Ars Celebrandi and the Three Year Old!

Don't know if you've seen this great Youtube Video, but my compliments to Isaiah's parents and their parish priest, from whom this budding liturgist has clearly learned a lot!

The Sanctifying Office of the Priest

Three days with the Priests of the Diocese of Manchester in New Hampshire are drawing to a close.  I am very grateful to Bishop Peter Libasci and the ninety priests who joined us for these days, exploring the topic: The Sanctifying Office of the Priest: The Ministry of the Sacraments.  For a PDF copy of the presentations, please click on the topics below:

1. Ars Celebrandi and the Celebration of the Sacraments

2. Priestly Identity and the Rite of Ordination

3. Priestly Walking with the Sick and Dying

4. Penance and the Priest who Prays


5. The Priest Celebrating Marriage

Several of those present also asked how to get copies of my newest book and DVDs.  Just scroll down the bar to the right of this posting and you will find links many of the resources I have been working on.

It was great being in North Conway with you!

The Mass Explained in New Orleans

What a joy it was to be with the good folks of New Orleans who have been reading THE MASS EXPLAINED over the past several months!  I am deeply grateful to Archbishop Aymond for the opportunity to reflect in print and in person with these wonderful and faithful Catholics who seek to learn how to more deeply participate in the holy and living sacrifice which is the Mass!

If you would like to download a PDF copy of the slides I used in my two talks, just click here and here.

The Mass is Our Life: New From CatholicTV

This morning we just started filming a new program for CatholicTV called The Mass is Our Life!  This production is a commentary on the Mass for use in adult education and RCIA programs.  Editing and more shooting will continue over the next couple of months.  Stay tuned to this blog for more details!

GIRM WORKSHOP AT THE PASTORAL CENTER IN BOSTON

Today I was honored to gather with a great group of Priests and Deacons at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in Braintree.  If you would like a copy of the slides used in my presentation on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, please click here.  For the “Quiz Slides” on rubrics of the Roman Missal, please click here.

THE COLLECTS OF EASTER: THE THIRD SUNDAY

"May your people exult forever, O God, in renewed youthfulness of spirit, so that, rejoicing now in the restored glory of our adoption, we may look forward in confident hope to the rejoicing of the day of resurrection."

We're on our third week of meditating on the Easter mysteries...21 days down and 29 to go!  The Easter season is the longest of all the seasons of the Church year, but maybe that's because there's just so much to think about!

In today's Collect, for example, we hear a word we have not used since the Easter Vigil.  Did you hear it?  It's the very first word of the Paschal proclamation sung on the Easter night:  Exult!

Now we have heard it before in the form “exhalation,” that is to rejoice in an extraordinary way.  Exaltation is an almost unconstrained form of rejoicing.  The Easter Proclamation, or Exultet, as it is often called, actually uses three words for our reaction to the Resurrection of the Lord.  The first is Exult:

Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven,

exult let Angel ministers of God exist,

let the trumpet of salvation sound aloud our mighty King’s triumph!

This is followed by a slightly less intensive word: be glad!

Be glad, and let earth be glad, as glory floods her,

Ablaze with light from her eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad,

knowing an end to gloom and darkness.

The song then switches to the most moderate of words: Rejoice!

Rejoice, let mother Church  also rejoice,

a raid with a lighting all of his glory,

 let this holy building shake with joy,

filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.

Three weeks after the deacons saying that hymn before the Paschal candle, the Church reminds us of the boundless joy with which she receives the news of her Salvation. It is a rejoicing which rekindles the joy of our youth, as the psalmist tells us. It is the reason why we celebrate Easter every year, and indeed every Sunday, “that all might grasp and rightly understand in what font they have been washed, by whose Spirit they have been reborn, by whose Blood they have been redeemed.”

I sometimes fear that we live in a world devoid of real joy, entertained by the passing pleasures which masquerade as perfect joy. We so often anesthetize ourselves from our fears and sorrows rather than seeking the face of God through the cross of Jesus Christ and through the way of suffering unto death in love for the other.

It is the difference between the real and the counterfeit, the authentic and the fake, really living and just seeking to be alive.

That’s why we have the Easter season, a time to teach us how to rejoice; time to remind us who we are, where we have come from, and what we were made to be.

So rejoice you chosen people, you royal priesthood, you people set apart! For God has consecrated you as his own. You have been washed clean by his precious blood. Rejoice! Be glad! And exult in his mercy!

KNIGHTS OF MALTA IN CONNECTICUT

It was a delight to be with the Knights of Malta in Greenwich, Connecticut today.  The topic of my talk was: The Roman Missal: Maintaining the Catholic, the Apostolic, the Roman Faith.


If you would like a PDF copy of the slides from my talk, just click here.

Several of you inquired concerning my book, DVDs and other resources.  Just consult the column to the right of this posting.  Links to these and other resources are found right below my bio.

God bless you for all your goodness!