Church of The Holy Spirit

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, May 4, 2008

Feast of the Ascension

The People of God – the Assembly – We Are the Church

When we meet here on Sunday, a lot of what we do is centered on a book, and a lot of what we do is centred on a table. What is this book? It is simply hundreds of pages on which are written the words of our scriptures, our Bible. The words of scripture are set down there according to the Sundays of the year. Much of our time together on Sunday, then, is spent in reading aloud those words and in reflecting on them in the psalm and homily.

And what is this table? Just as the book is made to be a beautiful and worthy way to carry the words of scripture, so the table is a beautiful and worthy way to hold bread and wine. Over this bread and wine, our community gives thanks and praise to God, then shares in holy communion the body and blood of Christ.

Gathering around the book and around the table – that is what we do together on Sunday. Because this is so central to our identity as Catholics, so important in our lifelong striving to be good Catholics, we need now and then to think on this Sunday liturgy and how we do it together. Before the reader ever opens the book on Sunday morning, several things have to happen. The most basic thing is: There has to be an assembly. The liturgy is not done by a priest with help from a musician and a lector. The liturgy on Sunday is done by an assembly – people gathered. Baptized Catholics come together. We do not come to be an audience, to be spectators while the specialists do their work. None of us is here to watch. That's hard for us to grasp.

The liturgy that is developing now from the reform begun at the Second Vatican Council is a liturgy that all of us baptized people do together, that we know how to do and love to do. Somehow we are all both privileged and obliged to come here on Sunday – not to "go to" Mass, not to "attend" Mass, but together to celebrate the Mass, together to do the Mass. It is the privilege of the baptized: Only those who are baptized into the death of Christ and live now in Christ can make the prayer and communion at this altar. And it is our obligation: We baptized must do this on Sunday. The Church has a rule about attending Mass on Sunday. The point of that rule is not to burden Catholics. The point is to make one thing very plain: Each baptized person of this parish is needed here on Sunday. What we do here takes all of us. We aren't obliged to come and watch, but to come and do.

During our time together each Sunday, the church is doing in this room what the church needs to do, hungers and thirsts to do, in order to be the church. The deeds are done not simply by one individual and another individual, but by the church here assembled. The body of Christ is proclaiming itself to be the body of Christ. The body of Christ – you and me – is identifying itself, remembering itself, preparing itself to live as Christ all week long. When we come into this room, we do not come to pray alone for an hour or so. We come to place ourselves beside brothers and sisters and to give all that we have to give to the work the church has to do here. It is the church that listens to God's loving word, it is the church that then intercedes, it is the church that gives God thanks and praise over bread and wine, and it is the church that takes and is the holy communion. None of us does this alone, yet the church does nothing without each of us doing all we can.

But we come here as very human, very distracted, very preoccupied with our own worries, our own agendas, even our own prayers. How then can there be a church, a body of Christ? Maybe the question is: In a world with so many worries, agendas, and prayers, how can there not be a church? How can we not be filled with an eagerness for this one time a week when we can gather all that worry and agenda and prayer and so much else up into the very body of Christ?

It is hard, certainly. Everything around us says we are to live and strive and suffer and grow alone. We are so private, so on our own. So it is difficult to come here and be told – yes, you as an individual person are God's beloved, as is every brother and sister of ours of every race and religion and condition in all the world. Yes. But here, here we are to set all that aloneness aside, because this is the church. God called us in Christ into a church, a body, and it is that body God speaks to; it is that body that prays here today; it is that body that sings and gives thanks and is nourished in holy communion. We are that body! Baptism made us so. God's word each Sunday makes us so. The Eucharist we do here and the Communion we share here make us so.

As we celebrate this Feast of the Ascension, let us pray for the understanding and the wisdom to celebrate together – as the Assembly, as the people of God, as the Church.

Rev. Thomas G. Moore

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, May 6
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Nelson Raposo

WEDNESDAY, May 7
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Gioan Luu Kim

THURSDAY, May 8
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Charles O'Sullivan

FRIDAY, May 9
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Antnia Fung

may live again in the presence of the God of limitless love . . . for those who are mourning the loss of a loved one . . . for those who are dying and those who tend them as they die . . . for those who are alone and afraid . . . for a peaceful death without fear or regret . . . for the mind of Christ . . . We pray to the Lord.

For Special Intentions

For the prayers and intentions we offer in the silence of our hearts, . . . for the mind of Christ . . . We pray to the Lord.

Please remember the sick in your prayers during the coming week, especially:

Ken Tai, Hassan Kingrabe, Benjamin Rubio, Mervyn Cardoza, Jack Hamilton, Melita Juliana, Carmelita Cosgrove, George Annett, Sister Jemma, Eileen Docherty, Tafari Taylor and Silvio Perfetti

. . . who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for the sick. . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those who live in the shadow of the cross . . . for those whose suffering is severe . . ..for the mind of Christ . . . We pray to the Lord.

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, May 11, 2008

Feast of Pentecost

The People of God – the Assembly – We Are the Church

Prayer has many moods and they are often woven together. Within the ritual of the Mass we use now a prayer whose mood is praise, now a prayer whose mood is the giving of thanks, now a prayer for forgiveness, now a prayer of blessing.

Think about what happens at the core of our gathering each Sunday: We are invited to lift up our hearts and to give thanks and praise to God. Such a prayer of praise is also the kind of praying we make when we sing or say together the ancient poem "Glory to God" at the beginning of our Sunday assembly. Later in our liturgy, prayer takes on a different tone and content when we pray the Our Father. We bless God's holy name and we long for the reign of God – thy kingdom come, we say together – and all that leads to words about hunger for our daily bread, about forgiveness and about saving us from evil.

Think about how all of us come here on Sunday very different people, always some of us with reason to be cheerful and some of us with reason to be sad. Then we try to be an assembly, a church, but within our hour or so together we are asked to pray in different voices: now in joyful praise, now in the humility of sinners asking pardon, now in a spirit of all-embracing gratitude, now in the voice of those who lament.

Nothing could make it more clear that this liturgy is the place and time for our private moods to be lifted up in the work of the church, the rehearsal of thanks and praise to God, the rehearsal of the world's confession of sin, the rehearsal of thanksgiving that dares to embrace this difficult and violent world, the rehearsal of lamentation when we give voice to grief and the near loss of hope in God.

When we assemble here on Sundays, could it be clearer that we are here first and last as the church doing the tasks of the church? All of our private joy or grief or discouragement is caught up in the many moods of our rehearsal of what a church sounds like, acts like, takes to heart. The church praying here is the church learning little by little what it means that we are baptized to keep our world wrapped in prayer. The words we use in prayer carry the weight of many ages, the weight of a hundred or more generations and a great mix of languages. They are our teachers of what a Christian is becoming, of what matters and what does not, of what is and what is not. They are human language with all its amazing strength and all its limitations.

But they also somehow carry and join us in the generations that have known these words by heart in whatever language, from the simplest "Kyrie, Eleison" and "Amen" to the "Holy, Holy, Holy" to the "Peace be with you" and the "Lord, I am not worthy." These prayers we make as the church are to be the teachers of all prayer, the vocabulary we never stop pondering. Far more than any catechism or scholarly book of theological reflection, these are the words that make Christians.

So when we give voice to the words of prayer, all of us together on Sunday, we are each to be ready. We are each of us to bring to our work here as the church these familiar but still strong words. We know them all the better because we also rehearse them day by day and night by night. Bits and pieces of these Sunday words of prayer mark our waking and our mornings, our meals, our evenings and our going to sleep. We know them. We know words strong enough to be said day in and day out, the good days and the hard days, the joyful and the sad, the fearful and the peaceful.

But perhaps most of all, here together and in our separate lives, we know one other language of prayer and we know it well. Sometimes it seems the only language we know. This is the prayer of intercession. We try it every Sunday after we recite the creed. It is the prayer that the church makes, the prayer that Christians make because we are to pray about the troubles, the gaps, the sadness, the oppression, the suffering. We are to bring before God all the people who are dear to us and those who carry heavy burdens and responsibilities. We need to name names and name places. We need to be urgent, repetitious, and even cantankerous. We need to hold on no matter what.

Breathed upon the disciples by the risen Jesus, the Spirit continues to breathe and pulsate within believers, particularly when we come together as church to witness to one another and to the world that God is, that God loves, that God chooses to be involved in the lives of sinners, that God heals, that God forgives, that God fires up and moves forward the divine saving purpose for all of humankind.

As we celebrate this Feast of Pentecost, let us pray for the understanding and the wisdom to celebrate together – as the Assembly, as the people of God, as the praying community of faith.

Rev. Thomas G. Moore

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, May 13
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Mary Louise Luttrell

WEDNESDAY, May 14
St. Matthias
8:30 a.m.- † Archie Foulds

THURSDAY, May 15
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † David Botts

FRIDAY, May 16
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Father Michael Gnesko

For Special Intentions

For the prayers and intentions we offer in the silence of our hearts, . . . for the mind of Christ . . . We pray to the Lord.

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, May 18, 2008

Trinity Sunday

The People of God – the Assembly – Coming Together on Sunday

What happens on Sunday when we have come through the door to this room, this house of the church, and have blessed ourselves with the water that identifies us as persons baptized into Christ, into the church? Maybe to answer the question "What do we do?" We could be asking: "What is this gathering called?" It is sometimes called "the congregation." What do we do? We congregate. It is sometimes called "the assembly." What do we do? We assemble. The first thing we have to do is congregate, assemble. Both those words mean "to get ourselves together."

Like a lot of preliminaries, it isn't the most important thing that is going to happen, but if it doesn't happen, if we don't get ourselves together, then all the other things can't happen. It is like a good recipe. Turning on the oven isn't all that important, but if I don't turn it on, then no matter how carefully I mix the flour and baking soda and oil and milk, there isn't going to be any cake. That's how it is here. The homilist can have a fine homily prepared, the song leaders can be rehearsed and ready, the altar servers and lectors and communion ministers can all be present and accounted for, but if nobody turns on the oven, we can't get anywhere. And the oven is the assembling – our gathering together.

If I board a bus alone, I probably look for a seat alone. If I board a bus with a friend, we probably sit together, but we don't need to pay much attention to anyone else on the bus. That's a bus. We ask nothing more from a bus than that it take us from one spot to another. But if we come in here and act like we are on a bus – looking for a place to sit alone or just with a friend or family – we've misjudged what sort of thing is going on here. This isn't a bus; it is a boat that is rowed by everyone on board. It only goes when all the people move together. That's what liturgy is: something done by everyone together.

Different members may have different roles, but the deed itself – moving the boat – is done by everyone. That's a long way of saying that when we come through those doors, it's clear what we have to do. We have to make the church look like the church, act like the church and sound like the church. We have to congregate to make a congregation. We have to assemble to make an assembly. There are lots of times in life to come in here and pray alone. There are lots of times in life to pray alone wherever you are. But Sunday Mass is not one of those times.

Sunday Mass is what we do together. That isn't a theory that will work no matter how we look in here, how we sound, how we act. It isn't a theory, it's practice. The church has to get itself together. If we work at it, all of us, maybe we'll come to a time when we'll walk through the door and, without even thinking about it, head for the empty place closest to the altar. If we work at it, we won't have to imagine that we are one in Christ, we'll act like we are. The room will fill from these seats to those seats to those and only as far out as there are people here. The reason, let's be clear on this, is not that there is some special holiness in getting close to the altar; the reason is that the holiness of the church lies in getting close to one another and doing this deed together. So, maybe we can begin. Come forward when we arrive. And if a row is empty, don't sit on the end protecting it – let us take a place in the middle of that row as if inviting others to sit beside us.

There should be graciousness in our gathering. Kindness and hospitality are not the enemies of peaceful assembling. Smiling, nodding in welcome even to those I do not know by name, greeting others warmly: these are building up the body of Christ. Ushers and sometimes other persons have the task of helping us in these first moments together: a greeting, help with getting to a seat, other hospitable deeds. But ushers only specialize in what we must all do for one another: all alike are welcome here. That is why we have to do the best we can to make this place welcoming to all of us including those of us with disabilities, those with young children and those who are elderly.

Here we welcome people who would probably never be our friends. What we have in common is far more than blood and far more than the mutual affection of friends. What we have in common is baptism in Christ. That's it. That's all that matters here. That's why rich and poor should be sitting side by side. Every barrier society erects to keep us apart is worthless here. Every bond society builds up to put us into this little group or that clan or the other club is also worthless here. In a sense, we are naked here, like a baby in the waters of baptism. All the externals are gone. All that we wear is Christ. We all wear Christ. And that is why we gather together.

That is the preparation for Mass. Such preparation goes a step further when we begin the gathering rites or entrance rites. Please don't think that "entrance rites" means the entrance of the priest who presides at the liturgy and the other ministers. It means the entrance of all of us together into the liturgy. Some may be in the ritual procession, but, in reality, we are all in procession, all moving into our liturgy. All the words and song and gesture are ways to get from where we are to where we want to be: a church ready to hear God's word. We get there with song and procession and the sign of the cross and prayer, and sometimes with sprinkled water or penitential prayers and the Gloria.

At their best, these are things we all know how to do and do them fully and with a sense that here, in making the sign of the cross, in singing out loudly, in saying familiar words, here we are really at home, in our element, one with our brothers and sisters making up the church.

God's forgiving nature demands that we actively respond to it, not simply soak it up and go on our way!

Rev. Thomas G. Moore

That all our beloved dead, especially

WEDNESDAY, May 21
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Evelyn Lynch

FRIDAY, May 24
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Fidel Austriaco

For Special Intentions

For the prayers and intentions we offer in the silence of our hearts, especially. . .

TUESDAY, May 20

Weekday
8:30 a.m. – Tafari Taylor, that he be surrounded by the healing presence of Christ. . . We pray to the Lord.

Please remember the sick in your prayers during the coming week, especially:

Ken Tai, Hassan Kingrabe, Benjamin Rubio, Mervyn Cardoza, Jack Hamilton, Melita Juliana, Carmelita Cosgrove, George Annett, Sister Jemma, Eileen Docherty, Tafari Taylor, Silvio Perfetti and Marjorie Franker

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, May 25, 2008

Solemnity of The Body and Blood of Christ

Liturgy of the Eucharist - The Eucharistic Prayer of Christ

Every Sunday, every Lord's Day, the church assembles here in its house and processes into its liturgy. There is our gathering together, song, the sign of the cross, greeting, prayer. It takes a while to give us a sense of being here not as so many individuals, but as the baptized people who are the church.

When this church has prepared itself, we open our book and read the scriptures, sing psalms and alleluias, listen to the homily and join in the prayers of intercession. Those prayers conclude what is really a whole liturgy in itself, the Liturgy of the Word. But from their earliest times, Christians have had another liturgy that has been bound to their keeping of the Lord's day. That is the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Eucharist is a word that comes from Greek and has to do with giving thanks, with praise and with blessing. But eucharist begins quietly. We need that. We have just finished what ought to be hard work; concentrating on the scripture and on making prayers of intercession takes energy and leaves us both lifted up and a little worn out. So we take quiet moments to get the room and ourselves ready for eucharist. This is the time called the preparation of the table or preparation of the gifts.

Bread and wine are brought forward, such simple things, food and drink associated with the tables of ordinary people. Here they are called "fruit of the earth" and "work of human hands" as they are placed on the table in our midst. At the same time, the "work of human hands" is seen in the money that is collected, money that is "for the church and the poor." This money and the bread and wine are bound together. We are about to surround a single table and make a single prayer and eat of one bread and drink of one cup.

Part of our preparation for this seems to be this gesture of pooling our resources, putting into one basket some of the money we have earned or received. We get ready for eucharist by setting a table with bread and wine, but even more by showing some important things in this collection of money.

One is that we are bound to one another – thus some of our contribution is for the work of the church. A second thing we show is that this bond is not selfish but is for the life of the world – thus some of our money is for the poor. And third, we show that what we do here together is bound to all the business and commerce and give-and-take of everyday life.

Bread and wine show that, but perhaps money shows it even more clearly. When all is ready, we stand up. In fact, we stand and gather around the table; only our numbers in this room keep us from coming into a circle. The one presiding stands at the table also and says four words to us that are not so much an invitation as an order: "Lift up your hearts." And we answer that we are ready for this: "We lift them up to the Lord." Then the presider gives the invitation to do that deed that is the very heart not only of the liturgy but of Christian life: "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God." And we say: "It is right to give God thanks and praise."

All right. It is. Giving thanks. Giving praise. That's the heart of things for us. Are we any good at it? Probably we are better at asking God, better at saying we're sorry, better at almost anything than this. How do we think about those next few minutes?

What do we think happens between this invitation and the Lord's Prayer just moments later? Some would say, 'A lot of words by the priest while we all kneel down and pray.' Others would say, ‘The priest consecrates the bread and wine.' But there is a problem with answers like these. It still seems as if we become a very passive audience right at the moment when we are supposed to be most active.

The prayer that the presider speaks is the prayer of the church, our prayer. We show this when we sing those acclamations: "Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might," and "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." and the Great Amen that we sing at the end of this prayer. All of these are shouts of approval, commands to go ahead with this prayer.

Or are they? Sometimes they are not. Part of that may be our fault, part the presider's fault, part the fault of words that are not strong enough to bear the burden here, and part the fault of music that just doesn't get the job done for us. All of these can be improved once we are aware of them. Our failure to make these moments the high point of the liturgy shows that the liturgy is very human. It isn't magic.

From the presider's side, it takes great strength to lead the eucharistic prayer well, speaking a long prayer to God in the name of this assembly. A person can't do that without sensing that the assembly is attentive, wanting to give thanks and praise. That back-and-forth between the leader of the prayer and the ones praying is crucial. Posture, eyes, readiness to sing these acclamations – all this counts. Despite an unfortunate distance between the leader and the assembly, we can get rid of all papers and books and have eyes and all our other senses toward the table. We can sing out, by heart, the "Holy, holy" and the other acclamations. Though the spoken words of the prayer are familiar, we can try to hear them and make them our own prayer so that our "Amen" is real at the end.

Though there are in English ten different forms that this prayer can take, each weaves together some common strands. Most obvious: This is a meal prayer. God is given all thanks and praise, not in the abstract but at a table on which are the bread and wine intended for the food and drink of this assembly. So this prayer echoes with all the meal blessings we say in our lives. We grow hungry and by God's grace are fed. All that we know about giving thanks we bring to this table. Over the bread and wine the presider puts words to our thanks, and they become words about Christ.

All our thanks gravitate toward the body given up for the life of the world, toward the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, blood that was shed for all that sins might be forgiven. We call on the Holy Spirit to come upon these gifts and make them holy, make them for us the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

If we Catholics want to learn how to pray, then let us learn how to pray the eucharistic prayer. Learn how to lift up our hearts and give God thanks and praise. Learn it here, at this table, gathered close to one another, gazing at simple bread and good wine.

Every Sunday, we celebrate – this church celebrates – the eucharist. We gather, we read the scriptures together, we make prayers of intercession, then we gather gifts for the poor and the church and we prepare the table with our bread and wine. Around the table, we join in speaking and singing thanksgiving for all God's gifts, all gifts gathered in the body of Christ given for us, the blood of Christ that is shed for the forgiveness of sins. To all of this we give our firm assent, our Amen. The presider concludes, ". . . all glory and honour is yours . . . for ever and ever." Amen.

< Rev. Thomas G. Moore

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, May 27
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Philomena Lee

FRIDAY, May 30
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Jovy Villasis

For Special Intentions

For the prayers and intentions we offer in the silence of our hearts, . . . We pray to the Lord.