the readings in advance. Several times. Pray with them. If you are hearing them for the first time on Sunday, good luck! You probably will not understand most of what you hear. If your engagement with the liturgy of the word is incomplete, your reception of the Eucharist will be less fulfilling.
- Obtain a Missalette and study the Eucharistic prayer in advance. I generally pray either Eucharistic Prayer #2 or #3. Pray with it. Every day for several weeks. Become immersed in its depth and beauty.
- Study your responses and know them well. You don’t need to memorize them; just know what they mean and why you are being asked to sing or say them. Also remember that many of the responses have changed! I’m still hearing “And also with you!” or “It is right to give Him thanks and praise!” at various times during the liturgy. Learn the new responses and where to find them (we have a plethora of cards in all of the pews).
- Study the creed and note its flow. Understand what you are saying. Do not memorize it; know it.
- Note the change in each week’s three “presider’s” prayers (the collect, the prayer over the gifts and the post-communion prayer). They are proper for the season, so pray with them as part of your remote preparation for your ‘active participation’ in the Eucharist.
- Spend some time in prayer before each Mass. Arrive 10 minutes early to do so, not 10 minutes late!
- Sing the hymns as best you can. Our cantors and choirs spend quite a bit of time preparing and practicing. Give them the courtesy of joining along with them.
- Stick around. One of our Women’s Association speakers last week was genuinely hurt when she looked up at the end of Mass as she prepared to speak and saw so many people streaming out the doors. Do you have any idea how hard it is to speak in front of a large group and how much preparation it takes to do so well? Do you realize how dispiriting it is to see those folks simply file out at the end of Mass as they ignore the speaker, the Priest and the choir, all in one fell act of self-absorption? Please treat all of us with the dignity and respect we deserve, not to mention the Lord himself, who, after all, you came to worship!
If you want to receive a more genuine experience from worship and the reception of communion, consider putting more of yourself into it. Engage your mind and heart and leave your cell-phone in the car!
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The Problem of ‘Creasters’
The term ‘creaster’ means a Christian who attends Mass only twice per year - on Christmas and Easter. Estimates are that these folks add approximately 50% to our normal attendance on those dates. This parish typically receives around 650 to 700 people per week in the pews. This last Easter, including the Easter Vigil service, our attendance was close to if not over 1,000. As you can see, we fall pretty much in the normal range of expected increase. There is very little that we can say about creasters; we certainly can’t say that they’re evil or bad people or that they are bound for a quick trip to hell upon their death. We don’t know their souls or the complexity of their individual lives and circumstances. Most likely, however, one thing, at least in general, can be said about this group; namely that they are still in the spiritual crib. For that reason they are more than ever in need of our prayers, not our condemnation or irritation.
Much talk occurs about the liberation the Christian enjoys in Christ. In such a state, we dare say things like, ‘the whole of the Law and the Prophets is summed up in love’, or that ‘all we need to do is to follow our conscience and we will walk in the way of the Lord.’ Such statements are only true when applied to mature and advanced Christians, however. For most of us, much hard and disciplined work is still required in order for us to attain such a level of growth. On this side of such an accomplishment lie such unattractive realities as ‘duty’, ‘obedience’, and ‘religious observance’ for at a minimum, a Christian is required to attend Mass weekly and on all Holy Days.
As I’ve said before, genuine spirituality without the discipline of religious practice and community involvement is a comfortable illusion in our culture. It is based on the fallacious belief that we are all already intimate with God and in continual communion with his Spirit. Most of us are not, for only the Saint dares to make such a claim. Paradoxically, no saint, so acutely aware of the state of their soul, ever does. Seriousness in religion is absolutely essential to spiritual growth. Seriousness in this case is synonymous with orthodoxy. To be an orthodox Catholic is to surrender your own ideas of right and wrong to the guidance of the Church; it is to allow your conscience to be formed by wisdom beyond your current level to grasp on your own. It is an acknowledgement that our unformed or ill-formed consciences are dulled and dim and in need of help. No person who attends worship a mere two times per year (and is able to attend more often) can possibly enjoy an enlightened conscience; more than likely, they are stuck in a fourth grade spirituality that hasn’t advanced beyond the elementary school level of catechesis. Oftentimes folks of this nature, erudite and sophisticated in the ways of the world, are self-convinced that they know best and that it is the Church that is in need of education and growth.
This arrogance and consumerist approach to the consumption of ‘religious services’ makes deep, transformative change very difficult for many American Catholics of this type. The Catholic Church, as I’ve said before, must be in a constant state of reform and growth, at least from the human-institutional perspective. That such change and growth must especially include the lukewarm and often absent members of our community, I hope, goes without saying. That it also includes each and every one of us who attend regularly is also, I trust, obvious.
Such terms as ‘creasters’, CEOs (Christmas and Easter only Catholics), CINOs (Catholic in name only) or ‘cafeteria Catholics’ can seem pejorative and judgmental. For that reason, we need to remind ourselves that these men and women are our brothers in Christ. They need our witness of unconditional love and joy, not to mention our prayers, to help spur them to greater feats of discipline and to rekindle their sense of duty and sacrifice for the sake of a greater end than that promised by the values of this world. We have work to do here, but at least, for the time being, these folks do show up twice per year! Let’s make sure they receive the best seats and that we are on our best behavior so that hopefully our witness will start to win them back.
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Easter and Resurrection
The word ‘easter’ means exactly what it says – ‘out of the east,’ and refers primarily to the rising of the sun. The sun, of course, does not rise; the earth merely turns towards or away from it as it rotates about its axis. Even the sun itself is in motion, as are all 8 planets which circle it, as is the galaxy of which we are all a part. Sometimes science, in its exactitude, does take away from the romance of things, doesn’t it? Nonetheless, the ‘rising of the sun’ has been a long held symbol for rebirth and resurrection, albeit on a cyclic basis.
In that cyclic sense, therefore, each of us experiences several ‘easters’ in our life. Every time we turn anew towards new possibilities and let old ones go, we embrace a new ‘easter’ moment. But the earth keeps turning far longer than you or I will keep living. At some point the cycle of life will stop for each of us, and the sun of our life forever sets. Or does it?
What happens after we die is a question which has long engaged human beings. There are many theories, many of them true or accurate from a certain standpoint. The most obvious answer is that nothing happens at all; when we die, we die, and our individual life ceases whereas the many forces and currents through which our life swam continue forward without us. We live on in memory and thought, but no more. No one can conclusively demonstrate that this is not the case and indeed it appears to be so.
On the opposite side of belief is the idea that we move on to a radically disconnected and different ‘afterlife.’ Since what we now know changes and corrupts and is of time and space, then this idea posits an afterlife which is eternal and unchanging; where death and dying are no more. You or I may even hope for such an existence, but I suspect we have no idea what we are really hoping for. All we are and all we know is change and time and growth and decay. To posit a world that is its opposite is therefore to posit a self that is radically disconnected from everything we now see and believe ourselves to be.
This latter belief is common among many Christians, but in fact it’s not Christian. Jesus didn’t rise in a body that couldn’t relate to a universe such as our own; nor did he ascend to one. The heaven or afterlife toward which we move doesn’t fully exist yet, because we are still living in it! Heaven isn’t somewhere or sometime else; its seeds are here and now. That is why eternal life cannot be said to be totally inaccessible now; in some way, as the mystics witness, it is accessible to all of us; if we are willing to pay the cost.
When we die, we will not rise to a perfected heaven; we will transition to an in-between state where we will await the perfection of all creation. In some way, whose details are inaccessible and unknowable to us now, while we wait, we too are being perfected, with our cyclic ‘easter’ existence continuing on in this afterlife of shadow. The Church calls this reality purgatory; but to name it is not to understand it. All that can be said is that purgatory is a place and/or process of change that will result in the perfection of a ‘new heaven and a new earth’, one which only, when we are perfected, can we inhabit.
Everything about this resurrected and perfected reality will be changed from what it now is. It will be glorified (time and space and bodies and all of creation will in some way be made what it was always meant to be). Please ponder on the fact that the cost of envisioning the afterlife as something totally alien and disconnected from our current world is simply too high to pay. Such a view, common in our history, cheapens and devalues our current existence. It also contains a false promise; that somehow we can escape the hard work of change and conversion remaining at our death. Both ideas are illusory, for our God is a Lord of mercy and justice!
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Holy Week
Holy Week begins with the celebration of Palm Sunday, or as it’s fully known: Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord. This is a Sunday Mass which is so named because it begins with a blessing of palm fronds as we recall Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The palms are blessed and the Gospel reading is proclaimed wherein Jesus, mounted on a donkey, enters the Holy City to the exultant cries of his disciples. This introductory reading and the regular Gospel reading this year are from Mark. The Passion reading begins with the Last Supper and ends when Jesus is laid in the tomb.
In essence, all of the events of Jesus passion and death are recounted right at the beginning of this most holy of weeks. The remainder of the week will highlight certain aspects of this one, core mystery which resides at the very center of our faith: out of love for us God, in the person of Jesus Christ, allowed himself to be sacrificed on the Cross. This act of atoning love reconciles creation with God, from whom it (and we) had been forever estranged due to sin and rebellion. The seal of this act of atonement occurs through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Though we still all die, death has been forever transformed by Christ’s paschal death and resurrection and now marks a transition into a fuller and greater reality, that which we call the ‘communion of saints.’
On Monday evening at the Cathedral in Portland, the Priests of the Archdiocese renew their priestly vows and the sacramental oils are blessed. These oils are used in the sacraments of the Anointing of the Sick (the oil of the sick), Baptism (the oil of catechumens and the Sacred Chrism), confirmation (the Sacred Chrism) and Holy Orders (the Sacred Chrism). All of these sacraments save the last are celebrated in our parish. Accordingly these oils will be presented Holy Thursday evening.
With the celebration of Holy Thursday, Lent ends and the Paschal Triduum begins. At this Mass, the institutions of the Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist are commemorated. Christ’s charitable act of salvation is represented as I wash the feet of members of our Parish community. This liturgy concludes when the Holy Eucharist is carried in procession to the Altar of Repose located in the PSC. There it resides until Holy Saturday evening. Until Thursday midnight, the faithful may come and adore their Lord.
No Eucharistic liturgy is allowed on either Good Friday or Holy Saturday. The Good Friday service is a somber and solemn one and begins with the Liturgy of the Word, including the traditional reading of the Passion of St. John the Apostle. Afterward, the Veneration of the Cross is done by all of the faithful; a moving rite when all process forward to kiss or otherwise venerate the cross. This rite concludes with Holy Communion, present not as the result of consecration at a Mass that day, but as reserved from the Holy Thursday Mass. All then exit in silence.
Holy Saturday is a day of silent prayer, fasting and waiting.
Holy Week concludes with the celebration of the third day of the Paschal Triduum, the Easter Vigil. This service is the highlight of the Church’s year and includes three main parts: A Service of Light wherein the Easter fire is lit and those preparing for initiation process in; an extended Liturgy of the Word which rises to the singing of the Gloria and then peaks in the return of the Alleluia and the proclamation of Mark’s mysterious account of the resurrection. The final part celebrates the reception of both the elect and the candidates for full communion of the three sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist. With the conclusion of this liturgy, the Triduum ends and Easter begins.
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