Spiritus Sanctus

Last week, I started training as a Safety Management Officer at my parish, Church of the Holy Spirit. To say I didn’t know what I was getting myself into would be an understatement.

I ended up standing around most of the time, helping uncles and aunties check in for mass, and generally just overseeing the entire TraceTogether and mass registration processes.

Oh, and connecting with several new faces on the Safety Management Team, and reconnecting with other familiar ones. Some idle chit-chat in between incoming spurts of parishioners.

On the whole, not a lot of work, and no big deal.

Except it is a big deal.

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The trouble with online masses is that they really are a pale shadow of communal Eucharistic celebrations, not just because we don’t get to receive Jesus in the Flesh, but also because we don’t get to see our fellow believers in the flesh. Yes, our focus should always be on the Lord (and his priest in persona Christi) during mass, but my heart has always, always been lifted at the sight of both friends and familiar strangers, companions on our journey together in faith.

Like the autistic teenager whose sudden outbursts weary his parents, but warm my heart.

And the little boy who puts us all to shame with his VERY LOUD proclamations of the Nicene Creed and other key prayers.

And the old folks in wheelchairs or mobility scooters, nearing their end but still fervent in their faith.

Truly, in the days when all of us had to stay away from church, I missed them almost as much as I missed the Eucharist. As we are called to see Him in the people around us, this should be no surprise.

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Now that our nation is slowly emerging from the valley of darkness that is COVID-19, our parishes are similarly opening up again. I’m sure that churches everywhere are in need of volunteers to help manage the growing numbers of returning parishioners, and to keep everyone safe while glorifying God.

That is why I didn’t hesitate to shoulder this responsibility when asked if I could.

That is why I’ll continue to spend almost two hours each weekend on what I first thought to be a Herculean task, but turned out instead to be pretty straightforward, almost to the point of mind-numbing.

Because when I get to interact with my brethren in Christ, it’s no longer boring.

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Dear brothers and sisters, I implore you now to search your heart. If you are fully vaccinated, and are not actively serving in your parish at this moment (choirs are particularly hard-hit in this regard), ask to help out with safety management in some capacity, then sit with your fellow parishioners at mass, breathe in the communal love for God and from God, and know that you are home.

And as we celebrate a subdued but no less important National Day, let’s recall a familiar song from long ago, as it should have been sung…

This is home truly
Where I know I must be
Where my Lord waits for me
Where His Love will always flow

This is home surely
As the Spirit tells me
This is where I won’t be alone
When God is there, I know it’s home

Amen.

I was listening to Dr. Scott Hahn’s latest podcast posting on The New Evangelization During Lent, when his recount of a particular speech grabbed my attention. He was presenting at the 2015 World Meeting of Families at the Vatican, and had just introduced an unusual speaker for a Catholic conference: Pastor Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist preacher whose most famous book, The Purpose Driven Life, might be familiar to you.

The words he shared on that day were received with thunderous applause, and their remarkable cadence inspired the following layout (with a little rephrasing):

In today’s society,
materialism is idolized,
immorality is glamorized,
truth is minimized,
sin is normalized,
divorce is rationalized,
and abortion is legalized.

In TV and movies,
crime is legitimized,
drug use is minimized,
comedy is vulgarized,
and sex is trivialized.

In movies,
the Bible is fictionalized,
churches are satirized,
God is marginalized,
and Christians are demonized.

The elderly are dehumanized,
the sick are euthanized,
the poor are victimized,
the mentally ill are ostracized,
immigrants are stigmatized,
and children are tranquilized.

In families around the world,
our manners are uncivilized,
speech is vulgarized,
faith is secularized,
and everything is commercialized.

Unfortunately…

Christians, you and I, are often disorganized and demoralized,
our faith is compartmentalized,
and our witness is compromised.

So what do we need?

For our worship to be revitalized,
our differences to be minimized,
our members to be mobilized,
the lost to be evangelized,
and our families to be re-energized.

Doesn’t it just make you want to

get out of your chair,
pump your fists in the air,
and yell “YES LORD, I’M THERE!”?

Or are you in the middle of your Ash Wednesday fast,

your energy flagging,
your stomach rumbling,
your will to continue crumbling?

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I’ve learned the hard way that the Lord will give me what I need when I need it, not what I want when I want it. In this case, it was in the form of Laura Vanderkam’s Before Breakfast podcast, wherein she advised listeners yesterday to steer clear of deprivation: “When you’re trying to take something out of your life, replace it with something else that’s just as special”.

If our fasting consists of staying away from food and nothing else, we’re just setting ourselves up for failure…and depriving ourselves of Christ. Instead, we’re encouraged to substitute prayer, Spirit-filled contemplation, scripture reading, or anything else that draws us closer to the One who gave up everything for us, even His own life.

That’s why I spent my lunch hour listening to Catholic podcasts, drafting my first blog post in far too long…and reviewing and publishing it during what would’ve been my tea break. In that way, I gave up food for life, and substituted food of life.

I think the replacement is actually more special. Don’t you?

Lord God, as we begin the season of Lent today, remind us that nothing is good that doesn’t have its roots in You. Help us to willingly give up everything that isn’t worthy, that we may turn to You in our hunger and embrace Your Only Son, our friend and Lord Jesus Christ. May we die to our corporeal selves, that we may rise in light and lead our neighbors to You.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Amen.

As we approach the Nativity of Our Lord, I happened to look up the holy city Bethlehem on Wikipedia. There, at the bottom of the sidebar, were the words:

Name meaning

House of Meat (Arabic);
House of Bread (Hebrew & Aramaic)

Bethlemen (Wikipedia)

So as we count down the days to Christmas, let’s keep in mind that the Blessed Virgin Mary travelled long miles and braved untold dangers to deliver:

the Bread of Life, to be broken for all
and
the Lamb of God, whose flesh would be torn for all.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

I was just listening to a Catholic podcast, when the presenters shed a new light on these familiar words:

The angel Gabriel went in and said to Mary, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’

Luke 1:28

“The Lord is with you.” Five words that we all take for granted now, but which our ancestors in faith probably reacted to very differently, more like:

Uh oh.

When Moses was sent by God on a “mission impossible” to free the Israelites from Egyptian captivity (Exodus 3:7-12), what did God say to him? “I shall be with you.”

Uh oh.

When God called Jeremiah to preach repentance to His wayward stony-hearted children (Jeremiah 1:4-19), what did He say to him? “I am with you to protect you. They will fight against you, but I will deliver you.”

Uh oh.

It seems that in the Bible, whenever the Lord says that He is with someone, it’s often in the context of “I want you to do something that will be exceedingly difficult, possibly even life-threatening, and turn your life upside-down, but you’ll be fine because I am with you.”

So when a young peasant girl in a backwoods village is told that the Lord is with her, what do you think her reaction would be? Scripture tells us:

She was deeply disturbed by these words

Luke 1:29

Uh oh.

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Most of us don’t hear that directly from the Almighty. Instead, it’s others who tell us that He’s by our side to support us, so we don’t take it too seriously, treating it as “just something people say for comfort”, and continue with our daily lives the way we want to.

But what happens on the day we do hear directly from God, like a priest receiving his calling? Will it be:

Oh my God, you’re really real!
Oh my God, you’re talking to me!
Oh my God, you want me to totally change my life, don’t you?
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!
…
Um, can KIV or not hah?

Or will it simply be:

Lord, I am Yours.

If we are too wrapped up in our secular lives and possessions, the latter response would be almost impossible.

Now that COVID-19 has upended all our lives, and especially as we approach the Nativity of Our Lord, let’s take the time to reconsider everything that we hold dear, and be prepared to leave it all behind and go to God when He calls, for whatever reason.

Because as surely as night follows day, He will call us at least once, and on that “day’s end”,

Uh oh (I’ll surely burn in hell)

would be a truly unfortunate response.

O God, I know you are with me, but I keep taking Your presence for granted. Grant me the grace to say “no” to sin, “no” to self-indulgence, “no” to clinging to the mundane, and say “yes” to holiness, “yes” to loving community, “yes” to Your Will that is Life. I love You, Father, in union with Son and Spirit, one God over all. Amen.