In last week’s article, I introduced the theme that I hope to focus on for the new few months, that of delving more deeply into our understanding and appreciation of our greatest prayer, which is the Mass.    I indicated that my first reflection would be to address how to prepare for Mass, explaining that how we prepare will have a direct impact on how we experience this great prayer.  As I’ve reflected on this over the past week, it strikes me that there are two basic areas of preparation that we need to consider – internal and external.  This week we will focus on the internal preparation, and next week we will consider the external preparation.

There are a few different ways to approach our internal preparation, but I think I would like to start with doing an examination on our attitude toward the Mass.  I think I may have written about this one other time, but repeating it certainly will not hurt!  Think about how you and your family talk about going to Mass.  How often have you said internally or externally: “We have to go to Mass today”, feeling the burden of obligation over the opportunity to praise God.  It is true, we have an obligation to go to Mass, and I addressed that when I spoke about the Precepts of the Church, how we are obliged to go to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation.

How do you feel about that obligation?  What do you notice moving in your heart when you think about having to go to Mass?  For some, I am certain it is not something that fills us with much enthusiasm.  There are other things we can do during the weekend, and going to Mass can seem like an inconvenience.  Or, perhaps our experience of being at Mass has left us feeling unfulfilled.  It is not uncommon to to hear people say: “I do not get anything out of Mass.” With reverence and respect, I respond to that with a question: “But what do you put into going to Mass?”  I say that not to make people feel guilty, but to invite them to consider that maybe what is lacking is not the Mass itself, but our attitudes toward Mass.  This is my ultimate reason for offering this series, to help us to see how we can bring our entire selves to the Mass, understanding it’s beauty and better understanding how we are called to enter into the Mass, such that it becomes a transformative experience for us, and not something we simply have to endure.

So, what is your attitude toward Mass?  Acknowledge it and humbly bring it before the Lord in prayer.  If you struggle with seeing Mass as important and something to look forward to, tell Him.  If you love going to Mass, tell Him that as well.  If you are somewhere in between, tell Him that!  By bringing this to the Lord, we are asking Him to expand our hearts so that we can love this prayer more.  I presume all of us want to grow in our love for the Mass and that we are not content to just endure it for the rest of our lives!  So let’s start with asking the Lord for the grace He wants for us, especially as it concerns the Mass.  He desires for us to understand and experience the profound gift of His love that is available at every Mass.  Do you desire that too?  I hope so.  And if you do, tell Him.  That might be one of the most important places to start as we begin this journey together in exploring the riches of this greatest prayer we have as Catholics.

Feast Day: July 3^rd | Patronage: Twins, Architects, Craftsmen, Theologians, the Blind, India, Afghanistan | Iconography: Holding Staff (of missionary), Scroll or Book (of apostle), Spear (how he was martyred); two fingers together (recalling his recognizing Jesus as both God and man); touching Jesus’ side in upper room, 

Often when St. Thomas the Apostle is mentioned the first thing we recall is his doubt upon hearing of Jesus’ resurrection and tremendous return to faith when Jesus invited him to touch the wounds of His crucifixion, crying out “My Lord, and My God!” We see him depicted reaching towards Jesus’ wounds, and rightly meditate on doing so ourselves. Why were Jesus’ wounds not healed away? Why does God carry scars? These are beautiful places to pray into, but I would like to propose an additional meditation for all of us this week. In 1945, awaiting execution in a Berlin jail cell for his resistance to the Nazi regime in Germany, the Jesuit priest Fr. Alfred Delp wrote this reflection:  

There are hours when we can do only one thing: gather up all our woe and extreme plight into one imploring shout, one simple cry for mercy and help. And to cry it out or scream it or weep it or whimper it to the God who wants to save. To moan out all the woe within us into the sacred space where God touches our self and loves it and is good to it. Sooner or later all thinking and all attempts at flight must cease. Then we must lie very still so that the thorns of the thicket into which we have fallen won’t inflict new wounds. Lie very still and know our impotence and seek for God’s healing hand. There are the wounds of affliction, but then again there are the wonders of affliction. Even in our most extreme distress we must not give up trust. We should remember that the Lord God shares our life, that the Holy Spirit calls us into intimacy with God.… God’s creating and healing Spirit is present to every fiber of our being.[Alfred Delp, from his meditation on the Veni, Sancte Spiritus.]

Notice what this great priest realizes before his being murdered by the Gestapo: that our wounds are the places where Christ allows us to come closest to Him. Certainly Thomas encountered Jesus in a new way when he touched Jesus’ wounds, but Jesus also met Thomas in a new way when the doubting apostles allowed Jesus to touch his wounds! 

Why was St. Thomas not in the upper room? A boy once conjectured to Fr. Alford that perhaps Thomas was out shopping, or at the barber, and perhaps St. Thomas was! I think that Thomas is just the kind of guy to have the guts to go out and do necessary things while all the other apostles were petrified in fear. Glancing back to an earlier passage in St. John’s Gospel, we see Thomas boldly challenging the other disciples to “go [to Bethany, where Lazarus had died], that we might die with him”, with Jesus (John 11:16). He does seem to have been given a greater gift of courage! 

Similarly, on an earlier occasion in the upper room, on the evening of Holy Thursday, Jesus told the apostles: “Let not your hearts be troubled … I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” (John 14:3-4) Recall Thomas’s response: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” It’s a good question! It again shows a man with the gumption to follow Jesus, come what may – but with an important caveat – as long as he knows the way. 

I suspect all of us are willing to follow Christ when the road is flat, clear, and obvious, but what about when He just says “keep your eyes on me and keep walking”, and we can’t see a thing? When the storms are crashing around and He asks “Is it enough that I’m in the boat?” What about when I’m about to preach and still have nothing to say? When someone is sick, and nothing is helping? When the day’s duties feel heavy, or insignificant, or I feel incapable, or unloved? Are we willing, with Thomas, to step up to Jesus, to see His wounds, and let Him see ours?

– Fr. Dominic had a nagging thought keeping him up last night. This morning, I’m tired, a little grumpy, and don’t really want to talk to Jesus about it. Thankfully, He is persistent in asking me to do so.

If all you did was read the title of this article, you might guess that this will be about the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples (the Our Father) when they asked Him to teach them to pray.  To be sure, this is one of the most important and powerful prayers we have in our spiritual arsenal, and much can be written (and has been written) on this prayer.  But the prayer that I want to consider is the Mass.

As our country is in the midst of this time of Eucharistic Revival, we often point to the sad statistic of how many Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of the Eucharist, that Jesus is truly, really, substantially present – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – in the Eucharistic species following the Consecration at Mass.  Some have therefore concluded that this Eucharistic Revival is about strengthening our belief in this important truth of the Real Presence of Jesus.  And while very necessary, the Bishops of the United States envision more for us during this special time.

As many of you know, many of the priests of the diocese were on retreat a few weeks ago.  Our Retreat Master was Bishop Robert Lombardo, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago.  He happens to be on Bishops Advisory Group for the Eucharistic Revival.  In a conversation one evening with some of the priests, he shared with us how there is a great need also to grow in our appreciation and love for the celebration of the Mass, our greatest prayer.

Now that we are in a rather long stretch of Ordinary Time, I would like to begin a series of reflections on how we can all pray the Mass better, appreciating the richness of this great prayer, such that we truly see it as the “apex” of all Christian prayers, as Pope Benedict explained several years ago.

I have not organized this series in a strict manner, so there is some room for flexibility on the topics that I will address.  If there is something about the Mass that you are interested in learning about, feel free to suggest a topic and I will see if I can’t work it in at some point.

My plan is to begin next week by reflecting on how we prepare for Mass and how that has a direct impact on our experience of attending and praying Mass.  A good preparation can transform our experience of this great prayer.  After that I hope to begin with the Introductory Rites and work my way through the various parts and prayers of the Mass, offering a mix of catechesis and personal reflections based on my experience of praying the Mass, both as a layperson, and now as a priest.  I hope to conclude my series with some thoughts on how the Mass commits us to the life of missionary discipleship.

I am personally excited about this new series, partly for selfish reasons because I look forward to how writing these articles will serve to increase my love for this great prayer that I have the privilege of offering every day.  But I am also praying that these reflections will be received with open hearts by all who read them, so that as we journey through them, our hearts will be kindled with love for the Mass and, by extension, the gift of the Jesus in the Eucharist whom we have the opportunity to encounter and receive at each Mass.

Feast Day: June 26^th | Patronage: brothers, soldiers, various cities in Italy, men in prayer | Iconography: praying together, martyred together, they are dressed as soldiers (boots, spears, armor, swords, cloaks), and shown to be martyrs (being beheaded, holding palm-branch) 

John and Paul were brothers who lived around Rome during the 300s. They were both Roman soldiers and were blessed to grow up, and serve, during the reign of Constantine when peace was restored around the empire (after decades of infighting and political turmoil) and their Christian faith was now allowed to be publicly practiced around the realm. It must have been an exciting time to be alive and a wondrous thing to see giant basilicas being built after centuries of Christian worship being hidden (even if Christian charity, and witness/martyrdom, had been manifest all the more during those centuries of persecution). 

Constantine held these brothers in high esteem, both as excellent soldiers and virtuous men, for they were entrusted to protect his daughter Constantia. The Church, in her hagiagrophy, also has remembered the prayerfulness of these brothers, often recalling them praying together in their house on the Caelian hill. As it turned out, their courage and devotion would soon be put to the test. Upon the death of Constantine’s son and heir, a new emperor came to the throne, Julian, named “the apostate” for the horrible reason that he tired to undo his own Christian baptism with a sordid ritual of bull’s blood, and then proceeded to attempt to stamp out the Christian faith around the empire. Knowing the valor and quality of John and Paul, he called them back to serve in his own military. The brothers, knowing this would now require them to offer sacrifice to Jupiter, refused to follow Julian into apostasy, and that emperor, angry at their fealty to God over himself, but lacking the courage to confront his soldiers himself, dispatched a minion to behead them in their home (where they were found kneeling in prayer.) 

So many lessons could be learned from these men! I consider how, though given tremendous riches by Constantine (including that affluent villa), in their final days they didn’t scheme how to maintain those possessions but hustled around the city giving it all away (indeed, their magnificent home would itself become a magnificent basilica in the years to come!) I am struck as well by the fact that they did not defend themselves, though certainly they could have put up a fight, and morally would have been more than justified in doing so. And I especially hold in mind those sturdy men kneeling in prayer awaiting a crash upon their door. How infrequently do we kneel in our own homes? How infrequently do I kneel with other men in prayer? 

Earlier this month after my cousin’s wedding, her husband asked if before the pictures, and the signing of the marriage certificate, even before the wedding party had processed out of the church that we all kneel down and pray the rosary together. Not only that, but he personally asked his dad and hers, and his godfather and hers, to each lead one of the mysteries (the new husband took the final decade himself). Everyone was moved to see this new couple beginning their married life in prayer, and especially to have each of those men leading the entire congregation in the rosary. As a priest, I get to lead prayer all the time, but even with brother priests, and often with friends and family, our prayer together is somewhat rote, not that vulnerable and “risky”.

Why do I hesitate to be real in opening up in prayer together, man-to-man, brother-to-brother? Why do I find it easy to go on a bike-ride with other guys, and sweat and work and struggle and banter with them, but forget to start with a prayer, or forget to ask for their prayers for me? Why does it stick out to us when we hear of Dcn. Rob leading a men’s bible-study on Wednesday mornings, or a group of dads joining together to hold each other accountable, or the dozen men who I pray morning prayer with over zoom on weekdays, or that we have four priests and a bishop living together here at Cathedral? Do men need prayer less than women? Are Christian fathers unchallenged in their vocation, or is that the kind of vocation best done solo? Are priests better off on their own? John and Paul became saints by praying together, it seems likely that most all the rest of us will only be able to follow Jesus with a similar level of devotion, and friendship.

– Fr. Dominic is going to take another step in building priestly-brotherhood by inviting the local priests over for the fourth of July, not only to have a cookout and watch the fireworks together, but to pray together and be real with each other, and the Lord.

Many of you know that our Cathedral household is full of runners – you might see one of us sometimes heading out the back patio when Mass is about to start. As much as I enjoy running, I am switching things up a bit this summer, as I am training as a biking missionary with an organization called Biking for Babies. The mission of Biking for Babies (B4B) is threefold – form pro-life missionaries, raise awareness for Pregnancy Resource Centers, and raise funds for Pregnancy Resource Centers. 

Our efforts will all come together this summer during the week of July 9-15 when we will do the national ride. Eight teams will bike from various places around the country and meet in St. Louis (6 teams) or Washington, DC (2 teams). My team will be meeting in Columbus, Ohio, and finishing in St. Louis. To save you looking up how far that is, it is around 600 miles! We won’t be taking the most direct route, but each day we will arrive at a planned stop with a community that will be hosting us for a meal and putting us up for the night. At each event, I will celebrate Mass, and some of the missionaries will share their story or a pro-life testimony during dinner. 

I would like to request your support in several ways. First, please pray for me and the other missionaries (around 80 of us) as we make our final push in training, that we stay safe and healthy as we offer our rides up to promote the culture of life. Fortunately, my team (and two others) will be making a stop right here at the Cathedral! Please join us for the 5:15 Mass on Friday, July 14, with dinner and testimonies to follow. Two years ago, a team came to the Cathedral, which was a major factor in my decision to be a part of the organization this year! Third, if you are able and feel called, I am also looking for financial support for the ride. My goal is to raise $5,000 for pregnancy resource centers – our combined goal this year is over $200k. Many pregnancy resource centers run on shoestring budgets, and we don’t want money to be an obstacle to anyone choosing life for her child! The easiest way to find my page is to google, “Biking for Babies, Fr. Dominic Vahling.” Or, you can drop something in the collection with a note that it is for my bike ride. I am most grateful for your support, but I know that our parish just did the Baby Bottle Boomerang to support First Step here in Springfield. (They are my partner center!) I don’t want this to be any sort of competition between pro-life things, so please prioritize supporting First Step directly, if you have to choose. 

I plan to write more about First Step Women’s Center in the coming weeks – as a way to raise awareness for the amazing resources they offer. Thank you for your prayers and for your faith in Jesus Christ, who made each one of us in his image and likeness!