A few years ago, I heard a story of a priest in another diocese who get in some trouble with his bishop because of he was improvising the prayers of the Mass.  There was a lot of pushback from the faithful who felt that the bishop’s treatment of the priest was unfair.  What was the big deal if he was making some adaptations to the Mass?  While I do not pretend to know all of the details of the case, it does bring up an important point, one that I mentioned in last week’s bulletin article.  The prayers of the Mass have been given to us by the Church and all of us – priests and laity, have a responsibility to be faithful to what has been handed down to us.  We are not masters of the liturgy, we are its servants.  It has been passed down to us by Christ Himself through the authority of the Church which He Himself has conferred. 

In that regard, it is important to acknowledge that it is ultimately the responsibility of the bishop of a diocese to ensure that the worship of the Eucharist is observed faithfully, and if there is any abuse of which he is made aware, he has the duty to address it.  The faithful deserve to have the Mass celebrated for them as the Church intends.  And while there may be different elements of the liturgy that may vary, such as music, tone of voice, directionality in prayer, the prayers of the Mass, particularly the Eucharistic Prayer, are to be followed, both as an expression of obedience to the Church and in giving proper glory to God.

 At every celebration of the Mass, the celebrant will mention the names of the Pope and the local bishop.  This is a significant point of the Eucharistic Prayer for both the celebrant and the laity.  For the celebrant, as mentioned above, it is a reminder of the communion he should have with the Church, expressed in a visible way through his relationship with his bishop, on whose behalf he collaborates in ministry in the diocese, and with the Pope, the visible sign of unity of Catholics throughout the world.  It is an opportunity for him to be praying for these two key individuals who are essential to his identity as a priest, as one who is not a lone ranger, but who is united with his brother priests in the diocese and throughout the world.  For the faithful at Mass, the mention of the Pope and local bishop is a similar reminder, that as Catholics, our identity is much broader than the parish to which we belong.  To be sure, we should have a great love and commitment to our local parish, but a parish is never an isolated entity.  It exists in communion with the other parishes of the diocese and throughout the world.  The Pope and the bishops serve as visible reminders of the unity that must always exist.

A key aspect of our being Catholic is having this understanding of being in communion with other Catholics throughout our diocese and throughout our world.  This is an area where I believe we are in need of continual conversion.  Even if we do not always agree with something that Pope or the bishop has said or done, let us not let that be a reason for us to weaken our communion with them, and as a result, with one another.  Jesus says in the Gospel that “a house divided against itself will stand.” (Mt. 12:25)  If we are not praying for unity in the Church on a regular bases, both locally and universally, , now is a time to start.  And there is no better way to do so than when the Pope and local bishop are mentioned in the Eucharistic Prayer at every Mass.  

Father Alford     

Answer:  In the weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday, it is not uncommon to see old, dried palms show up in the Atrium.  These palms are typically from the previous year’s Palm Sunday masses.

Let’s address the first question.  What do we do with old palms?  The answer to this can apply to a whole host of blessed items.  When something is blessed, it is to be used for devotional purposes.  If the item breaks, wears out, or it no longer usable, then the question arises as to how best to dispose of those items?  The tradition response is that these items should either be burned or buried.  An article I read on this topic offers a nice explanation as to why this practice is observed: “The tradition of returning blessed items to the Earth stems from the idea that an object sanctified in God’s name should be returned to God, much like the way a person is buried and returned to the earth.”

So when it comes to palms, what should we do with them?  In the late 1800’s, the Church issues a few different decisions on how to dispose of blessed items.  Among them was a directive on what to do with blessed palms.  It directed that palms are to be burned, and the ashes then used for distribution on Ash Wednesday or returned to the ground.

Here is where the second question comes in.  What do we do with all of those palms that people drop off at the Church?  First of all, we are not asking anybody to drop old, blessed palms off, people just do it, likely for the reason I mentioned above regarding Ash Wednesday.  Now, I hope this does not disappoint or scandalize you, but we do not burn those blessed palms in order to make ashes to be distrusted on Ash Wednesday.  We have a bucket full of ash, from which we extract a small amount each year.  Based on it’s current capacity, I would guess we have ashes for a decade or two!  So, when we get these palms, we usually just burn them in the fire at the Easter Vigil, then those ashes are placed in the ground.

So, if you still have palms, and are wondering what to do with them, I would encourage you to consider burning them outside at your home and then burying the ashes in the ground.  If you bring them to us, we will eventually burn them, but we certainly do not require any of those palms for making ashes for Ash Wednesday.  So if you do not absolutely need to bring them to us, then please take care of them in the way mentioned above.

Feast Day: February 11^th 

So I went deep down a Wikipedia rabbit hole researching “Jones” this week. One of my cousins had her first baby about two weeks ago, the baptism being last Sunday down on Maxwell Airforce Base (she and her husband are in the Airforce), and they named him Jones. I had certainly heard the name before, but almost exclusively as a last-name/surname. So, off I went on a deep-dive into human language, names, and etymology. To save you from a similar investigation: Jones itself originally comes from the Welsh version of “Johnson”, which, as you  may be able to tell without perusing many articles on the subject, is a last-name for somebody who was the son of John. (Many surnames are like this, the father’s name with something added indicating “son-of”, like “Wil-son”, “Fitz-Gerald”, “O-Connor”, or “Rodríg-uez”. Another common way to derive a surname is from occupation [e.g. “Miller”, “Eisenhower”] or location [e.g. “Hamilton”, “Stone”]).

Of course, our rabbit hole now turns to the name “John”, which originally comes from the Hebrew name “Y’hohanan”, a name summarizing the phrase “YHWH is Merciful”. It shows up throughout the Old Testament though it grew greatly in popularity after one of the five Maccabean brothers had that name. Two of the most famous New Testament figures, John the Baptist and John the Apostle, indicate the name’s popularity in Our Lord’s day, and it only grew more widespread as Christian parents chose those saints as patrons for their baby boys. And now you can find versions of this name all over the world: Arabic: يوحنا / Yūḥannā, Chinese: 約翰 / Yuēhàn, Danish: Hans or Johannes, French: Jean, Georgian: იოანე / Ioane, … I think you get the picture!

But … this leads us to that enigmatic name of God, technically called the “tetragrammaton” (Greek meaning “four letters”), the four Hebrew letters: Yod [י], He [ה], Waw [ו], and He [ה], rendered in our Latin alphabet as “YHWH”. This is the name that God gives for Himself while speaking to Moses at the burning bush.

¹³ Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

[Exodus 3:13-15]

Whenever you see God referred to as the “Lord” (all capitals) in the Bible, that is an indication that originally the text had this four-letter Divine Name (יהוה / YHWH). To respect and keep holy God’s name, Jews will never articulate it, speaking instead another word such as “Adonai” (Lord) or “Elohim” (God), a practice maintained when one of our bible translations uses “LORD”. (With the same respect, notice that the name “Y’hohanan” itself abridges God’s name to just its first two letters.) As God Himself describes, His name means “He Who is.” Scholars debate endlessly on the topic, but we’re going to trust the LORD on the right interpretation of His name. “H-Y-H” in Ancient Hebrew is the basic infinitive “to be”, and by adding the prefix “Y-”, you make it third-person: “He [Who] is.” 

You might think this has little to do with St. Jonas … and you’d be right. St. Jonas was a little-known monk who became a saint by praying the psalms while making rope for one of St. Pochomius’ monasteries in the Egyptian desert (St. Pochomius an emulator of the famous St. Anthony of the Desert). Sadly, hilariously for me, “Jonas”, derives from the Hebrew name “Jonah” (like the prophet), and probably has no connection to the name “John”. Most scholars think that it simply means “dove”, perhaps linking it to other related words which add a character of flightiness or instability.

Fr. Dominic can only laugh at having followed the wrong trail for so long in investigating today’s saint. Happily, Jonah – both the prophet and the monk – in the end still chose to follow the LORD. Happily for us, we also can always choose Christ no matter which path we’ve gotten ourselves onto thus far.