The Virtual Oratory

From Ashes to Easter

What Sunday cycle are you on? The commentary here will be Cycle C. This is the LUKE cycle. Other places will retain the A cycle because of the RCIA program.

Ash Wednesday: Sins of omission and commission! As Christians we have not managed diversity and unity. Nor have we kept the treasures of our tradition while at the same time being open to the new applications that a living tradition requires.

Devotionalism, not a bad thing in itself, still separates itself from the Scriptures and the celebration of the Eucharist. I (HW) when at Holy Trinity, had first Friday all night eucharistic devotion but it definitely has dangers. I kept a bulletin promoting Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament where one parishioner wrote that there was "no better" way to spend an hour than in adoration of the exposed Sacrament. This is heresy of course! The actual celebration of the Eucharist is the best  hour. But with what? Poor preaching, music, and all those other people around??? 

We have the challenge of the Second Vatican Council but that is hardly new. The liturgical revival has been going on since Pius X!! Still I heard a well educated Sister say that she could not do without  Holy Communion but that she did not need the Mass. 

 For your pencance read Fr. Howell's OF SACRAMENTS AND SACRIFICE or even before him Pius Parsch. 

 Third Sunday

In cycle C, there is a call for more manure around the tree that has not produced fruit. Otherwise the tree will be cut down. 

So Lent is about more fertilizer. I think of Pope John XXIII who said that he saw everything, overlooked a great deal, and corrected a little. He was patient. 

 Second Sunday

The transfiguration challenges us in all kinds of ways. First of all, why Moses and Elijah. The Elijah story is the very model of the story of Jesus. It is Jesus that leads a new people like Moses did. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy the most. The sermons of Moses in that book as the people move through the desert founds the ministry of Jesus and our life in Jesus. 

First Sunday of Lent

Mark says Jesus was "kicked" or driven out into the desert. Matthew says Jesus was led. Luke says he was full of the Holy Spirit and went into the desert. Luke is the gospel of the Holy Spirit so!!!!

It is easy (???) for us to say that bread is not that important. But power and easy solutions are more common and seductive.

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Just a reminder about Blessed John XXIII

There could not be a better example of the Pope as a real servant of the servants than John XXIII. So Mark 10: 46-52 shines in that face. Then the 25th we read about the blind beggar calling out Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Mercy on me is better than pity me...because the expression in Greek, Kyrie Eleison, has made it into the liturgy and great musicians including the devout Lutheran J.S. Bach, have turned it into wonderful music. 

And the Kyrie is a humble reminder of a once united Church that spoke Greek from east to west, read the Bible in Greek, and celebrated the liturgy in Greek. The west only went to Latin because the shifting populations caused by the barbarian invasions had lost Greek (and access to the Bible written in Greek and the liturgy). Latin became the language of the Mass in the west because that was the language understood by everyone. The liturgical disaster of private Masses celebrated in near silence (very low voice) excluding the people and rarely sung is something we have had a long time recovering from. We could profit by a review of these bishops pictured opposite as they in council started to experience a dialogue Mass in Latin (not then a silent Mass and one in which everyone participated...not just the altar boy and priest. It was a revelation for them. We thank God for the great things we have SEEN and HEARD as the liturgy was restored in our own time. 

October 11, 2009

28th Sunday

This fantastic cover photo...original in color caught the great spirit of this holy pastor. 

It was taken right after his election as he greeted the cardinals who had just elected him. 

A few years later he would call the Council. His baptismal name was Giuseppe...Joseph. When he received a group of rabbis he stepped down from his chair and rushed to greet them saying, "I am Joseph, your brother!" The words are from the bible, Genesis 45,  when Joseph greeted his long lost brothers with love and reconciliation. 

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Brother Roger, pictured here when young, was a Protestant pastor who founded a unique religious community made of members from different churches. He started with only a few brothers in a tiny village in Burgundy France, far far from anywhere...for 20 years they carried on as a community of hospitality and prayer. Each brother stayed in his own church. Gradually they adapted their monastic prayer, keeping the basic structure but simplifying it and using lovely unaccompanied music. Gradually tens of thousands of young people came there to pray, eat lousy food, endure cold showers, and sit on the floor. Who would have thought that a way to do youth ministry. But Roger and the Brothers of Taize exemplified Mark 7 and therefore...

This picture meant a lot to many saints...it is a version of the veil of Veronica...who wiped the face of Jesus on the via crucis. Veronica is a legendary name...it means true icon, true picture. When beginners are taught to paint icons this is the first one they paint...this is what God looks like! Hard to make an idol out of this...who wants the man of sorrows for a picture of God? 

After the fall of the Communist government, my East German Oratorian friend whose youth group participated in the demonstrations, asked for his secret police file. The papers from 1985-1989 were missing...but there were files before that. He found among other things that other disciples...three priests, one of them a liturgy professor in the seminary (very big joke here about how disconnected liturgy folks are), were among those spying on him and his youth group. 

This is St Benedict with Scholastica, his sister. She wants him to stay and keep talking. He wants to go back to the monastery because his own Rule says monks should not stay over night with a nun, even if she is his sister. Scholastica prays, a storm come up and Benedict has to stay...

Ade Bethune...pronounced Aidah Beth-hoon...was an oblate of St Benedict. She did the Catholic Worker logo and many other wood cuts. 

 The first day of creation...Pentecost...another day of creation...the Spirit of God still hovering over us and...

This is German expressionist Nolde's Pentecost. Looks just about right to me...after 35 years of parish meetings!!! But still the Spirit...lightens us up. 

A halo? Yes, I think so. Only it is us inside that over there in the corner of a galaxy...The best we can do to expose the awe, bliss, the transformation, of creation, recreation, resurrection, transformation, light in darkness. 

How deep did the wounds go? Why did they not disappear with Easter? Our good Fridays like the Good Friday of Jesus is transformed not eliminated. We can touch the wounds of the risen Lord. We can recognize him from those wounds. Everything that has happened to us is precious.