Update on Sacraments 5 August

Our Sacramental preparation programs and the celebration of the Sacraments were put on hold in March. In theory we never stopped doing Funerals, Weddings, and Baptisms, but the severe restriction on number of people allowed to attend meant that most of these were postponed. We are now catching up on Baptisms, but only one family at a time. We are doing Funerals with the same restrictions as Sunday Mass. Preparation for First Communion and Confirmation will resume when the current requirements for social distancing are eased. I have no information on when that will be.

It is they who will turn to you

Marcus Grodi, host of The Journey Home on EWTN, also does a podcast called Deep in Scripture.  The format varies, but  Marcus will sometimes comment on 'the verse I never saw.' By this he means a verse or passage of scripture that he has read countless times, but which he never really noticed. All of us who regularly read the Bible have had that experience. It happened to me as I was reading a familiar passage from the prophet Jeremiah. The Lord is speaking to Jeremiah, who is feeling dejected because the people are refusing to listen to him. The Lord says to Jeremiah: "It is they who will turn to you; not you who will turn to them."

In my last post I quoted Etienne Gilson: "We are continually tempted to diminish or adapt our truth, in order to lessen the distance which separates our ways of thinking from those of the world." This temptation is real. In fact we see it every day when people of faith, sometimes even Priests and Bishops, bend the knee to the latest fashionable ideology. How lightly they take the words of Christ: "Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed."

These are troubled times. Like Jeremiah we need to stand firm in the faith, even if we must stand alone. "It is they who will turn to you; not you who will turn to them."

Update Tuesday 4 August

Nothing has changed since the last update. Some weekday Masses may be cancelled in August since it is still not practical to arrange for a visiting priest to fill in for me when I am away. We may change the Sunday Mass times beginning August 30th, but until then our schedule remains the same.

Weekday Mass Times

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 8:00 am and 7:00 pm, with Holy Hour and confession at 6:00 pm

Friday 12:10 pm

Saturday 9:00 am

Sunday Mass Times

Saturday, 5:00 pm, with confession at 4:00 pm

Sunday 8:30 am, 10:30 am, 12:30 pm.

P.S. You may have noticed that my voice sometimes gets hoarse during Mass. A couple of years ago I lost my voice completely for six days, and since then it occasionally gives me trouble. It is a nuisance but not a worry.

The Prophetic Ministry

I have strong personal judgements about many current events in the Church and in the world. For example, I certainly have 'views' on the Vatican's concordat with the Chinese Communist Party. I have 'views' about the Wuhan virus and social violence. However personally satisfying it would be to go off on a rant about these things, that is not my job. St. Paul says that there are many ministries in the Church. Thank God for those who have the ministry to speak out boldly about current events. They truly have a ministry of prophecy in the Church.

This week, in the reading from Isaiah at Mass we heard this: "If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all." This is the prophetic voice speaking loud and clear to us in our present circumstances. Stand firm in the faith! Everything must be evaluated in the light of the Gospel, because Christ is the measure of every time and culture. Stat crux dum volvitur orbis: the Cross stands firm, while the world turns.

Pope John Paul II, in his book 'Crossing the Threshold of Hope', wrote:

Against the spirit of the world, the Church takes up anew each day a struggle that is none other than the struggle for the world’s soul. If in fact, on the one hand, the Gospel and evangelization are present in this world, on the other, there is also present a powerful anti-evangelization which is well organized and has the means to vigorously oppose the Gospel.

The Gospel is not a promise of easy success. The Gospel does not promise a comfortable life to anyone. It makes demands and, at the same time, it is a great promise — the promise of eternal life for man, and the promise of victory through faith for man, who is subject to many trials and setbacks. The Gospel contains a fundamental paradox: to find life, one must lose life; to be born, one must die; to save oneself, one must take up the cross. This is the essential truth of the Gospel.

Always and everywhere the Gospel will be a challenge to human weakness. But precisely in this challenge lies all its power. Man feels the inner need to transcend himself. Only in transcending himself does man become fully human.

Update Wednesday 14 July

Re Sunday Mass, we still have empty seats at 8:30 am and 12:30 pm Masses; and at all weekday Masses, especially 8:00 am.

Please note that some weekday Masses will be cancelled this summer. In normal times I would have a visiting priest fill in for me when I am away, but these are not normal times. I will make any announcement a week ahead of time at Mass.

At evening Mass on weekdays we will use the prayers and readings of the day.

Update Wednesday 8 July

Because of social distancing, seating capacity in the Church is limited, BUT we still have many empty seats at Sunday 8:30 am and 12:30 pm Masses, and at all the weekday Masses (morning and evening).

Sacrament of Confession:
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: 6:00 - 6:50 pm (Mass at 7:00).
Saturday: 4:00 - 4:50 pm (Mass at 5:00).

Christ is the measure of every culture

In my homily on Sunday I quoted Etienne Gilson, one of the great Catholic philosophers of the 20th century, from an essay written in 1936, entitled ‘The Intelligence in the Service of Christ’:

“We know that the battle of good against evil will end only with the world itself. What is more serious is that paganism may ceaselessly try to penetrate within Christianity itself, as in the time of Pelagius, and may succeed in the attempt. That is a never ending danger for us and one which we can avoid only with great difficulty. To live as Christians, to feel as Christians, to think as Christians in a society which is not Christian, when we see, hear, and read almost nothing which does not offend or contradict Christianity; when especially life places an obligation on us, and charity often gives us the duty of not making a visible break with the ideas and customs that we reprove, all that is difficult and hardly possible. That is also the reason why we are continually tempted to diminish or adapt our truth, in order to lessen the distance which separates our ways of thinking from those of the world, or indeed, and sometimes in all sincerity, in the hope of rendering Christianity more acceptable to the world and of seconding its work of salvation.”

Those words are just as pertinent today as when they were written. In fact, they could have been written at any time, because they describe the perennial vocation of the Christian, which is to be counter-cultural. It is not easy to live as a Christian in a non-Christian world, but as the Letter to Diognetus says: “God has assigned us such a high position, and we are not allowed to abandon it.”

Pope John Paul II said much the same thing when he called for a ‘new evangelization’ for the third millennium:

“The new evangelization does not consist of a new gospel. Neither does it involve removing from the Gospel whatever seems difficult for the modern mentality to accept. Culture is not the measure of the Gospel, but it is Jesus Christ who is the measure of every culture and every human action. The new evangelization has as its point of departure the certitude that in Christ there are 'unsearchable riches' which no culture nor era can exhaust, and which we must bring to people in order to enrich them. These riches are, first of all, Christ himself, his person, because he himself is our salvation.”