June 26, 2010
Posted in pastor
at 3:08 pm
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
This weekend we welcome Fr. Dennis Hayes, former pastor, back to our parish. I am away this weekend on holiday, visiting my cousins in Brooklyn, NY, as well as visiting the parish where I was received into the Catholic Church 15 years ago. It is always amazing to look back on the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our lives!
On the topic of the Holy Spirit, I would like to share with you some of the highlights of a talk given recently to the priests of Ottawa by Bishop Lacroix, auxiliary bishop of Quebec City. He witnessed to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God and small Christian communities. He has seen real miracles of transformation as a child, with his own mother and father, in his missionary work in Columbia, and slowly but surely in his home province of Quebec.
Much of the success of the Spirit-inspired new ecclesial communities rests on sharing the Word of God in small Christian communities. I am wondering if it would not be possible in the parish to begin with a small group meeting once a week for “lectio divina” (sacred reading), a meditative reading and sharing of the Scriptures for the upcoming Sunday. These simple gatherings would help us better enter into and appreciate the Sunday Eucharist, strengthen our faith by sharing in small groups, and also be a means of evangelization and on-going Christian formation, as we could invite non-practicing friends and neighbours to these small Christian communities. Let us pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit! In Christ, Fr. Tim
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June 18, 2010
Posted in pastor
at 9:59 am
This weekend we are welcoming Fr. Sebastien Pandarathilkudiyil to our parish, representing the Vincention Congregration of the Mother of God province in India. This past month there have been many reminders of our call to be concerned for the poor in our world: Pot Pourri’s “Third World” theme in May, and a recent presentation at St. Thomas Aquinas High School from the students who went on a March mission trip to Cuernavaca, Mexico.
As the wealthy economies of the “Western” world, or the Global “North” continue to suffer from jitters and instability due to excessive materialism, consumerism and unsustainable levels of debt, I am reminded of some lessons taught to us by our poor brothers and sisters in the Global “South.”
First, all is grace; everything we have and are is a gift from God. We are under a serious obligation to share our material wealth with those who have nothing to eat and are dying of hunger. As Archbishop Romero once said, “the glory of God is that the poor live.” All they want to do is live, and we can help them! By the mysterious power of God’s grace, by helping the poor to live physically, we come back to life spiritually. We learn to live for God and people, for lasting spiritual values instead of mere things that so often turn into idols.
I have not been on a mission trip since May 2008, and am considering one for the fall of 2010, in part to visit the children we sponsor in Honduras. Please pray that God will guide me! Let us also be as generous as we can with this year’s diocesan-assigned Mission Appeal, to assist our brothers and sisters in Kerala, India. In Christ, Fr. Tim
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June 13, 2010
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, June 13th, 2010 – By Father Tim McCauley
The Papal nuncio for Canada, Archbishop Pedro Lopez, celebrated Mass for us at the National Vocation Directors Conference in Ottawa on Tuesday morning, the week before last. As the Pope’s representative in Canada, and as one of the highest-ranking priests in our country, you’ll never guess what he did during Mass . . . OK, I’m going to show you . . . He took this big red book (called the Sacramentary) in his massive bear-like paws, and he opened it and then . . . and then . . . he prayed all the prayers as they are written in the sacramentary, without omitting, adding or changing a single word.
We were able to see Jesus, and “touch” Him as it were through the Sacrament, through these simple words, words of Jesus passed on through the Church. The Papal nuncio devoutly and faithfully celebrated the liturgy of the Church, which is the theme of my homily today, with a few words at the end about funerals and eulogies.
“Liturgy” refers to public worship, to the official prayer of the Church.
The word liturgy, in the original Greek, means “public work.” It is interesting to note how, in the second reading, St. Paul writes about “works of the law” contrasted with faith in Christ (Gal 2:16). Some extreme Protestants claim that the Mass is a human “work,” but it is actually totally the work of God, the sacrifice of the Cross made present through the Holy Spirit. We are justified and sanctified through God’s work, through the Holy Spirit, through the Mass, by worshiping God as He commands us to worship Him.
I want to mention to you one of the most powerful ways that I experienced the Holy Spirit through the liturgy when I first arrived here in the summer of 2004. I had just moved from a parish in Ottawa where they did not kneel at all during the entire Mass. This is an example of misguided experimentation, of OMITTING an essential element of Mass that directly affects our experience of the sacred.
So, during my very first Saturday and Sunday Masses, immediately after the “Holy holy” everyone in the Church dropped down on their knees! You could sense the Holy Spirit descend upon us at this most sacred moment. I had not seen any kneeling for 8 months, so I was deeply moved by something that all of you were taking for granted, of following the custom of the liturgy of the universal Church and kneeling at the consecration.
This little incident demonstrates the power of the liturgy, the power of worshiping God as He requests, as He demands to be worshiped.
(9:00 a.m. only) I would like to say a few words at this Mass on the custom that some people have developed of kneeling – at this Mass only – after the Lamb of God. Does anyone know where this custom comes from? Does it come from the Pope or the papal nuncio? No. It comes from Toronto. Yes. As was explained to me, after World Youth Day in Toronto, some people who attended adopted the custom in Toronto, of kneeling after the Lamb of God, and sort of introduced this custom to Russell. As far as I know, Toronto is one of the few dioceses in Canada with this custom, and the only parish with this custom in Ottawa (as far as I know) is St. Patrick’s downtown.
The universal law of the Church is that we must kneel at the consecration. The general custom, followed by almost every parish in Ottawa is to remain standing after the Lamb of God. It is also custom at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal on Saturday at 4:30 pm and Sunday at 10:45 pm. One reason our bishop has insisted on kneeling at every parish during the consecration (which we already do) is for the sake of unity in the diocese. I think unity of liturgical action is also important at the parish level. I ask you to think about this and pray about it.
In the Old Testament, God gave very specific instructions to Moses on how God desired to be worshiped. In the New Testament, Jesus gave specific instructions on worship (“Do this in memory of me” just as I have shown you), teaching passed on through Scripture and Tradition.
Pope Benedict has been reminding the whole Church to be faithful to these traditions. In his apostolic exhortation “Sacramentum Caritatis,” in 2007, he wrote: “The primary way to foster the participation of the People of God in the sacred rite is the proper celebration of the rite itself” (#38). In other words, we will meet and touch Jesus Christ in the Mass not through each diocese’s or parish’s or priest’s idiosyncratic experimentation, additions and omissions, but through a faithful celebration of the Mass in the Holy Spirit.
By faithfully following the structure of the liturgy, we come to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ and “touch” Him, as surely as the sinful woman in today’s Gospel. In fact, the structure of today’s Gospel gives us a clue to the meaning of the structure of the Mass. Before Jesus said to her, “your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:50), she first had to express sorrow for her sins, which she did by bathing the feet of Jesus with her tears and drying them with her hair.
This Gospel incident reminds us that we must also first repent of our sins if we want to approach Jesus. Notice that the structure of the Mass follows the basic structure of this Gospel encounter. Mass begins with the penitential rite, in which we confess our sins in a general manner.
As in the case of kneeling during the consecration, the penitential rite at Mass can never be omitted. Imagine if an experimental priest or parish were to say, “we are people of the Resurrection and alleluia is our song! During the Easter season, we should omit the gloomy and medieval penitential rite.” But you can’t do that! No one but the Pope has the authority to change the parts of the Mass, and he would only do so in consultation with the universal Church and in fidelity to tradition. The penitential rite of the Church can never be omitted because repentance can never be omitted from our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is like that with every part of the Mass; there’s a good reason for it that we must respect.
Just as none of us has the authority to OMIT essential parts of the Mass, nor do we have the authority to ADD anything we wish to the Mass, whether it is a Sunday Mass, a wedding Mass, or a funeral Mass.
On this note, I would like to say something about funerals and eulogies. This is the liturgical book for funerals in the Catholic Church in Canada. I want to be faithful to the liturgy of the Church in funerals, so I am very careful to distinguish what parts of the funeral Mass can or cannot be omitted or changed. The rite makes it clear that there are many different options for the first reading from the Old Testament, for the Psalm, for the second reading from the New Testament, and for the Gospel. There are also many options for the opening and closing prayer, for the prayer of commendation, for the preface of the Mass, and so on. There are also many options for the Prayers of the Faithful.
But when it comes to the eulogy, the introduction to the rite, simply states, (I am quoting the Canadian Conference of Catholic bishops), “there is never to be a eulogy.” No explanation is given, but based on my experience of celebrating 87 funerals over the years, I can make a few comments. Some eulogies are excellent, a very small percentage. In so many other cases, there are inappropriate and embarrassing jokes that I cannot repeat in public, or comments that totally go against the teaching of the Bible and the Church. In practice, there is no way to regulate this, because once people get to the pulpit, they will say what they want.
But there are also theological reasons that I believe underlie the position of the Canadian Conference of Catholic bishops, that eulogies must not be a part of the Catholic funeral liturgy. There are two movements in a funeral – looking back and looking forward. At the wake, we look back: we display pictures of our deceased loved one; we reminisce, and tell stories. At the funeral Mass, we look forward to eternal life, focusing on the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and how the deceased person is participating in that mystery.
The spirit of the eulogy is one of looking back and focusing on details of the deceased person’s past life in this world; while the funeral Mass encourages us to focus on this person as who he or she is right now, with God or on his or her journey to God.
Look at our icon of the Blessed Virgin as “Our Lady of Tenderness.” Some people wonder why Mary is not painted as she might have looked like in this life. Icons attempt to show us what the person looks like right now, in heaven, transfigured in glory. We would not pray before a portrait of Mary, what she looked like on earth; we pray before her icon, an attempt to portray what she looks like in heaven.
Like icons, all the Church’s liturgies lift us up to contemplate the things of heaven. At the funeral Mass, we have to allow for the Scriptures, the hymns and the prayers to lift us up, to increase our hope and draw us closer to heaven. Everything in our daily lives reminds us of life on earth with all its joys and sorrows. What do we have to remind us of eternal life, to help us focus on Jesus Christ? We have the Mass. The Church wants to protect the integrity and purity of the Mass, including the funeral Mass, to allow the liturgy of the Church to serve its purpose of glorifying God and working for our salvation.
Whether it is a Mass celebrated by the Pope in Rome or the Papal nuncio in Ottawa or the bishop in the cathedral or a simple funeral or wedding Mass at our parish, the purpose is the same – a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. How can we hear and touch Jesus today? The bodily presence of Jesus, whom the woman in the Gospel physically touched, has passed into the Sacraments. Jesus is present on earth today through the Sacraments of His Body, the Church. We hear, see, and touch Jesus through a faithful celebration of the liturgy and the sacraments, so that we too can experience the power of His saving love and hear him say to us, “your faith has also saved you. Go in peace.”
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June 12, 2010
Posted in pastor
at 11:14 am
The Year for Priests ended officially with the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 11th. At the conclusion of the Year, the head of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Hummes, wrote, “The Year for Priests brings great joy to the Church and she thanks the Lord for having inspired the Holy Father to announce it . . . It was a time to give special attention, acknowledgement and commitment to the great, hardworking and irreplaceable presbyterium, and to each individual priest of the Church.”
Once again I would like to thank all of you for your prayers and support for me personally, and your prayers for all priests and vocations. I recently came across this quote from Fulton Sheen, which should inspire all of us to continue these prayers:
“The original Greek word (ekballo) for sending labourers into the fields . . . means that the Lord of the harvest would thrust them out, or propel them forward . . . it takes great power to drive the priesthood into a man. This power Our Lord said He would exercise, if we prayed. It even suggests that from totally unexpected and impossible places, He would inspire vocations” (The Priest is Not His Own, 83). If I am a priest today, it is thanks to the mercy of God and the prayers of many people. Let us continue to beg the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into the harvest, especially in the Church in Ottawa.
In Christ, Fr. Tim
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Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
Mystery and Presence – By Deacon Thomas Stephenson
June 06, 2010
I’m sure there are many of us who can remember being taught by nuns when we were in school; in a time when they all wore full habits that covered them almost completely with many layers of fabric. Even those who didn’t experience this first hand are probably familiar with this image, and of course even today we have some nuns who still dress in traditional habits. A few years ago, I had a professor for a course on the Gospel of John. He told us about one of these sisters that he had in, I think it was around the third grade. Occasionally, one of the children would ask a religion question that required more of an explanation than what could be expressed in terms their young minds could understand. When that happened, with a sweep of her arms and her flowing habit, she would respond: “It’s a mystery!”
As adults, we are able to understand our faith in ways we could not as children. Yet, we are told to have faith, to be humble like children, and that is partly because, no matter how intelligent or wise we may think we are, some things will remain a mystery. One of the deepest mysteries of our faith is the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We were taught about this from a very young age, beginning when we prepared to make our First Communion. Those who became Catholics later in life learned about it before being received into the Church. We need to be taught, but as we are taught we only the begin to understand. Our greatest understanding of the Real Presence doesn’t come from classes; it comes from our experience of receiving the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Our Lord in communion; and it comes from having faith, faith that helps us to grasp, however incompletely, what is otherwise incomprehensible. In the National Post on Thursday, there was a quote from Father Fred Dolan, the head of Opus Dei in Canada. He said: “the things we see with faith are real”. Our faith and our experience of the Eucharist help us go beyond what we are taught to what we know.
The presence of Christ comes in many forms. He is present when people gather to pray, as Jesus said “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) He is present in the Word, in the scriptures, particularly as proclaimed at Mass. He is present in the Church (of course He’s in the building, but here I’m referring to the Church made up of all of us). And He is most completely present as the Eucharist. The Catechism says “This presence is called “real”…because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence” (Catechism, 1375) Substantial; the substance of the host, the substance of the wine, become the Body and Blood of Christ under the appearance of wine and bread. Jesus is not in the bread and the wine; the bread and wine are Jesus.
This is the fulfillment of what Jesus told us, when He said that “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in Me and I in him.” We wouldn’t be able to do what He commanded if the Eucharist was not His Body and Blood. This is not just an academic exercise; this is living, wonderful, mysterious but quite real, and we have the privilege of experiencing it when we receive communion.
This may have become somewhat commonplace to us. Week after week, we get up, line up, receive communion, and return to our seats. It’s like so many things in life, that after we do them so many times, we tend to not give them much thought. But this isn’t like other things, and we can do ourselves a favour by contemplating the reality of exactly what, exactly Who, we are receiving. This is an incredible gift from Almighty God.
Just as Jesus fed the people in today’s Gospel, starting with only five loaves of bread and two fish, He now feeds all of us, He continually feeds the whole Church, starting with only His one body. It is interesting that Jesus told the apostles “You give them something to eat.” Of course, they thought there was no way they could possibly feed the multitude. Yet since the beginning of the Church, priests have been doing just that – feeding the multitude, by saying Mass, changing the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, so that we may be nourished by it.
One thing to keep in mind is that there is no dividing Christ. He is completely present, body, blood, soul, and divinity, as the host. He is completely present in the cup, as His precious blood. Although the Eucharist is not just a symbol, there is a certain amount of symbolism in receiving both. It makes the mystery a little more understandable to us. But if we only receive one or the other, we are not missing anything; if we receive both, we are not receiving more of Jesus. And at those times when hosts may have to be broken in order to make sure everyone can receive communion, someone receiving a fragment receives no less than someone receiving a complete host. No matter what, we always receive the complete presence of Christ.
The consecrated host is Christ. We intended to have our annual Corpus Christi procession after the 9:00 Mass this morning, but the rain forced us to cancel it. When we have the procession, we carry Christ through the streets of Russell, in doing so we celebrate the reality of His presence. In the book Feast of Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, tells us: “In the Corpus Christi procession, faith’s link with the earth, with the whole of reality, is represented in bodily form, by the act of walking, of treading our ground…we carry the Lord Himself over the ground. And he says “Our relationship to God also needs to be expressed…(and) calls for this celebratory walking along of the community of the faithful, together with the God in whom we believe.” Walking together with God! The great mystery of Christ’s real presence, mysterious yet acknowledged as reality through our faith, and demonstrated as we actually walk with Him.
It is because we recognize the Real Presence of Christ that we can honour in a procession what others would consider to be just a symbol, a piece of bread. It is the Real Presence that moves us to show reverence to the Eucharist by genuflecting as we pass in front of the tabernacle. It is the Real Presence that allows us to come and visit with Christ in Adoration, to actual spend time with our Lord and Saviour. It is the Real Presence that feeds us spiritually and helps to deepen our relationship with God.
St. John Chrysostom said: “Let us then awaken in ourselves a feeling of awe and let us show…a great reverence…This food strengthens us; it emboldens us to speak freely to God: it is our hope, our salvation, our light, and our life. If we go into the next world fortified by this sacrifice, we shall enter it’s sacred portals with perfect confidence, as though protected all over by armour of gold.”
As I said before, this is an incredible gift, Jesus’ gift of Himself to us; we should recognize it and be overwhelmed with amazement at it. No amount of teaching will ever allow us to completely understand the Real Presence. We can work at it, we can study it, we can pray about it, but we will not understand it. Our faith allows us to see the reality, but it will always remain – a mystery.
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Homilies