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Third Sunday of the Year
24 January 2010
Dear Friends in Christ,
Every Catholic knows that we do not have a sufficient number of priests to serve the Church in the United States (and, indeed, throughout the First World) and that we are asked on a regular basis to pray to the Lord for more laborers in the vineyard. There are doubtless many reasons for the decline in the number of men offering themselves for the priesthood in the last 40 years, but I believe that one of the most important of these reasons is this: In the years immediately after the Second Vatican Council, much of the Church was plunged into liturgical chaos, and during the years of experimentation, the primary purpose of every priest’s life (the celebration of Holy Mass) was so obscured by the chaos that many priests no longer saw a point to their way of life and left the priesthood, while many others who might have been called to the altar either could not hear or answer that call because the beauty of the Mass was all but lost in a never-ending storm of liturgical abuses.
God be praised, this period of chaos is coming to an end, and restoring the beauty and dignity of the sacred liturgy is one of the chief priorities of Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father is asking every priest in the Church to celebrate the sacred liturgy according to the mind of the Church (not according to his own personal tastes or creative whims) and to understand that the sacred liturgy is not the property of any one priest, parish, or diocese but the common patrimony of the entire Body of Christ. The pope’s summons to priests to reform their ars celebrandi (or art of celebrating the liturgy) is nothing other than calling us to be faithful to one of the promises of our ordination. Before the bishop imposes hands and calls down the Holy Spirit to make a man a priest, he asks the candidate “Are you resolved to celebrate the mysteries of Christ faithfully and religiously as the Church has handed them down to us for the glory of God and the sanctification of Christ’s people?” Only when the candidate has promised this fidelity to the celebration of the sacred liturgy according to the mind of the Church can he be ordained to the priesthood. Pope Benedict is simply reminding priests of this promise we have each made and calling us to be faithful to that promise.
An important part of the ongoing reform of the liturgical life of the Church is the contribution made by scholars from many disciplines (theology, music, art, architecture, etc), and this week St. Mary’s is hosting a conference by a group of such scholars called the Society for Catholic Liturgy. To learn more about this Society, please visit its website at www.liturgysociety.org. The various lectures of this coming conference are open only to members of the Society, but the several liturgies which will be celebrated in our church during the meeting are open to everyone. Please join us for Morning Prayer at 8.30 am on Friday and Saturday, for Mass at 11.15 on Friday and Saturday, for Vespers at 5.00 on Friday, and for a concert of sacred music concluding with Compline or Night Prayer at 8.00 pm Saturday.
Father Newman