CATHOLICS & THE MASONS
A few months ago I heard of a very public person and a Catholic who had joined the Masons. Someone inquired of me as to whether the Catholic Church had changed its position toward the Freemasonry, and I assured them, the Church in fact had not changed its stance at all. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict the XVI have made it clear that Catholics are forbidden to join the Masons. Pope John Paul II issued the statement below through then Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
On Nov. 26, 1983, with the approval of Pope John Paul II, the Sacred Congregation reiterated the ban on Catholics joining the Masons: “The Church’s negative position on Masonic association … remains unaltered, since their principles have always been regarded as irreconcilable with the Church’s doctrine. Hence, joining them remains prohibited by the Church. Catholics enrolled in Masonic associations are involved in serious sin and may not approach Holy Communion.” However, neither this declaration nor the 1983 Code of Canon Law imposed the penalty of excommunication on Catholics belonging to the Masons.
Declaration on Masonic Associations (Quaesitum est)
(English Translation of a Latin Document from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Nov. 26, 1983)
“It has been asked whether there has been any change in the Church’s decision in regard to Masonic associations since the new Code of Canon Law does not mention them expressly, unlike the previous code.
This sacred congregation is in a position to reply that this circumstance is due to an editorial criterion which was followed also in the case of other associations likewise unmentioned inasmuch as they are contained in wider categories.
Therefore, the Church’s negative judgement in regard to Masonic associations remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and, therefore, membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful, who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.
It is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to give a judgment on the nature of Masonic associations which would imply a derogation from what has been decided above, and this in line with the declaration of this sacred congregation issued Feb. 17,1981. [1]
In an audience granted to the undersigned cardinal prefect, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II approved and ordered the publication of this declaration which had
been decided in an ordinary meeting of this sacred congregation.
Office of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Nov. 26, 1983 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect
PARISH KITCHEN: NEW EQUIPMENT
The parish has recently acquired a new, 10-burner gas stove with two ovens and a new Hobart dishwasher for the parish hall kitchen. These two necessary purchases were made possible solely by the fundraising efforts of our Parish Social Committee who, through various sales, breakfasts and largely from the proceeds of the parish bazaar, raised enough funds for the stove and dishwasher and for the good of the parish at large. Previously our parish was reliant on two very used and unreliable stoves and ovens that had already been and would continue to prove costly for repair. The dishwasher washes dishes at high temperature in 76 seconds flat with a 22 second rinse. On behalf of all parishioners of St. Leo Parish I wish to extend our appreciation, admiration and thanks to the tireless efforts of our Parish Social Committee – all of them women! (Come on men; you’re allowed to join and get involved too, you know!)
Our parish Knights of Columbus plan to purchase a large gas griddle for the parish as well which will nicely complement all of our new items. Thank you to the Knights of Columbus of our parish and their great work for the community and the parish.
CORNERSTONE MEN’S HOSTEL: THANK YOU ST. LEO PARISH!
We have received a letter on behalf of the Cornerstone Men’s Hostel in Oshawa for the great generosity shown through the various clothing and toiletry items given at Christmas time benefiting the men who live on the streets and are reliant on the basic clothing items of socks, gloves, etc. as well as personal hygiene products. They Hostel expressed their thanks to those who gathered the items, delivered them and to the Knights of Columbus of our parish who helped take the items to the hostel and who donated $500.00 to Cornerstone. This kind of outreach is a lived response to the justice called for through the Gospel.
A ST. LEO PARISH CHRISTMAS
Throughout the Christmas season our parish church looked stunning with red poinsettias, green boughs, wreathes, trees, sparkling lights and the large, substantial manger scene donated by a family in Pickering. Once again the Hotner’s of Hotner Greenhouse donated many and multi-coloured poinsettias adorning the sanctuary along with the other flowers purchased by the parish through the generous giving of our parishioners who contributed through the special Christmas Flower envelope. The church was set up and decorated by a relatively small group consisting of David Forget, Mrs. Paula Podesta and her son, Matthew, John Forget, Sandra Johnson, myself, (Fr. C) and Tom and Joan Barker, our parish custodians. One parishioner asked me if we had hired professional decorators, and I’d say we are pretty professional! We’ve really set the bar for what the church can look like not only at Christmas but this coming Easter as well.
Thanks to all who contributed through offerings, labour, generosity and love. (Fr. Charles)
EPIPHANIES
Christmas will soon be over, at least the Church’s celebration of it is coming to an end, while its meaning and message shall never cease to summons and speak to our living. As I always say about the Christmas message each year, the meaning of Christmas could be summed up in one word – passion! God showed his passion for his people, of all time and place, to be with us, to dwell among us. His passion was to come down to our level and live among us, hoping that we would somehow return the favour according to our own individual response to grace.
The Feast of the Epiphany speaks of the Magi coming to the manger scene with their strange gifts, totally useless for the birth of a baby. One can imagine Mary saying to them, as they unpack their precious treasures of baby shower gifts, “Did anyone consider just bringing some diapers?” Yet these gifts were meant just as much for you and me as they were for Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus. They symbolize who this babe was to become – the long awaited Messiah – Gold, because he was a king, incense, because he was a priest, and Myrrh, (a funeral spice), because he, the Messiah, would die.
I say that it is a message for us because we too are supposed to, are meant to, must, have our own epiphanies. If God desired and desires still to be “with us”, what would be the point if he was no where to be seen in our lives? We are supposed to experience the living God who has come to dwell among us through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I think about the many and varied epiphanies in my own life – those times when God either so clearly made something manifest to me or the times when I felt God was winking at me.
I was thinking the other day about Christopher Hitchens, the self-proclaimed “anti-theist” and his recent debate in Toronto with former British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair. As Fr. Ken Lewis, who writes for the Catholic Register put it, “Tony Blair shouldn’t have entered into a debate with an old street scrapper like Mr. Hitchens”. At any rate, one of the things Mr. Hitchens said was, “I can’t believe in a god who creates you sick and demands that you be well”. Mr. Hitchens is a smart man, at ease in debate and smooth in his delivery. This line heard in the ears of those who already don’t believe or at least question God and the good of any religion, makes a strong point and could easily be viewed as a great rebuttal in the face of the likes of many a Christian speaker who would pale in comparison to Mr. Hitchens. (Where’s Fulton Sheen when you need him?) I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought and am led to think that the missing link in what Mr. Hitchens holds and defends is…. experience, epiphany.
If God were to appear to any of us in the awesomeness of God, we would scarce be able to grasp it or explain it to ourselves in our own minds much less in words to others. In my own life, particularly in my personal call to the priesthood, I have had several powerful epiphanies; manifestations of God where I just knew it was God and other-worldly. No one can fully understand what another person experiences, but those same experiences for the one who receives them require no approval, understanding or belief from others. Yes, I was raised as a practicing Catholic in a family that went to church every Sunday, but the faith I was presented with, even as a young child, was confirmed in my own personal experiences of God and God’s love for me – I didn’t make them happen, they happened to me.. From them I just knew God was real, alive, in me, with me and led me to know that there was far, far more I didn’t know than I thought I knew about Him.
I know of a man who encountered great change in his own personal life and that of his family through the subtle revelations he received in his Christian journey. His name is Fr. Paul Acton and he is now a Roman Catholic priest and lives in Barrie with his family.
Fr. Paul Acton had his own “epiphany” when he felt God calling him to the Catholic Church. Long before that, Paul, being raised as a Baptist, had sensed the call to serve God as a Baptist Minister, and this he did for nine years. His Baptist background didn’t leave much room or liking for Roman Catholics, and in his call to serve the Lord as a minister, he could never have imagined where one epiphany would lead to the next, much less to the door of the Catholic Church. But it did.
Paul, a quiet, intellectual family man began to discover that there was a Church that existed after the death and resurrection of Christ that is commonly known as the Early Church. These were the times when the Church wrestled with what Christ wanted them to do, what they were to believe and how they were to exist in the world. This Early Church had sacraments, called themselves ‘Catholic’, had bishops and seemed to have a clear structure. Paul began to ask himself, “Where is that Church now?”, and his gaze was shifting slowly toward Rome. Yet, how could this be for him since he was a Baptist who doubted that Catholics could or would even go to heaven? Eventually his epiphany, his realization of what God was leading him to, led him to leave the Baptist Church, and so after nine years of service as a Baptist Minister, he and his family hit the road on the journey of faith once again, stopping off in the Anglican Church. The Anglicans received him and his family with open arms and he was ordained an Anglican priest and served in that capacity for another five years. But he wasn’t home yet, he would say. Eventually, through the manifestations of God through the power of that awesome Holy Spirit, Paul was led to the door of the Catholic Church, and at Easter in the late 1990′s, he and his wife, Marjorie, and their four children were all received into the full communion of the Catholic Church.
A star led shepherds, (the lowliest) and kings (the exalted of the earth) to the same place – the manger – where Christ Jesus lay sleeping in a trough used for feeding cattle. He would become the One who would feed the world with his own body and blood in the Eucharist, being born in Bethlehem, a town whose name means, “house of bread”. The Bread of Life being born in the House of Bread. It is through the epiphanies of ordinary life that we glimpse and know that which seems to at first seem unknowable. Epiphanies, as they were for the wise men and the poor shepherds, are personal invitations from God to experience the incredible, sometimes even in me.
(Fr. Charles)
DIVINITY & HUMANITY
There is no greater story that has resounded on the earth than the story that has two great book ends – the story of the birth and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Yet it is not a story just like any other because a regular story can teach us or entertain us, but the story of Jesus is real and true and life changing for all who believe in Him. His coming as a baby and his growth in “age and grace and wisdom” was the fulfillment of all of the prophets, yet He was one of us – a human in all things but sin. He laughed, blew little baby bubbles, soiled his diaper and learned to walk and eventually run. He was divinity dwelling in a human nature born of Mary.
The following two poems and the story of Artaban: The Fourth Maji tell us the humanity and the divinity of Jesus, Our Saviour, and about St. Joseph, Jesus’ foster Father.
Jesus,
I believe you laughed
as Mary bathed you
and Joseph tickled your toes.
I believe you giggled
as you and the other children
played your childhood games.
And when you went
to the Temple
and astounded the teachers,
I believe you chuckled
as all children chuckle
when they stump adults.
And surely there were
moments of merriment
as you and your disciples
deepened your relationship.
And as you and Mary
and Martha and Lazarus
fellowshiped, mirth
must have been mirrored
on your faces.
Jesus,
I know you wept
and anguished. But
I believe you laughed, too.
Create in me
the life of laughter.
Lois H. Morgan
The Story of Artaban: The Fourth Magi
The Wise Man Artaban, in his pursuit of the King of the Jews, misses his three friends, who set out before him: Balthazar, Gaspar, and Melchior. He misses the Christ Child, too, because his adventures lead him into strange encounters with dying beggars and frightened mothers, to whom he gives two of his three jewels saved for the Christ Child. He returns to Jerusalem after a fruitless in Egypt. There, after thirty-three years he still diligently searches for the child.
This year it is Passover time. Artaban, now an old man, notes an unusual commotion, and he enquires about its cause. People answer him, “We are going to the place called Golgotha, just outside the walls of the city, to see two robbers and a man named Jesus of Nazareth hanged on a cross. The man Jesus call himself the Son of God, and Pilate has sent him to be crucified because he says that he is the King of the Jews.”
Artaban knows instinctively that this is the King he has been searching for. So, he rushes toward the scene. But on his way he meets a young girl being sold into slavery. She sees his royal robes and falls at his feet pleading for him to rescue her. His heart is moved, and he gives away his last jewel for her ransom. Just then, darkness falls over the land, and the earth shakes, and great stones fall into the streets. One of them falls on Artaban, crushing his head.
As he lies dying in the arms of the girl he has just ransomed, he cries out weakly, “Three and thirty years I looked for thee, Lord, but I have never seen thy face nor ministered to thee!” But then a voice comes from heaven, strong and kind, and says, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” Artaban’s face grows calm and peaceful. His long journey is ended. He has found his King!
There is much said about Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Poems and hymns are written about her, but St. Joseph often gets only a walk-on part at Christmas. I came across this poem about St. Joseph many years ago and have committed it to heart for life.
Poem for Saint Joseph
Whenever the bright blue nails would drop
Down on the floor of his carpenter shop,
St. Joseph, Prince of carpenter men,
Would stoop to gather them up again.
For he feared for two little sandals sweet,
And very easy to pierce they were,
As they padded over the lumber there
And rode on two little sacred feet.
But alas on a hill between earth and heaven,
One day three nails into a cross were driven
And fastened it firm to the sacred feet
Where once rode two little sandals sweet.
And Christ and his mother
looked off in death
Afar to the valley of Nazareth,
To the carpenter shop, all spread with dust
While the little blue nails all packed in rust,
Slept in a box on the window sill
And Joseph lay sleeping under the hill.
READY OR NOT … ADVENT
I know that as I write this bulletin article for the fourth Sunday of Advent, which arrives just on the heels of our Christmas celebrations, the last thing on all our minds is the Advent message yet again. “Come on, Father, get a grip. It will be Christmas in a few days and there are tons of things to do. No point in talking about Advent now and ‘preparing the way of the Lord’. Yet actually there is and there always will be.
Yes, Christmas is fast approaching and all of us, even us priests, have much to do that is good and necessary for a worthy celebration of Christ’s first coming in our parish and in our homes.
The thing is that with the down turn in our economy that affects us still, with an ever-present and growing uncertainty in our present and our futures, our focus should be keenly set on the heart of Advent and the heart of Christmas.
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of our salvation in Jesus Christ who came into the world like one of us, though born of a Virgin. We “celebrate” because of what Christmas did and means for us – “Today, a Saviour has been born for us.” Yet while his coming to us is the greatest of all news, it is so precisely because he came to save us – which links his cradle to the cross.
This year Christmas will be a truly tough time for many people. Some will enter it worried about paying the bills, making ends meet and trying to put food on the table. Some will face Christmas morning with a sense that perhaps they have overextended themselves financially in order to make others happy with their extravagance and generosity, all from a sincere heartfelt desire to bring joy and happiness to others. But we can’t make others happy and things just won’t do it apart from some short-term happiness. Some others will fear that the present economic situation will leave them with no job and having to do with far less.
I can’t help but feel in my own life and in the life of the whole world that we are way out of whack with our priorities, at least those of us who are living in this culture and in our western affluence. We have so much, we receive so much and we depend on having so much to live and we are spared much of the deprivation, starvation, neglect and hunger that befalls much of the rest of the world, largely because we aren’t generally great at thinking about or caring about the plight of others. It always disturbs me when I hear it said, “This is the season to share with others and to give to others”, as if at other times it wasn’t to be expected of us. The message of Advent is a message for every single moment of our lives. The call of Lent to get rid of our sins and turn back to God is equally a present, everyday message and an urgency that is not to be put off for another time. At every turn, at every moment of life, in each and every occasion of our existence the Christian is to be ready, attentive, responsive, humble and in prayer for our God who constantly and ultimately comes.
We have to face the fact, I think, that we have sanitized Christmas into something it is not and we make it into this dreamy scene of a happy couple celebrating the birth of their first and only child, Jesus. The truth of the matter is that there was always a direct link between the cradle of Jesus and the cross upon which he would die. His coming, unlike that of all other people, was not to live but to die. Dying was his goal, not merely his life being taken from him.
Fulton Sheen wrote in the 60’s so profoundly of this connection in an essay entitled
THE CRADLE AND THE CROSS
“She gave birth to her first child, a son. And as there was no place for them inside the inn, she wrapped him up and laid him in a manger.” (Lk. 2:7)
“And when they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him with the criminals.” (Lk. 23:33)
“Is it easier to understand the love of the cross than the love of the cradle; the love that manifests itself in giving up life for another than the love which humbles itself in infancy that men might never boast of their greatness?
He accepted the manger because there was no room in the inn; He accepted the cross because men said, “we will not have this Man reign over us.” Disowned upon entering His own creation, He is rejected upon leaving it. He was laid in a stranger’s stable at the beginning of life and a stranger’s grave at the end. At His crib in Bethlehem, He was flanked by an ox and an ass, and on the cross of Calvary by two thieves. Swaddling clothes bound Him in His birthplace; swaddling clothes wrapped Him in His tomb.
His life was lived not just from Bethlehem to Calvary, rather it began with Calvary. The cross was there at the beginning. It cast its shadow backward to His Birth. We ordinary mortals go from the known to the unknown, submitting ourselves to forces beyond our control. That is why the life of so many of us is a tragedy. But He went from the known to the known, from the reason for His coming, namely to be Jesus, or Saviour, to the fulfillment of His coming, namely, the death on the Cross.
Hence, there was no tragedy in His Life, for tragedy implies the unforeseeable, the uncontrollable, the fatalistic. Modern life is tragic when there is spiritual darkness and unredeemable guilt. For the Christ Child there were no uncontrollable forces; no submission to fatalistic change from which there could be no escape; but there was an ‘inscape’ – the microcosmic manger summarizing the macrocosmic cross on Calvary.
For all the people who know themselves to be stables, inhabited by inner beasts, and who give Him welcome, there is a joy that makes them shout in their hearts – ‘Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas’.” (Bp. Fulton J. Sheen, Christmas Inspirations, Maco Books, 1966)
MUSIC AT CHRISTMAS MASSES
It would not have even occurred to me that parishioners would prefer to know what music groups in our parish will be playing at which Masses on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but apparently some do, so here goes….
CHRISTMAS EVE – 5:00 P.M. MASS (Warning: Packed!) Sunday 9:00 a.m. Mass Group with guitars and voices (May & Johann leaders)
CHRISTMAS EVE – 9:00 P.M. MASS (Saturday 5:00 p.m. Mass Group ) John VonZuben (guitar) and choir Carols will begin at 8:30 p.m. before Mass
CHRISTMAS EVE – MIDNIGHT MASS (11:00 A.M. Sunday Mass Choir) The Midnight Mass will be preceded with Carols by choir, organ and brass or strings at 11:30 pm The brass/strings will accompany all of the music of the Midnight Mass as well
CHRISTMAS DAY – 11:00 A.M. MASS (No 9 a.m. Mass) 11:00 A.M. MASS GROUP with Organ and (possibly) choir
NOTE TO ALL PEOPLE WHO BREATHE We plan to use incense at all Masses of Christmas
…AND SADNESS FLEE AWAY These are the last words in our well-known Advent song “O Come Divine Messiah!” There is no avoiding, I suppose, a sense of “let’s get Advent out of the way to prepare for the 25th”, but the wisdom of the Church in choosing its scriptures for this Sunday reminds us to continue to be ready, to make straight our paths to the Lord. “Who” Jesus is perplexed not only John the Baptist but confronts us still as we seek to follow him.
Aside from the four Sundays when the scriptures tell us to be ready and prepared for the coming of the Lord, this season of joyful preparedness can be a very difficult time for so many people: for those who are poor or marginalized; for those who have to face the holiday season alone with memories of better times and the loss of a loved one who is no longer with them; those who are experiencing the breakup of a relationship; those who are coping with an illness or poor health; those who are fearful, worried or faced with much anxiety. The holiday season can be the worst of times at a time that is supposed to be joyous, festive, celebratory and fun.
Now, it’s not that I want to address this Advent season with a “downer” of an article, but I really feel, as I think we all do, for those who are sad, lonely, perplexed, vexed with the constant onslaught of too many things to do, but especially for those who are suffering from what can seem to be an immovable sense of sorrow, loss and relentless sadness at this time when everyone else may seem to have it all.
For me, if I should ever be sad, it is not mindless games that can shake me from my mood, but rather the work of the artist who can paint the scenes I see and feel inwardly, the poet who can speak of what I sense, the composer and the musician who can lead me to think that they know what it is to feel as I feel. I turn to that great poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who wrote Day Is Done.
DAY IS DONE
The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life’s endless toil and endeavor; And tonight I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start; Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet. The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.
Ah, the music of words from the poets experience, perception, pen and mind. While sadness is real just as physical pain is real, they are not in and of themselves all powerful. We need to recognize them for what they are, temporary feelings and sensations that will pass in time. Here I am not talking about people who suffer from depression due to a chemical imbalance, as real and as awful as this can be, for these can sometimes be treated with therapy and medical treatment. But I am addressing those whose sadness comes from the helplessness of their life situations whose symptoms cannot be readily remedied with a pat on the back and a “there, there, now – everything’s going to be all right”. There is a need for those who are sad to face their pain and work through what they feel in order to one day be able to move o, especially when moving on seems the hardest thing to do. When, for example, someone is suffering from the death of a life-partner in a husband, or wife, or in the death of a child, while grief is real it is something to journey through towards a sense of healing so that while the one we have lost and the loss we feel will never truly go away, time itself can bring about that healing with the aid, support and love of others who have been through the same things we have.
In the Christian context, suffering is not something to be avoided or swept under the carpet as if it were all in our minds: it is rather to be confronted. Sometimes in the face of great sorrow, sadness and grief, there is a tendency to think that if we just busy ourselves with other things and other thoughts and even other people, the sadness will go away and the pain will disappear. However, this is not true and avoidance is not healthy. If we bury things or deny them they still go somewhere and will no doubt surface again when our resistance is down. Christ tells us that in this life, in our human existence, we will experience sorrow and sadness, pain, suffering and grief, and that these will be real just as his suffering and death on the Cross were real. But Jesus also tells us that our “sorrow will be turned to joy” as His was! Yet it is not “pie in the sky when you die” that Jesus addresses here, rather it is the truth that even in this life here on earth are we meant to experience the “abundant life” he spoke of. The abundant life is not a life of ease and mindless bliss that we might project into our thoughts of retirement, but it is living in and having the perspective and truth of what life really is all about, and having this truth touch the realities of the ups and downs of our lives.
The real sadness of this world is found in those who do not know or will not allow the reality and presence of God and His plan for their lives now and always to penetrate their being. There is a new world coming and its truth is meant not only to touch but also colour our perception and understanding of this world that is, in fact, passing away. Love cannot eliminate pain but it certainly can soften it, and there is no other love that is like that of our God. We will only understand fully the redemptive character in pain and suffering when we are with the Lord forever in the fullness of the life that is to come, for then we shall see. O come divine Messiah. The world in silence waits the day, when hope shall sing its triumph, and sadness flee away! (Blessed Advent! Fr. Charles)
SHOW RESPECT… GENUFLECT
Upon entering a Catholic church there are two specific gestures that we make even before we take our seat in the pew of our preference; we bless ourselves with Holy Water and we genuflect toward the tabernacle before we take our seat. It is right and fitting and just that there be some specific way of acknowledging the Presence of Christ in the tabernacle. In Classical Latin the term ‘genu flectere’ means to ‘bend the knee’. A genuflexion is achieved by dropping the right knee to the floor with the left leg supporting your body while facing in the direction of the tabernacle. Originally the Jewish people always stood to pray as is attested to in the scriptures. However, whenever a prayer was of great solemnity, in urgent need, or if the one praying was fervent, the Jewish person would kneel. Genuflecting, on either one or both knees, began in the Middle Ages a momentary gesture where the body stops any motion, kneels on one knee momentarily while looking in the direction of the tabernacle, then stands once again.
As pastor I have often noticed great throngs of people passing by our tabernacle on their way to the Parish Hall without a single person genuflecting. While the act of genuflecting is not meant to be a showy thing or an action merely for the eyes of others, we do remind one another of what we ought to do by the example we give. Children certainly imitate the things their parents often say and do. Teaching a child from a young age about the tabernacle being the House of God will set the pattern for life when that child become adult attends Mass or visits the Blessed Sacrament.
Walking into a Catholic Church is not like walking into any building or hall – it is holy ground because it is built and dedicated to the worship of God and is the place where God’s holy people gather to pray to and sing the praises of our God in Jesus Christ.
Genuflecting, of course, is reserved as a bodily, physical acknowledgment of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The priest, once the host and the cup of wine have been consecrated, genuflects after each separate consecration in acknowledgment of the fact that Jesus is now truly, sacramentally with us, therefore, the priest bows his knee to that reality while the congregation kneels throughout the Eucharistic Prayer.
To bend low is not only to humble oneself before the God of all things, but to make oneself lower than the One who is worshipped and adored. Let us resolve to restore the great acknowledgment of our God and King: Show respect… Genuflect! (Fr. Charles)
“I go to Mass and bless myself, I bless with Holy Water.
then genuflect, to show respect for Christ upon the altar.”
NEW HOLY WATER FONTS
Our parish now has four new Holy Water fonts at the entrances to the church from the vestibule. We also have a fifth font which will be situated lower on the wall at the center door entrance for the use of the children who can’t reach the higher fonts. Awhile back I had asked for donations towards the fonts purchased and am happy to report that all four new fonts have been paid for by the following groups and parishioners:
X Knights of Columbus Council 11528 (2 fonts)
X Mr. Doug Fitzsimmons (1 font)
The following individuals made contributions which together covered the cost of 1 font:
X Mr. Geoff McPherson and Family
X Christy Dayot
X Lorraine Ebata
Thank you to all of our generous donors. (Fr. Charles)
ADVENT & THE CHRISTMAS SEASON
What our culture prepares for months to celebrate and then only celebrates for one day (December 25th), the Church prepares for in one month – Advent – and celebrates for eight days in the Season we call Christmas.
The Church reminds us to slow down, to prepare ourselves inwardly to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. A well lived Advent will prepare us for a well celebrated Christmas lest Christmas be merely a one-day family day which ends with a big dinner followed by the chucking out of the Christmas tree.
Without Advent people would just prepare for many months in buying themselves crazy for a disappointing one-day celebration. In Advent we take four weeks and their Sundays to enter into the fact that Christ lives among us now as we celebrate the ever-present reality that Christ, Emmanuel, “is with us”. We remember that Christ will come again in His Second Coming, which will occur on God’s watch and at a time known only to God and, therefore, we sort out our lives and our living according to that coming. But Advent also leads us to Christmas when we recall in memory that Christ came once in the mystery of the Incarnation – God taking on a human body – in order that we might be drawn to Him and the life He promises now and forever.
Let us use these present days as the gift they are to begin again, to make right, to restore, to resolve and to imitate the One whom we await still.
To our own personal longing for the more in life that is really a yearning for God, let us with our all say:
“COME LORD JESUS, COME!”
Just Who Is St. Nicholas?
On Saturday December 4th our parish will be hosting a
Breakfast With St. Nicholas in the parish hall. Formerly, this same gathering of children was known as Breakfast With Santa, but in our planning this year I felt it more appropriate to emphasize a saint of the Church who is associated by the Church with the true spirit of Christmas. Santa, that jolly, happy man who gives toys to children on December 24th the world over, only seeks to draw our attention to Christmas by the great work that he does on Christmas Eve. Before that time he asks children to be good and to avoid being ‘naughty’. Santa has often been exploited by those who want to make money on his good and generous reputation. Santa was made popular by Coca Cola years ago as they showed him consuming their product while leaving presents in children’s homes instead of drinking the more traditional milk and eating cookies.
The Church reminds us that Advent is about waiting whereas the commercial side of Christmas, which Santa never intended, wants to make us think about Christmas months before it takes place. It is not and should not be viewed as Santa verses St. Nicholas – they are the same man and person. In our celebration on December 4th we will focus on St. Nicholas as the Bishop of Myra.
Bishop Nicholas lived in the 4th Century, and therefore, it is apparent to see how challenging it would be to have an accurate historical picture of a man who lived almost 1700 years ago. Even the exact year of his death is presented as 345 and 352.
Legends about St. Nicholas grew into the story and legend of Santa Claus, but really they are one and the same person. Nicholas was a Catholic Christian born in the village of Patara in what is now the southern coast of Turkey. According to the legends about Nicholas, his parents were wealthy but both his parents died when he was young, leaving Nicholas with the family fortune, which he gave away to assist the needy and those who were sick and suffering. He later dedicated his life to serving God and became known throughout the land for his love for children and those in need. He has been considered as the Patron Saint of Children.
Even if much of what we know about St. Nicholas has been fashioned from story to fill in the gaps of what we don’t really know about him historically, the figure of this man who became a bishop of the Church has endured the ages and his popularity has grown in many countries all over the world. His life points powerfully to Jesus Christ and the selflessness Jesus calls us all to live.
Children grow up learning about Santa. What the legend of St. Nicholas and Santa presents to us who believe in Jesus is about the power of giving rather than receiving. Jesus gave so much to so many – in fact to all people – and ultimately gave His life for us. He gives us a share in His life and promises us that we will share in the fullness of the life that is to come and will last forever. Both St. Nicholas and Santa love Jesus and would only desire that people would love him too.
They lived their lives in imitation of the Saviour.
In 1822, one of the most enduring and endearing poems was written by Clement Clarke Moore. It is known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas” but was originally known as “A Visit From St. Nicholas”. Three times, in this popular and well known rhyme associated with Christmas, is the name St. Nicholas used and once his nick name “St. Nick” is cited. The poem never mentions Santa once because, for the author, St. Nicholas and the work Santa does are the same.
Part of the legend of St. Nicholas holds the story about one family who were about to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three separate occasions, bags of gold were tossed through an open window into their house and were said to have landed into stockings or shoes left by the fireplace to dry. This led to the practice of children hanging stockings by the fireplace to be filled at Christmas.
Over the generations the things found in Christmas stockings varied greatly. In more humbler times children might find an orange and a dime or quarter in their stocking, but to them it was a great and treasured gift, while today the items might be different and more expensive.
Someone once said that “the only things you get to keep are the things you give away”, and I believe this to be not only true but a central message of Christian faith. We discover true happiness when we forget ourselves and do some thing, small or greater, for someone else. If Christmas for children is only about getting things without regard for others then both St. Nicholas and Santa would be so disappointed.
Happy Advent! (Fr. Charles)
A NEW MUSIC DIRECTOR
I am pleased to announce that our parish has acquired a new Music Director for the 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning Mass. Dave Fernihough and his wife, Janice both recently retired their positions as organist/director/cantor after faithfully serving our parish for fourteen years. We are grateful to them for their dedication and gifts shared these many years and recognize their devotion to the liturgy of the Church.
Our new Music Director is Mr. Bill Targett who brings with him tremendous experience, ability and a love for liturgical music. He is both an organist and choir director and we both welcome both he and his wife Kay as we anticipate Bill’s worthy contribution to the celebration of Mass and all things liturgical. Welcome Bill! (Fr. Charles)
FINDING FAITH ON THE EARTH
(Continued from last week – Part III of a 3-part series)
FINDING FAITH ON THE EARTH
PART III
In the previous two weeks I have written in the bulletin about our need to read the signs of the times, taking stock of the world situation and how things in both nature and in humanity seem to be falling apart. While I wouldn’t want to sound like Henny Penny claiming hysterically that the sky is falling, one cannot but help take interested note that we are in trouble as a planet and a people with nature out of whack and the moral decline of us human beings who have been put “in charge of all creation”. (Hebrews 2:8) As stewards of the earth our modern times have not faired well with the things entrusted to us.
WHAT ARE WE TO DO?
As with anything, it is very easy to be critical and to point out the errors, pitfalls and troubles around us, but the message of the Gospels – the message of Christ – is clear as to what we should be doing and must be doing. As individuals we must do our part to take care of the planet in small and larger ways, wherever possible. I spoke with a woman a few summers ago when I was still living in Barrie. When out for walks with my dogs I often saw her walking down Baldwin Lane, which was the street our church was on. I noticed her because every once in a while she would swerve off of the sidewalk to pick up a pop can or a soft drink cup, or fast food take out box. She would stuff the discarded items in a bag and resume her walk. I was walking Bear and Jigs the first time I spoke to her, and thought her sudden movement from the sidewalk to the curb was out of fear for my dogs. I called out, “It’s okay, they’re friendly.”, but she smiled and responded, “Oh, I’m not afraid of your dogs, I’m just picking up garbage and litter.” She shared with me that every time she went out for a walk she noticed just how much garbage people throw out of their moving cars or was just dropped by pedestrians, left to lie on the ground until someone else picked it up. I joked with her, sharing my theory that the litter and grafitti culprits are, in my view, roving groups of seniors who can get away with their mischief and carelessness because no one would possibly suspect them. She is certainly doing what she can and perhaps even more on her part to take care of the environment that is immediately around her.
But it makes me think about the reality that our present generation of young people have been raised with a far keener sense of how we need to take care of the environment, to avoid litter, and take care of the planet, but my memory serves me in knowing that literally I have not seen so much litter and garbage lying around as in the last couple of years. And it’s the little things that point us to the bigger things. A generation that grows up thinking that someone else will clean up their mess is the same generation that will corporately do the same thing on a global scale when they start running things.
The same can be said of things on a moral plain. The informed opinions we hold and the ways in which we either neglect to inform our consciences can lead to moral decay.
In 2008, the local Catholic School Board adopted a Catholic Values emphasis to stand as the Board’s focus for the coming year. They listed nine values that are important to our Faith: faith, hope, love, compassion, service, forgiveness, justice, truth and family. It was a vision that hoped to realize and return to the principle values that sustain us and form our Catholic Faith, and was certainly a good start in trying to live out what distinguishes us as Catholics who value the opportunities and benefits that Catholic Education has always stood for. More and more, and within our Catholic school system, the pull of the world to become secular gains in power and strength with each new day. And while I applauded the school board’s initiative, I would have added that there are no Catholic values without Catholic Faith – and Catholic Faith that is centered on the Eucharist and the sacramental life of the Church. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once stated that every five hundred years in the Church and in the world, we go through a major shift. In the first 500 years of the Church’s history, the questions surrounded Christ; how many persons, intellects and wills. In this period the Church dealt with many heresies that had arisen as the Church was growing and spreading throughout more of the known world. In the second 500 years, he said that the crisis was over the head of the Church – the pope. The third 500 year period dealt with the body of the Church which resulted in the Protestant Reformation, when those who opposed the Church and the way the Church was living, left the Catholic Church and founded a new Christian Church which, history has shown, has continued to break off one from another to the present day. Sheen said that at the end of the second millennium the crisis we are now facing is the way that we as the Church answers the question of Christ, “Will you become secular – will you leave me?” I believe that Fulton Sheen was prophetic in his words for clearly we can see how our values as a society which were (in former times) built upon Christian values have been eroded to individual values but not values that are held in common. Common decency, common courtesy, even common sense is no longer common in civilized society and we have resurrected in so many ways the “me generation” that seeks to look out only for the good of self and not so much of others. I think that parents who are truly trying to raise their children with a respect for God and love of Him and others, and who strive to pass on to their children the importance of decency, respect, selflessness and love of others are growing more and more concerned for their children who are affronted by the coarseness and lack of compassion and love within society.
To the question, what are we to do?, I would respond, cling to Jesus. Pray for the Holy Spirit’s power to be manifest in your life, your work, your family life and your prayer, that you would more and more meet the challenges this life and this world presents with fresh love and an inner sense of God’s abiding peace. The peace that Jesus gives is not the absence of war, but is a veritable peace that can and is to be ours in the midst of war and strife and stress. For two millennia the Church has known what it is to fight for what is right and good and wholesome in her members, her saints and martyrs and even to this present age. We can do our best with what we ask God for and God will equip us for another day. Let us in every time and season resolve to resist the temptation to accommodate ourselves with the temperature of the world and align ourselves with Christ, who never changes, but does by grace and openness change us. (Fr. Charles)
FINDING FAITH ON THE EARTH
(Continued from last week…)
In a time of global unrest and in an era that has developed an aversion to the traditional and the authentically sacred, people are seeking solace in all kinds of ways and in all manner of places. New churches that display the name “Christian” are born with the rising of the sun each day, and the same sun sets on them as one by one they die off, since they have no foundation apart from a self-appointed human leader no matter how sincere they might be. Cafeteria Christianity is rampant as seekers go from church to church, religion to religion, looking for a comfortable pew, like children going from one door to the next on Halloween night. And though Catholic Education is a precious gift with inestimable possibilities we should never take for granted, we are doing just that – taking it for granted. One day, in this province, we may find ourselves without a Catholic education system as we are left standing in the road as parishes, parents and educators, wondering what happened, while the current writing on the wall is telling us what is happening right now.
This is the time, as in all ages before us, when we so desperately need the prophet’s voice to call us back to our senses and return us to what is good, upright and holy. We need that voice which both comforts and convicts us and disrupts our sleeping stupor to shock and awaken us back to Christ again. We are suffering from the poison of sin and darkness and death while ignoring the antidote that is before us and with us – Christ Jesus. Yet not just any “christ” who is plaster-cast and unable to save. No, it is the same Christ who called people to Himself twenty centuries before as He walked the earth, (and not really all that much of it), and is the same One who revealed Himself as the Bread of Life. The antidote is Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The cure for the world’s ills is not yet another argument about truth and who is right, but the One who is the Truth itself made incarnate as the Son of God who, when we are authentically united to Him, reveals to our hearts and consciences what is right and gives us the needed strength to do it.
In Luke 18:8, Jesus asks the question – “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” This is not a question that Jesus posed to the ungodly, but was a probing question that leads to a demand for an authentic faith among those people of His time who were God-fearing disciples and religious people. Following two millennia we could think that we can rest easy if we thought of ourselves as ‘insiders’ on the news and the truth of the Kingdom of God, but we would be deceiving ourselves, for rest is for those who have died and will enjoy it forever once their mission and work on earth is done. The Christian heart and soul, of which St. Augustine referred, is meant to be rest-less, for we have much work to do in ourselves and in influencing others in the Good News until the Kingdom of God is fully realized. Faith on the earth, despite 2000 years of world and Church history, will not be found in abundance upon the Lord’s return, otherwise, why would the Lord have asked the question? The tendency for people of faith to believe either that all is well or all is going to hell are both extreme and wrong. This question is meant to and must stir up within us a desire to share our faith with others and not be satisfied in keeping it to ourselves, assuming that we have what we profess. As an ending question posed by Jesus after his story of the widow and the unjust judge, it demands that we be a people not only of good actions but also a people of prayer who daily, always, stay in communication with our heavenly Father, who sent us Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are playing with real fire! (Fr. Charles)
FINDING FAITH ON THE EARTH
Two weeks ago the Gospel ended with a question from Jesus, “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” I’d have to admit that we Catholic priests don’t often speak about the end of the world or the need for Christians to watch the signs of the times, though we generally do preach about the Kingdom of God and our ongoing need for conversion as revealed through the word of God. Yet we would be utterly foolish to think that the Second Coming of Christ has been and always will belong to another age far beyond our own. Anyone, even with the faintest semblance of the spiritual, should be able to see that throughout the world storm clouds are gathering. The planet is in trouble and all nature appears to increasingly be in upheaval. While I believe this to be the result of what we humans have done to the planet, God has allowed us through our own choices, often motivated by greed and gross selfishness, to wreak havoc on the earth, and nature is rebelling against us and we against nature and God. And we look around and ask why these things are happening as if they were occurrences apart from ourselves and our own actions. Why is the mammal population beginning more and more to die off, with many species on the verge of extinction? Why is the polar ice melting at such astonishing rates as to baffle even the scientists who have been studying it so closely? Why are things seemingly shutting down? Why, in the midst of technological advances and medical and research break-through’s, are more and more of us getting sick with strange and new diseases and less immunity to them? Of course, the answers lie not within nature itself but in the hearts, minds and souls of human beings – we have been and are doing this. Increasingly, and with such speed as has scarcely been seen before, the world is in rebellion against God. Evil, whose existence has been generally denied by recent generations, no longer has a mock look of a sinister, red face with horns, a beard and a long tail with pitch fork in hand, but is the every day stuff of the evening news if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. Just when you think things could not get worse, they do. Events of the everyday are rife with the preposterous, the indecent, the lewd, the unthinkable, the unimagineable, and all too often, the blood of innocence.
A generation of hypersensitive people who have become so easily offended with everything, have grown insensitive to the needs of others in the poor, the needy, the helpless and most subtly in the unborn, and a people that should take offense at the immoral and the perverse, just don’t. The teachers and catechists of the modern era are no longer the universities and places of higher learning nor are they the Church, whose ancient and time-honoured voice was capable of passing on the fullness of faith and revelation in times past since Her founding by Christ. No, the modern teachers are Dan Brown, Oprah and Dr. Phil. They are the raised voices of those who once had and lost the faith or those who never really had it at all. They are the screen idols whose lives, so often empty and sad, are the envy of their adoring following. Movies, and in particular sitcoms, make light of the spiritual and religion; of God, Christ, and Mary, the Mother of God. One South Park episode featured a blatant and despicable mockery of the Virgin Mary (that sensibility and decency wouldn’t allow a printing in the parish bulletin) while networks and the producers of the program refused to pull its showing in the face of protests from both Catholics and Muslims.
On Good Friday of 2006, Pope Benedict XVI, during his meditation on the Third Station of the Cross, “Jesus Falls the First Time”, stated: “Today a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan, a mindless desire for transgression, a dishonest and frivolous freedom, exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication.”
From the wider scope of the world stage to our own place of living, we can see our own problems and lack of faith, perhaps most clearly and on our own doorstep, in the sacramental life of the Church. The loss of a sense of sin is evidenced in few confessions to the ratio of sinners. (As I write this I am only too aware of my own sin and selfishness and the daily temptation to accommodate myself to the world rather than to Christ.) Parents who are either too busy for Church or for God, busy with Sunday shopping, (which has resulted in much of our economy being open on Sunday’s), or too busy to give their children the practice of their faith which they promised both God and the Church on their child’s baptismal day, ultimately approach the Church and the Sacramental life as consumers and not communicants. This is not a condemnation of them but is a visible and growing sign of a great spiritual poverty in those who just do not understand what Christ is offering to them and the children they are responsible for before God. Christ so wants them to know of his love and mercy, and of His desire for them to come home to Him. Yet, the Lord’s voice is drowned out by the murmur, the noise and the busyness and clamour of living and getting God-knows where and for what. And statistically, this is the second generation in history that is largely being raised without religion.
Think now of the world economy and how quickly everything seems to have changed in just a few weeks past few two years ago. The U.S. bail-out of financial institutions and banks at 700 billion dollars should have given us pause to consider just how much money that is. A friend of mine who works for one of the major banks told me that it is generally believed that 180 billion dollars, (roughly ¼ of the amount of the U.S. bail-out), could cure world hunger! We can’t find it in ourselves to bail-out the hungry and starving who die everyday, but we can take care of business.
(To be continued next week…. Fr. Charles)