Last week, I introduced the Eucharistic Prayer and quoted that important line in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal that this part of the Mass is “the center and high point of the entire celebration.” (GIRM, 78)

The GIRM explains that there are seven main elements of the Eucharistic Prayer, beginning fittingly with thanksgiving.  We read the following:

The thanksgiving (expressed especially in the Preface), in which the Priest, in the name of the whole of the holy people, glorifies God the Father and gives thanks to him for the whole work of salvation or for some particular aspect of it, according to the varying day, festivity, or time of year.

(GIRM, 79)

The invitation to thanksgiving begins with that powerful exchange between celebrant and congregation which begins every Preface:

Extending his hands, he says: The Lord be with you.
The people reply:  And with your spirit.
The Priest, raising his hands, continues: Lift up your hearts.
The people:  We lift them up to the Lord.
The Priest, with hands extended, adds: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
The people: It is right and just.

Most prefaces then continue to emphasize thanksgiving with these or similar words:

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God,
through Christ our Lord.

Since this dialog and the first words of the Preface are almost always identical, we know that this is another one of those places in the Mass where we can easily fall into our routine responses, given more out of muscle memory that out of true devotion and thanksgiving.

Think about how radical these words are, though.  In our hearts, we let the priest celebrant speak on our behalf that it is “right and just” for us to give thanks “always and everywhere.”  This echoes the sentiment of St. Paul who wrote: “Rejoice always.  Pray without ceasing.  In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

When we truly enter into this prayer, we acknowledge that all that we have is a gift, and for that we thank God for His abundant generosity.  But we also thank Him for those things in our lives which we do not consider blessings – such as sufferings, disappointments, and discouragements.  But we believe what St. Paul also tells us, “that all things work for the good for those who love God.” (Rom 8:28)  We may not always feel like giving thanks to God for these things, but as we pray, so we must believe, that it is ”truly right and just” for us to do so.  And if we are having trouble reconciling that tension of saying something we do not yet fully believe, we take comfort in trusting that the gifts offered on the altar are about to be transformed into the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, so too may our half-hearted offering of thanks be transformed into a pleasing sacrifice of thanks to the Lord for everything. This includes all that He has given, and all that He has allowed in His Providence for us to experience.  For nothing is outside of the Lord’s awareness, and there is nothing He does not desire to heal and bless through His abundant generosity.  For that, we give thanks!

Father Alford     

Feast Day: November 30^th | Patronage: of Scotland, Barbados, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Patras, and Burgundy; for Fishermen, Fishmongers, Rope & Textile Makers, Singers, Butchers, Farm-Workers; Protects against Fever, Cough, Convulsions, Sore throats, and for Pregnant women | Iconography: Holding Book or Scroll (as Apostle), Leaning on Saltire (X/Diagonal Cross; from his martyrdom), With Fishing Net (as Fisherman), With Crazy White Hair (Because Making Disciples does that to you).

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

– Matthew 4:18-20

If you will, put yourself in this scene, in the sandals of Simon and Andrew. They were fishermen, living in Capernaum, going out on the Sea of Galilee to catch fish and sell them to makes ends meet. Not a particularily prominent industry, but important. Simon has a Aramaic name, but his younger brother Andrew has a Greek name, which immediately brings to mind the mix of Jews and Greeks that lived up here, as well as the Roman governors who kept an eye on things, and levied a tax on the brothers every time they caught a fish.

Then they encountered John the Baptist and these were the kind of men who took the prophetic character seriously. Something about this man from the desert – calling out sin, calling for repentance, claiming the messiah was on his way – captured their solid, hardworking, but faithful hearts. Later in the Gospels Andrew’s being practical, pragmatic, and hardy is reinforced. He’s the guy who pointed out the kid with five loaves and two fish before the multiplication in Galilee (John 6:8-9). He is also the one when Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple to push aside his horror and ask “when will this be?” (Mark 13:4) 

But it is also Andrew (with Philip, the two apostles with Greek names) who bring some Greeks who were in Jerusalem for the Passover to meet Jesus.  Now, this is right before His passion, so it displays that same pragmatic bent: “well, I don’t know what to say to them … and I know Jesus has things on His mind … but I’m just going to bring them to Him.”  BUT, this little scene brings out something else about Andrew: He invited people to meet Jesus. Here he does it with the Greeks, earlier he did it with Simon his own brother. 

And this is where I hope he can inspire and help all of us this week. He was just a fisherman, nothing special there. He had a certain practical, blue-collar, realistic approach to just about anything. Yet this does not slow him down from making disciples of those around him. He doesn’t give some glorious, convincing, engaging pitch. He doesn’t have the mind to win arguments or write epistles. He isn’t, at this beginning, working miracles or convicting sinners. He doesn’t even seem to have the closest relationship to Jesus (compared to Peter, James, or John) or have some sort of leg-up on the spiritual life. He just knows something about who Jesus is, how Jesus has called him, and he just extends the invitation to concrete people around him.

Our challenge this week: I want all of us to consider how we have come to follow Jesus, and then tell that story to one other person. Four steps (these are all from Acts 26, when St. Paul gives his testimony to Agrippa!):

1. My life before knowing Jesus intimately – What was I like socially, spiritually, emotionally before Christ impacted me? (Paul speaks about his devotion to Judaism, how it prepared, but also closed him off to Jesus.)
2. How I came to know Jesus, and His Church – What happened when I encountered Jesus (perhaps in a new, or gradual way)? Who or what brought me into deeper relationship with Jesus? (Paul talks about the road to Damascus.)
3. Life in Christ – How do I live now? What has changed inside my heart, in my actions, in my plans or dreams? (Paul tells of the dramatic conversion that happened in him and how he has now gone to preach the Gospel).
4. What next? – Speak on where Jesus continues to work in you – none of us are finished yet! But, also ask the other person for their response. What if Jesus entered their life? What if they said “yes” to Him? Where might He be inviting them?

– Fr. Dominic hasn’t got this figured out either! And neither did Andrew! But he went from just fishing, to following the messiah, to proclaiming that message to the whole world. But the key was just telling others the story of how he met the Lord. 

After preparing the altar with the gifts to be presented to the Lord, it is now time for us to enter into the Eucharistic Prayer, which the General Instruction of the Roman Missal describes as “the center and high point of the entire celebration.” (GIRM, 78) The GIRM goes on to summarize the Eucharistic Prayer in this way:

The Priest calls upon the people to lift up their hearts towards the Lord in prayer and thanksgiving; he associates the people with himself in the Prayer that he addresses in the name of the entire community to God the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the meaning of this Prayer is that the whole congregation of the faithful joins with Christ in confessing the great deeds of God and in the offering of Sacrifice. The Eucharistic Prayer requires that everybody listens to it with reverence and in silence. (GIRM, 78)

The Eucharistic Prayer, though said by the celebrant of the Mass, involves the entire congregation.  Even though we are called to “listen to it with reverence in silence”, our hearts must be active in uniting ourselves to the prayer.  While the priest is exercising his ministerial priesthood, the rest of the faithful are exercising their common, baptismal priesthood at this point.  As a priest who celebrates Mass, I know that the Eucharist is a necessary gift for me to grow in holiness, but I also know that my worthy celebration of these sacred mysteries is at the service of the congregation present, and the entire Church, both on earth and in Purgatory.  When the faithful approach their participation at Mass with an understanding that they too are priests, the same dynamic is at play.  Though we each benefit individually from the Eucharist, the exercise of our priesthood in the Mass benefits the entire Church.  This is expressed beautifully in the faithful’s response to the invitation to prayer just before the Eucharistic Prayer begins: “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our good and the good of all His holy Church.”  No pressure, but the Church is depending on you to fulfill your priesthood well, so let us not let her down!

Perhaps I can touch on a somewhat sensitive topic as I conclude this article.  You will notice, at certain masses, the priest is facing a different direction.  This is called ad orientem which translated means: “to the East.”  The east here is not necessarily true East, but what we would call liturgical East.  The directionality of this posture expresses in a visible way what is happening during the Eucharistic Prayer.  The priest along with the congregation are directing our prayers in the same direction – to God.  As a priest, during the Eucharistic Prayer, I am not addressing the people in the pews, nor are you simply watching and listening to me pray.  We are ALL praying to God, and when we are facing the same direction, that is what is being expressed.  Even when I am celebrating Mass facing the people, you may notice that I never really look at the congregation except when the prayer is directed that way.  Even though I may have many of the words memorized, I still keep my eyes focused on the Missal, on the crucifix on the altar, or the Eucharist in front of me, reminding me as the celebrant to whom I am directing my prayer.  Regardless of which way I am facing, my focus (and yours) should always be on God. 

I have heard it said that people do not like when the priest “turns his back on the people.”  Might I suggest that if that bothers you, perhaps you are focusing too much on the priest and not enough on God?  I do not mean to be insensitive with that comment, but I humbly ask you to consider what I have been trying to explain in this article and how it informs the option when a priest celebrates ad orientem.  Regardless of how you feel about it, let us all receive these words as an invitation to put our priesthood into practice more intentionally by uniting ourselves with the priest in offering all of our attention and our prayers to God.

Feast Day: November 24^th | Patronage: City of Zadar, Croatia| Iconography: Bearded, Arrayed as Roman Military Officer, Carrying emblems of Martyrdom

I want to take you on a tour today. If you walked up to the church of St. Chrysogonus in Rome, you’d see the stout, noble, façade jutting up behind the older 12^th century belltower. Stepping through the vestibule and atrium, you’ll see a classic example of a Baroque (16^th century) Roman Basilica. Ancient columns sedately separate the long nave from narrower aisles down each side of the Church and a coffered ceiling draws the eye upward while your feet are firmly planted on the exquisite comatose floor. Bl. Anna Maria Taigi’s tomb (and incorrupt body) is off to your left along with other monuments, and to the right are frescoes depicting saints and angels. If you walked forward, the ambo is perched on one of the ancient columns above a smattering of pews while the 900 year old altar is canopied by a 500 year old baldachino.

But, if you stepped into the sacristy, you’d find a staircase going down, and if you really want to see Rome, and really see this Church, you should continue down the dim and musty stairwell. As your eyes adjust, you find that you have taken several steps back in time. The City has somehow been built on top of itself over the centuries, so if you go 20 feet down, you also go 20 centuries back in time. You immediately see remnants of an earlier church which sits not quite directly under the current one. Built during the reign of Constantine, you are now standing in the first Christian Church in Rome! Before that Emperor constructed the first Cathedral on the Lateran hill, or the first Basilica over St. Peter’s bones, Christians had already built one here in this bustling section of Trestevere near to the Tiber River. It only had one big nave – no side aisles – but they did build a beautiful apse to arch over the sanctuary and decorated the walls with vivid frescoes (some still visible) over the five centuries they came to this Church. Off to the right side of this church were rooms where the priests would have vested and other things readied for the Sacred Liturgy, a sacristy in our terminology (they would have called it a “secretarium” in Latin or “pastophoria” in Greek). On the other side of the Church, we find a number of basins or pools that would have been adjacent to the body of the church. There, as the Church exploded in numbers during those first centuries, countless people would have received baptism and began to join the Christians in worship.

Two of the basins are, however, are older, even than this 3^rd century Church. They, along with two ancient sarcophagi and some of the crumbled walls, date to before Constantine, perhaps to the days when Rome was a Republic and certainly these were here when persecution raged outside. The extra basins were probably part of a fullonica, where cloth was dyed and cleaned, and the walls are those of a home standing here before the Church was built. Inside that home, Christians would have come to spend the Lord’s day together, celebrating the liturgy, eating and praying and reverencing those martyred. Probably someone would have shared the story of St. Chrysogonus, the Roman military officer who prized his service to Christ over his service to Diocletian, and was killed for it. Most of our stories about him indicate he lived up in northern Italy, though his being so celebrated here in Rome may indicate that he, or a similar martyr, actually lived nearby. Certainly, his story inspired many, because when this group decided to risk building the first Christian Church in a city where Christianity wasn’t yet legal, they entrusted it, and themselves, to his patronage.

He’s also a perfect patron for the Trinitarians who care for the Church today, a religious order that offered themselves in ransom for Christians captured by the Moors.

– Fr. Dominic went to visit this Church every year while he studied in Rome on Monday of the 5^th Week of Lent. Each day of Lent is dedicated to a different ancient Roman Church and people will go there for Mass on that day, so the Basilica of St. Chrysogonus was always our destination this last week before Holy Week. Though we don’t have 40 such Churches to do the same all throughout Lent, our practice of traveling to 7 different churches here in Springfield on the Evening of Holy Thursday to visit the altars of repose is a miniature version of this idea of practicing pilgrimage during the season of Lent (this “7 Church Walk” was an idea revived and made popular by St. Philip Neri.)

In 2011, when the new English translation of the Roman Missal, 3^rd Edition, was introduced, there were several changes to which the priests and people had to adjust.  Of all of the changes that I had to learn as a priest, one of my favorite changes came at the conclusion of the Presentation of the Gifts, just before the Prayer Over the Gifts.  The new words (which are now not so new) said by the priest are as follows:  “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”

The previous translation only mentioned “our sacrifice.”  There is clearly a difference in the sacrifice that I, as a priest, offer, and the sacrifice that you, as member of the congregation, offer.  But those two sacrifices are joined together into the one sacrifice that the priest offers on behalf of the congregation.  So the question that I pose to you is this:  what is your sacrifice?  To be sure, the physical offering that you offered at the collection is not insignificant, but in some ways, that sacrifice is ordered to the mission of the Church, which is generally done outside of the liturgy in providing for the needs of the poor and other activities at the service of the building of the Kingdom.  The sacrifice that I am accepting and offering on your behalf is for the here and now of the Mass.  So what should that sacrifice look like?  One of our priests recently offered a beautiful explanation of the sacrifice offered in union with the sacrifice of the priest:

Just as bread is formed from many grains of wheat and the wine is formed from many crushed grapes, the various aspects of our lives – our joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams, frustrations and contentment – can all be offered to God as the one offering of our lives.  In the quiet of our hearts we can offer these various aspects of our lives together with the bread and wine in such a way that they truly become our sacrifice.  We can, in a certain sense, place ourselves on the paten and in the chalice and offer ourselves to the Father, just as Christ Jesus offered himself to the Father.

I find this idea of consciously making a sacrifice of ourselves at Mass one of the keys to unlocking a deeper meaning to our participation in Mass.  So much of the Liturgy of the Word can feel passive, in that we are receiving nourishment from the Word of God.  At this point, we are invited to be active in making an offering of our sacrifice.  But so often, we tend to stay in that passive mode of participating.  Sure, we may make the responses to the various prayers, sitting, standing, and kneeling at the proper times, but if we are not consciously choosing to unite our hearts and indeed our very lives, our participation in the Mass can become superficial. 

In a previous article in this series, I had reflected on the comment that is sometimes made by people about the Mass, namely that they do not feel like they get anything out of the Mass, to which I often respond: “What are you putting into the Mass?”  Consider carefully again the words of the priest at this point: “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”  So I ask the question I raised earlier – what is your sacrifice?  Do not let another Mass go by without consciously offering that acceptable sacrifice of your entire self to the Lord.

Ask Father: Since the State of Illinois officially promotes abortion, transgenderism, LGBT Pride and other immoral practices as a matter of policy, should Catholics avoid State employment or seek other employment if they currently work for the state?

Your question is one that is very timely, and one that will become more pressing as more government agencies and corporations officially promote practices that are contrary to our faith. Bear with me as I give a brief summary of moral theology. As the Catechism teaches, “Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them” (CCC 1868). Sounds simple, right? However, cooperating in sin can be quite a complicated process. There are different levels of cooperation in evil, some of which are unavoidable.

The first kind of cooperation in evil is called formal cooperation, and this is always immoral. Formal cooperation means that a person approves of an action, advises others to do an action, or praises an evil action. Even if the person is not involved in the action, this approval is an offense against God and our faith. The second category of cooperation is called material cooperation – when a person contributes something to a process, whether or not he intends the evil to happen. Material cooperation is sometimes sinful and sometimes allowable, based on how close this cooperation is to the event itself. To the extent that it is possible, we should do our best to contribute to good actions and not bad actions. However, society is a tangled web of cause and effect, and it is impossible to completely free ourselves from material cooperation in evil.

We pay taxes to federal, state, and local governments. As you said in your question, our government officially endorses and practices many things that are contrary to our faith. Thus, our tax dollars are sometimes being used for evil. However, that is something that is (mostly) out of our control. We can’t control when our government unjustly wastes billions of dollars or buys condoms or guns for groups around the world. Similarly, the workers at the local power plant can’t control the fact that the abortion facility runs on power that they produce. This is all material cooperation, but a cooperation that is unavoidable and not sinful for us as taxpayers, although it certainly is sinful for those with the authority make these spending decisions.

Now, there are also times when our cooperation in evil is avoidable and should be avoided, even at great personal cost. It can be helpful to ask the question, “How closely associated am I with this evil action?” and “how essential is my cooperation to this evil which is happening?” The closer one is (morally, not just geographically) to evil, the higher the chance that such participation becomes sinful.

Based on these principles, it is morally permissible for Catholics to be employed by the state in good conscience. In fact, the Church encourages her members to be involved with their governments as much as possible to help contribute to a just society. There are certain things that Catholics certainly cannot partake in. If a Catholic works for the state as an accountant, and they are assigned the task of processing all of the state-funded abortions, I would advise them to ask for another position and explain to their superior why they cannot do that job for the state. In this situation, the participation is closely tied to the evil action itself. A similar scenario could be imagined in a hospital that performs abortions or sterilizations. Good Catholics could work at that hospital and contribute to the common good, but they should not be involved in the immoral procedures themselves, and do their best to express their beliefs as to why they cannot partake in these operations. It would be better to lose one’s job than be a willing participant in an abortion or sterilization procedure.

In short, we need good Catholics to be a part of our government to help turn the tide. Some government actions are immoral, and Catholics cannot willingly participate in those actions. A well-formed conscience helps us to make these judgments based on the principles of our faith. Some situations are a grey area and require research and direction from the Church. Don’t be afraid to ask for guidance if you find yourself unable to determine what is right. Jesus said that we are the light of the world. If we do not stand up for what is right, then who will?