Open Wide the Doors for Christ!

Well, I have been working away on some of the pictures that I took the last few days, and now that they are taking forever to upload I decided to put the 2nd reading from today's (The Feast of the Visitation - 5-31-13) Office of Readings out here for all of you to enjoy.  It was such a beautiful thought to start the morning with - Mary as the supreme example of humility, love, virtue, etc.  Enjoy!

Second reading
From a homily by Saint Bede the Venerable, priest
Mary proclaims the greatness of the Lord working in her

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior. With these words Mary first acknowledges the special gifts she has been given. Then she recalls God’s universal favors, bestowed unceasingly on the human race.

When a man devotes all his thoughts to the praise and service of the Lord, he proclaims God’s greatness. His observance of God’s commands, moreover, shows that he has God’s power and greatness always at heart. His spirit rejoices in God his savior and delights in the mere recollection of his creator who gives him hope for eternal salvation.

These words are often for all God’s creations, but especially for the Mother of God. She alone was chosen, and she burned with spiritual love for the son she so joyously conceived. Above all other saints, she alone could truly rejoice in Jesus, her savior, for she knew that he who was the source of eternal salvation would be born in time in her body, in one person both her own son and her Lord.

For the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. Mary attributes nothing to her own merits. She refers all her greatness to the gift of the one whose essence is power and whose nature is greatness, for he fills with greatness and strength the small and the weak who believe in him.

She did well to add: and holy is his name, to warn those who heard, and indeed all who would receive his words, that they must believe and call upon his name. For they too could share in everlasting holiness and true salvation according to the words of the prophet: and it will come to pass, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This is the name she spoke of earlier: and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

Therefore it is an excellent and fruitful custom of holy Church that we should sing Mary’s hymn at the time of evening prayer. By meditating upon the incarnation, our devotion is kindled, and by remembering the example of God’s Mother, we are encouraged to lead a life of virtue. Such virtues are best achieved in the evening. We are weary after the day’s work and worn out by our distractions. The time for rest is near, and our minds are ready for contemplation.

Yesterday, while praying morning prayer, I began to really think about and pray the intercessions contained within that hour of the divine office.  The intercessions come after the hymn, psalmody, reading, and canticle, and they only have the Our Father and closing prayer after them.  Usually this means that I am rushing through them, because I'm in a hurry, or have lost my concentration at this point, or something.  Basically, for one reason or another, I never have really concentrated on them.  Well, yesterday I did, and I was happily surprised (go figure) that they are quite beautiful when you really pray them. 

 

Intercessions - Morning Prayer - Wednesday, fourth week of Lent (3/13/13):

 

Let us give thanks to God, our Father: through the power of the Spirit he purifies our hearts and strengthens us in love. Let us humbly ask him:

Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.

 

I always am taking for granted everything that God has given to me.  He gives us His mercy and love so that we can be made clean, purified, for His greater glory, for our salvation, and that we may more strongly proclaim His love to those around us.

Help us to receive good things from your bounty with a deep sense of gratitude,

– and to accept with patience the evil that comes to us.

Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.

 

Again, I just never actually take the time to tell God the obvious:  Thank You for Your many gifts; Help me to rely on You in the tough times, and carry my crosses with Your love, patience, and fortitude. 

Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments,

– but above all in the ordinary events of daily life.

Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.

 

Yep, love is everything because God is love.  He needs to be in every part of our lives - every where, every time, every opportunity...

May we abstain from what we do not really need,

– and help our brothers and sisters in distress.

Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.

 

Sacrifices in Lent can't stop at us just not eating that donut, or watching that show - they need to directly (and indirectly) show themselves in love.  Lent is for getting closer to God - becoming more like Him.  Since God is love (see previous thought), Lent needs to make us more loving.  If skipping that donut makes us less loving, we need to find something else to skip.

May we bear the wounds of your Son,

– for through his body he gave us life.

Lord, give us your Holy Spirit.

 

See above about carrying crosses...  Through Christ's death, Heaven was opened for us, and only through our own death (both through death to self and this world, and death literally) can we take Christ up on the most magnificent gift that has ever been given. 

 

As you can probably see, I have been seriously undervaluing these intercessions.  I find myself all the time seeing little things (parts of the Mass, or mysteries of the rosary, or stations of the cross, etc.) that I have never seen or realized before.  There is so much depth, beauty, and profundity to Catholic faith, liturgy, devotions, prayers, etc.; we just have to look for it.

 

 

There was a really great reading on the connection between prayer, fasting, and mercy by St. Peter Chrysologus for the Office of Readings today.  It combines the gospel of today, in which Jesus tells us to forgive 77 times, with the prayer and fasting that we should be doing in Lent.  Enjoy!  (In bold is the most important stuff if you are pressed for time.)

Second reading

There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.

Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God’s ear to yourself.

When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.

Let this be the pattern for all men when they practice mercy: show mercy to others in the same way, with the same generosity, with the same promptness, as you want others to show mercy to you.

Therefore, let prayer, mercy and fasting be one single plea to God on our behalf, one speech in our defense, a threefold united prayer in our favor.

Let us use fasting to make up for what we have lost by despising others. Let us offer our souls in sacrifice by means of fasting. There is nothing more pleasing that we can offer to God, as the psalmist said in prophecy:A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; God does not despise a bruised and humbled heart.

Offer your soul to God, make him an oblation of your fasting, so that your soul may be a pure offering, a holy sacrifice, a living victim, remaining your own and at the same time made over to God. Whoever fails to give this to God will not be excused, for if you are to give him yourself you are never without the means of giving.

To make these acceptable, mercy must be added. Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to the earth. However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit.

When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore, do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.

Well, it's been a pretty slow day here at Brute.  We had Mass (as usual) at 9:30, which I served for, a cleaning session afterwords, and then lunch, which was prepared by one of the guy's family (thank! - it was Delicious!).  If you haven't picked up, we always look forward to times when families come in and make us a meal - it's always 10x better than what we normally eat, and there's the added bonus of leftovers (I have never looked forward to leftovers until I came here...).  After lunch until like 5 I didn't do much at which point I went out with a group of guys to longhorn steakhouse.  I could probably count on 1 finger how many times I've had a steak at a restaurant, so it was pretty tasty.  Anyway, during that "empty" period between 1 and 5 I prayed midday prayer, and that is what this short post will dive into:

 

During lent, almost everyday it seems that the antiphon for midday prayer is: "As I live, says the Lord, I do not wish the sinner to die but to turn back to me and live."  Since it keeps re-appearing I thought that it just might be important... (it is).  John 3:16 - "For God so loved the wold, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."  Folks, God loved you and me so much that he was willing to die for us.  God created us in love, to love, and for love, yet when we sin and don't direct that love back to God, when we are selfish with something that God gave us freely, he still love us.  God loves us when we don't love Him.  When Jesus is hanging on the cross in unthinkable anguish because we nailed Him there, what does he say? Luke 23:34 - "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  When we sin, when we're angry, hateful, lazy, selfish, proud, etc. we are choosing to love ourselves more than God and more than others.  God created us "in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)  What does it mean to be made in the image and likeness of God?  1 John 4:7-10 "love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."  

 

I know I'm throwing a lot of scripture around here, but here's the point:  God is love, God created us in love, God created us to love, and when we screwed up and didn't love God back, He loved us more - He died out of love for us.  Guess what, we still screw up, we still don't always love, and guess what, God still loves us.  Now, that doesn't mean we just stop trying to not sin, after all, the point is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and you neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27)  OK, so back to the quote that started off this whole thing: God want us to love Him, he wants us to turn to Him, he wants us to live with Him.  Yeah, we're sinners, that comes with being human, but that doesn't mean we can't turn to God and live.  As Americans we want to be independent, rugged, etc. but we must not become independent of God.  His love is where we came from and that's where we need to get back to.  Don't trust yourself to the point of not trusting God...  Love doesn't take some amount of freedom away from us.  The more we love God the more we are living how we are supposed to - in His image and likeness, and the more we do that the happier we'll be.  Want joy? Want peace? Want to be awesome (ie: live how you were created to)?  Start loving God like He loved you. 

Well, I managed to read the wrong readings for the office of readings today (I took them from the first friday of lent rather than the feast of the chair of Peter).  Thankfully, office of readings can be done at any time during the day, so I can do the correct ones later.  However, the second reading that I did read was on Christ as the model of brotherly love, as the model for us to learn how to be selfless and give ourselves totally to others.  I figured it fit in well with us getting closer to Good Friday.  Enjoy!

"The perfection of brotherly love lies in the love of one’s enemies. We can find no greater inspiration for this than grateful remembrance of the wonderful patience of Christ. He who is more fair than all the sons of men offered his fair face to be spat upon by sinful men; he allowed those eyes that rule the universe to be blindfolded by wicked men; he bared his back to the scourges; he submitted that head which strikes terror in principalities and powers to the sharpness of the thorns; he gave himself up to be mocked and reviled, and at the end endured the cross, the nails, the lance, the gall, the vinegar, remaining always gentle, meek and full of peace.

In short, he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearers he kept silent, and did not open his mouth.

Who could listen to that wonderful prayer, so full of warmth, of love, of unshakable serenity—Father, forgive them—and hesitate to embrace his enemies with overflowing love? Father, he says, forgive them. Is any gentleness, any love, lacking in this prayer?

Yet he put into it something more. It was not enough to pray for them: he wanted also to make excuses for them. Father, forgive them, for the do not know what they are doing. They are great sinners, yes, but they have little judgment; therefore, Father, forgive them. They are nailing me to the cross, but they do not know who it is that they are nailing to the cross: if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory; therefore, Father, forgive them. They think it is a lawbreaker, an impostor claiming to be God, a seducer of the people. I have hidden my face from them, and they do not recognize my glory; therefore, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
If someone wishes to love himself he must not allow himself to be corrupted by indulging his sinful nature. If he wishes to resist the promptings of his sinful nature he must enlarge the whole horizon of his love to contemplate the loving gentleness of the humanity of the Lord. Further, if he wishes to savor the joy of brotherly love with greater perfection and delight, he must extend even to his enemies the embrace of true love.

But if he wishes to prevent this fire of divine love from growing cold because of injuries received, let him keep the eyes of his soul always fixed on the serene patience of his beloved Lord and Savior."

Ever since I entered seminary, I have found that I have been "stretching myself" in the (good) sense of growing and pushing my comfort zone.  Well, this morning I had yet another chance to do this.

 

One of the guys couldn't be here today, and since it was his day to lead the divine office, he asked me to fill in for him.  Of course, I said sure, and then remembered that I hadn't ever done it before.  (I think I did morning prayer one time in the context of Mass where it is a bit simpler).  Anyway, so this morning, since it is Sunday, we do morning prayer before Mass, so I had to get up in front of everybody (gulp), and lead the angelus (I'm glad I had a card) the opening hymn (thankfully I knew it), the psalms (easy), the canticle (chanted), the Our Father (not hard), and whatever parts I forgot to mention (all in all pretty nervous 10 minutes).  I pulled it off, didn't wreck the chanting, didn't miss anything, and feel much better about doing it in the future.

 

Of course, that wasn't the end of my morning.  This was also the first time I have cantored on Sunday.  I guess it's kind of ironic that the guy in charge of the cantors hasn't done Sunday Mass yet, but I just wasn't scheduled to do it last semester.  On a typical weekday all you have to do as a cantor is start the opening hymn and sing the Alleluia (Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ Kind of endless glory in lent) with the gospel acclimation - in other words, typically not hard.  However, this Sunday I had to do the opening hymn (thankfully, with the organ because I didn't really know the song), and then the dreaded Responsorial Psalm.  This is what I was really worried about; you all know the drill, the cantor chants/sings the responsorial and the congregation follows and then the cantor moves on by chanting/singing the verses, for lack of a better word, of the psalm.  It is totally a-capella, ie: no organ, so I had to learn (and remember!) how to do the chanting.  Of course, looking back it was pretty simple, but at the time I was pretty nervous.  Well, Mass wasn't over yet, but it was all reasonably easy from there on.  The schola did the song at the offertory and the hymn during Communion, so that was easy.  I did have to do the sanctus, mysterium fidei, and agnus dei, but other than these being in Latin they were pretty simple (I again had the organ, so that helped).  Then it was just the closing hymn and I was done. 

 

Dreading would be too strong of a word to describe how I was feeling about this morning, but I definitely was nervous.  Thankfully, each time I do a new thing (and thank goodness don't mess it up) gives me more experience and greater confidence in the future.  Great times!