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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 19, 1987)
A Page 2 • Faith Today A 'practice session' for love By Father Alfred McBride, O.Praem. NC News Service L ike all couples, Joan and Mark of Wichita love to show their friends pic tures of their wedding. They have a special affec tion for the scene showing them exchanging their vows at their wedding Mass. They enjoyed par ticipating in preparations for their wedding Eucharist and still recall the details vividly. In Dubuque. Lisa and Roy hosted a cookout for friends after the bap tism of their daughter, Bernadette. They are saving the baptismal can dle and white baptismal robe to help her appreciate what her bap tism means when she is old enough to know. Father Pat in Florida was ordain ed at St. Mary Major’s in Rome. Fie is fond of celebrating his ordination anniversaries (the eighth is coming up) with priest friends. Fie never misses a chance to attend an or dination. “When I see the bishop place his hands on the heads of the candidates, 1 relive my own ordina tion and am filled again with the mystery and the gift,” he said. When Doreen's mother died, Doreen felt lost. It had come so suddenly that she had no time to absorb it or go through some of the grief stages. She said the first time she came to grips with her mother’s death was at the funeral liturgy. The chants, the ritual, the presence of friends, the familiarity with the Eucharist, the consoling words of the homily put death in a perspective of faith that had been hard to achieve up to then. The sacraments are there when Catholics are “hatched, matched and dispatched.” That may be too light a way of speaking about moments of divine lov e and care. But from birth to maturing to mar riage to death, the sacraments ac company each person through the passages and stages of life. The sacrament that touches all Catholics the most is the Eucharist. It is the Catholic’s regular oppor tunity for worship and spiritual growth. When the prophet Elijah became so discouraged with his work that he resolved to forget the whole thing, he threw himself against the trunk of a tree and went to sleep. Fie was tired, hungry, frustrated and annoyed with God. The sleep refreshed him. While he slept an angel placed a loaf of bread beside him. When the prophet awoke, he saw the bread that had come from the “heavenly bakery.” He ate the bread and ex perienced a vigor he had not known for a long time. The future did not look so bleak anymore. Then, as the biblical account puts it, he walked 40 days and 40 nights empowered by the bread of God. People today' still derive strength from regular participation in the liturgy. Churchgoing Catholics par ticipate in 60 or more eucharistic liturgies each year. A typical Catholic may engage in more than 5.000 Eucharists in a lifetime. At the Eucharist, Christ feeds us with his love. When a person feels loved, he or she also feels forgiven. That is why we speak of saving love when we speak of the Eucharist, for the celebration makes present the saving love of the cross and the resurrection. It is common enough for preachers to urge people to love. Less often do they invite people to accept love. They forget that many people are afraid to be loved. Peo ple have been hurt too much, betrayed too often. Liturgy won’t work very well if the participants don’t go out of themselves to join the others in the community, to help open everyone’s hearts to the love being offered. Liturgical spirituality speaks to the best in what is human about us. Our need to be loved. Our hunger for community. Our desire for God. Our vocation to love in return. Weekly Eucharist is a prac tice session for daily loving and be ing loved. (Father McBride is a well-known religious educator ad lecturer.) Liturgy was their By Father John Castelot NC News Service ntiochus IV, ruler of Syria-Palestine in the se cond century B.C., was in a rage. As a represen- • tative of the Greek em pire founded by Alexander the Great, he was determined to im pose Greek culture on all his sub jects. He was generally successful, with one glaring exception: The Jews refused to become “Greek.” Oh, some Jews were only too happy to go along with the new trend but there was a hard core of resisters and they infuriated Antiochus. He was well aware that the Jewish religion was the reason for their obstinacy. So he launched the first religious persecution in recorded history. People who had their sons circumcised, observed the Sabbath or were found with copies of the Scriptures in their possession were executed. His agents went through the towns setting up pagan altars and forcing inhabitants to offer sacrifice to Greek divinities. In one town, Modein, many Jews were terrorized into comply ing with the tyrant’s orders. But Mattathias adamantly refused. He became so infuriated when a fellow Jew approached the pagan altar that he killed him on the spot, slew the governor’s agent and tore down the altar. Next Mattathias rallied a group of supporters and, with his sons as leaders, started a resistance movement which eventually defeated the forces of the op pressor. Most of his sons, the Mac cabees, died in the struggle. To many people these actions of the Jews seem like senseless fanaticism. Why didn’t they just adopt Greek culture with all its greatness? ■I But what was at stake was the very identity of a people. Antiochus may have been neurotic but he was no fool. He knew that the religion of the Jews and especially their liturgy was their very life. To crush it was to crush them. Their religion, their liturgy, was not just something they did periodically; it was what they were. Rooted in their national history, the liturgical celebrations, like Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, kept that history forever alive. Their whole system of justice was based on the law. What they ate and drank was strictly regulated. To abandon all this would have meant self-destruction as a people. The Old Testament prophets portested vehemently when there was any threat that liturgy and life would become separated among the people — when the people's lives were practical denials of who they really were. Jesus continued that prophetic tradition. Thus we hear him say in Matthew’s Gospel: “If you bring your gift to the altar and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift at the altar, go first to be reconciled with your brother and then come” (Matthew 5:23-24). Or we hear St. Paul reminding his readers of the identity they took on through baptism: “All of you who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourselves with him.. .All are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27-28). (Father Castelot is a professor of Scripture at St. John’s Seminary, Plymouth, Mich.) FOOD... Faith Today • Page 3 *: \ MX % Is. r v Go forth among the people By Katharine Bird NC News Service A friend told me once Hbw difficult he found it to relate to the homeless people he encounters _ while walking to work. Sometimes he has to fight the urge to cross the street to avoid the outstretched hand and the plea for “a coin or two.” At the same time, he admitted that his reaction bothered him a. lot. It didn't fit with his beliefs as a Christian. Gradually he learned to overcome his discomfort by reminding himself that every " human being has dignity and deserves to be treated with respect. Now he looks homeless* individuals in the eye when they approach him and keeps some coins in his pocket to help them. My friend’s experience impress ed me considerably, perhaps because it hit a familiar chord. For many people, it is difficult to deal with those who are “different,” whether it is a homeless or han dicapped person, a drug abuser or a person of another race. Too often “different” people are ig nored or avoided. It also was apparent that my * friend had grown in the process. He had become a more compas sionate Christian. His experience is an illustratiorf of how people usually grow: not in isolation from one another but with each other. Growth comes, often painfully and slowly, precisely through struggles with others. That same lesson is taught at .every liturgy. “The key to growing spiritually as Christians is seeing ourselves as involved significantly in a journey with others,” said Neil Parent. “It is by walking with them that we grow.” He is representative for adult education at the U S. Catholic Conference in Washington, D C. A number of symbolic actions at the Sunday liturgy remind the church’s people that they “are linked to each other,” he said. In his parish, for example, parishioners hold hands during the Our Father. Celebrating the liturgy together tells people they “are committed to the same spiritual path of discipleship in Jesus and of loving service to each other,” Parent said. The liturgy reminds them to support each other and that they can turn to each other for help. “I’ve had lots of experiences where people in Renew or adult education programs refer back to the liturgy as an occasion of in sight and grace and motivation,” Parent added. Most often people refer to the homily as the place in the liturgy where “their awareness of themselves as Christians is stretch ed.” he said. People say they received an insight into Scripture that they had never thought of before. What can happen then, Parent continued, is that the rest of the liturgy helps people “to mull over how the insight applies to their lives.” Sometimes a simple notice read in a parish bulletin after the liturgy can lead parishioners down unex pected pathways into occasions of grace and growth. In one parish, two couples — longtime friends — responded to a notice that a Vietnamese refugee family moving into their Midwestern parish needed spon sors. In the two years since, the couples have discovered how complicated, unsettling and time- consuming it can be to help refugees adjust to a new home, new schools and new jobs. But serving as sponsors also has brought some unexpected rewards: a deeper grasp of what friendship is and a sharpen ed appreciation for the richness in another culture. And in helping the refugees cope with numerous crises, the two couples have grown by learning to be more compassionate, resourceful and patient. (Ms. Bird is associate editor of Faith Today.) “The service of others through word and deed that marks the public life of Jesus is a reminder to us that the solidarity of the hu man family has been rad ically deepened. It has been given a transcendent aim that ennobles all our human efforts for justice and peace. .. I appeal to all of you, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, to see the face of a brother or sister in every human being” (Pope John Paul II in his message for the 1987 World Day of Peace). Often the church’s liturgy is viewed as something “added on" to life — life’s Sunday “layer,” perhaps. Like frosting on a cake, the Mass sweetens life and makes it more attractive. But viewed this way, the Mass re mains outside the normal course of events; the Mass has the status of something extra — something extra good. There is another way to perceive the church’s liturgy, however. According to this view, the liturgy is more like yeast than like frosting. It works to form people from within and to make them what they are. When perceived this way, the Mass is not outside the normal course of life’s events. It is the action to which the church’s people are naturally drawn and ...for discussion As you see it, how does the eucharistic celebration on Sunday set the tone for your life during the rest of the week? What are some ways that the spirit of sacrifice can make an impact on the ordinary events of life? Practically speaking, how does one give for the sake of others? What impact can be made on the rest of one’s life by the spirit of community in the Eucharist? Why does Pope John Paul II encourage people to learn to recognize the face of a brother or a sister in others? Why does he say that doing so has transcendent meaning? Father Herbert Weber says that the Eucharist is communal by its very nature. What does he mean? ...for thought through which they naturally ex press themselves. And viewed this way, the Mass is more than helpful, though it is certainly that. It sets the tone for the rest of the week’s days. •The exchange of peace during the celebration of the Mass sets the tone for lifestyles that create true peace. •The goods of the earth’s harvest — bread and wine — brought up to the altar and of fered there set the tone for a life throughout the week that pro tects God’s creation and attempts to make it fruitful. •The spirit of sacrifice in the Mass sets a tone for a life in . which one genuinely gives for the sake of others. •The presence of Christ in the Mass sets the tone for a life given its focus by Christ. Finally, think for a moment how the spirit of community during the Eucharist sets the tone for a lifestyle in which “the face of a brother or sister” can be recognized in every human being. This ability to recognize the face of a brother or sister at every point has been given a “transcendent” aim, Pope John Paul II believes; it is Christlike. Moreover, it helps to create true peace in families as well as in whole societies. “Look into the eyes of another person,” the pope urges, and see there “the hopes and anxieties of a brother or sister.” SECOND HELPINGS Emmanuel: The Magazine of Eucharistic Spirituality is edited by Blessed Sacrament Father Eugene Laverdiere and publish ed 10 months a year by the Blessed Sacrament Fathers. “Faith calls us to awareness of the whole Christ,” writes Aux iliary Bishop Robert Morneau of Green Bay, Wis., in the Dec ember-1986 issue. “God comes in Jesus. Jesus comes himself and also through our sisters and brothers: I was naked, hungry, alone, abandoned, lost, afraid, sick, imprisoned.” In his brief reflection, the bishop says that Jesus is “passing by now in the starving child, in the exile, in the rejected wife or husband, in the despairing patient, in the artist alone in the loft, in the politician seeking the common good.” The Christian has the task of looking for Jesus in others and finding ways to help. (Emmanuel, 5384 Wilson Mills Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44143. Single copy, $2. Annual subscription, $18.)
