Ending the Year of Faith

Today's Feast of Christ the King ends the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. The closing Mass in St Peter’s Square included exposition, for public veneration, of the bones of St. Peter. Eight bone fragments were in an open bronze reliquary displayed to the side of the altar.

In 1971, Paul VI was given an urn containing the relics, which were kept inside the private papal chapel inside the Apostolic Palace and exhibited for the pope's private veneration each June 29, for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. Sunday marked the first time they were shown in public.

During the ceremony, the Pope – the 265th successor of Peter – held the closed reliquary for several minutes in silent prayer while choirs sang the Nicene Creed in Latin. The bones, which were discovered during excavations of the necropolis under St Peter’s Basilica had never been displayed in public.

“When Jesus is at the centre, light shines even the darkest moments of our lives; he gives us hope,” Pope Francis said in his homily.

At St. Columbkille, to mark the end of the Year of Faith we are renewing our Baptismal Promises.

Renewal of Baptismal Promises: (replaces Creed)

Priest:

Brothers and sisters,
through the Paschal Mystery
we have been buried with Christ in Baptism,
so that we may walk with him in newness of life.
And so, as the Year of Faith comes to an end,
let us renew the promises of Holy Baptism,
by which we once renounced Satan and his works
and promised to serve God in the holy Catholic Church.

(Congregation should be standing.)

And so I ask you:

Priest:  Do you renounce sin,
          so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you renounce the lure of evil,
          so that sin may have no mastery over you?
ALL:  I do.

Priest:  Do you renounce Satan,
          the author and prince of sin?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in God,
          the Father almighty,
          Creator of heaven and earth?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
          who was born of the Virgin Mary,
          suffered death and was buried,
          rose again from the dead
          and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in the Holy Spirit,
          the holy Catholic Church,
          the forgiveness of sins,
          the resurrection of the body
          and life everlasting?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: And may almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
          who has given us new birth by water and the Holy Spirit
          and bestowed on us forgiveness of our sins,
          keep us by his grace,
          in Christ Jesus our Lord,
          for eternal life.

ALL:  AMEN.

"Now Thank We All Our God"

" Now thank we all our God,
With hearts, and hands, and voices
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices
Who, from our mothers' arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today." 

-- Traditional hymn

While driving this week I noticed that some homes already were lit up with Christmas lights, and  I was kind of sad about that.

I've come to accept that people like to start decorating early, while the weather is still nice. But jumping ahead to Christmas often means glancing over both Thanksgiving and Advent, two times of the year we should savor and enjoy.

I love Thanksgiving and hate to watch it fade as Christmas shopping not only encroaches upon it but completely envelopes it. As a nation we need an occasion to just pause and say thanks. We often forget how blessed we are and tend to take our freedom and prosperity for granted. We need to remember God, the source of all blessings.

I love the 9 a.m. Masses that St. Columbkille offers on holidays like Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Apparently others do, too, because the pews seem to get fuller each year. Musicians and other liturgical volunteers give us a full celebration.

The holidays become more meaningful in the context of Mass, especially Thanksgiving. Worshipers praise and thank God and ask for His blessings on themselves, their families and even the dinner bread they bring and will later share at home. They also bring food pantry donations, a way to acknowledge their blessedness by sharing with others.

The entire Mass puts me in the right frame of mind to enjoy all the other good things about Thanksgiving --  including food, family and football.

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.

Mary's Minions

Somehow two boys turned a conversation about clothes into a lesson about our Blessed Mother Mary.

My sons Paul, 10, and David, 6, had just changed clothes, and both were wearing striped polo shirts. Paul casually mentioned that he thought his shirt was the color of angels: blue, white and yellow. He said those were the colors he typically saw in artwork of angels.

David, wearing green stripes, said he was wearing Mary's colors.

Wait a minute. What? Paul and I looked at each other, both confused. I told David that blue is traditionally associated with Mary, that she is often pictured wearing it, that sometimes mothers dress their children in blue out of devotion to our Lady, and there's even an old  song and poem about a "Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue."

 So I had to ask, "Why is green Mary's color?"

"Mary wears green, not blue," he said, pointing to a painting behind me. Sure enough, in an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary was wearing green. 

"OK, green can be Mary's color too."

Then David said, "I could be Mary's minion."

That comment dazed me. Later I realized he probably said that because he was imitating her in wearing green. And of course minions are popular among 6-year-olds now because of the "Despicable Me" movies.

But at the moment I thought, "Wow, where did he get that from?"

I told David that actually Mary has minions. Sometimes they call themselves her children, her servants, even her slaves. And when we place ourselves at her service, we serve Jesus at the same time.

But I kept thinking about minions. What a perfect word. One dictionary has this definition: "a favorite or dependent, especially a servile or fawning one." It's good to be one of Mary's favorites, dependent on her, serving her, even fawning over her. I think her Son would like that.

I'm going to encourage David to be Mary's minion. And I want to be one, too.

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.

Starting Late

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, 'You, too, go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.' So they went off. He went out again around noon, and around three o'clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o'clock, he found others standing around and said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' They answered, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You, too, go into my vineyard.' "

We are entering the last days of the Year of Faith, which concludes Nov. 24, the feast of Christ the King.

The Year of Faith has given us an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God. Up to this point many of us may have failed to live out this call from the Church. But that doesn't mean it's too late to begin -- even as we approach the eleventh hour of this specially designated year.

In an April homily Pope Francis reminded us that we are all journeying toward the heavenly Jerusalem, "the happy day when we will see the Lord's face, and be with Him forever, in His love."

Our Lord reminds us in Matthew's Gospel quoted above, and in other parts of Scripture, that He welcomes our steps toward Him, even if we start late, even if we falter.

Undoubtedly some late-starters are in Heaven. St. Dismas, the name traditionally given to the good thief who was crucified next to Christ, exemplifies this type of saint. Dismas was a criminal. Yet he asked for God's mercy as he was dying. Jesus' reply: "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

It would be wrong to intentionally procrastinate in setting forth on our journey, to put off God and then presume His mercy. But God always welcomes earnest workers into His vineyard, even when we begin late in the day.

Pope Francis said that the work would be hard at times, quoting Saints Paul and Barnabus: "we must undergo many trials if we are to enter the Kingdom of God." Our Holy Father went on: "The journey of the Church, and our own personal journeys as Christians, are not always easy; they meet with difficulties and trials. These obstacles are part of the path that leads to God's glory, just as they were for Jesus, Who was glorified on the cross; we will always encounter them in life!"

The journey is one of faith and perseverance, the pope said. We must "remain steadfast in the journey of faith, with hope in the Lord. This is the secret of our journey."

Let us begin, even in this late hour in the Year of Faith, toward our eternal destination in Christ!

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.

Lukewarmness

"I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth."

I pray that I never hear these words from Revelation on judgement day. Though in my present state, I know God could justly accuse me of being lukewarm.

These words are among the most unsettling in Scripture. Some Bible footnotes I read about the text said that "spit" in this context means literally, vomit. In other words, the footnotes said, "Halfhearted commitment to the faith is nauseating to Christ."

I suspect that many people share my condition. Our lukewarmness could be the primary reason that the road to Hell is wide and the way to Heaven narrow. Few people, it seems, passionately love or hate God. Many of us are in a murky place in between, in which we know yet ignore the Truth. It would be understandable if we hate God because of our pride or ignorance. But to claim to follow Him and in no way resemble Him seems the ultimate betrayal.

Pope Francis took on our half-hearted faith in his homily Thursday morning:

". . . it takes us on the road of hypocrisy. ‘I call myself a Christian, but live like a pagan!’ Sometimes we say ‘Christians at half-speed,’ who do not take this seriously. We are holy, justified, sanctified by the blood of Christ: Take this sanctification and carry it forward! Though people do not take it seriously! Lukewarm Christians: ‘But, yes, yes , but, no, no’. Neither here nor there - as our mothers said, ‘rosewater Christians’ - no! A little touch here and there, of Christian paint, a little ‘paint catechesis’ - but inside there is no true conversion, there is no such conviction as that of St.Paul: ‘Everything I gave up and I consider garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.’ ”

We have to take the faith, the sanctification, we received at Baptism and place it front and center in our lives, Pope Francis said. In Baptism, we were remade, recreated in Christ's blood. To be serious about our faith means to live it out in simple works of righteousness, he said.

“Worship God. God is always first! And then do what Jesus advises us to help others.”

These actions, the pope said, “are the works that Jesus did in his life: the works of justice, works of re-creation.” 

“When we give food to a hungry person, we re-create hope in him. So it is with others.

But if “we accept the faith and then do not live it, we are Christians only in memory.”

Pope Francis, St. Paul, and all the saints encourage us to live the holiness to which we are called.

 "You can do it!"

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.

(Papal text from page http://en.radiovaticana.va/articolo.asp?c=740250
of the Vatican Radio website)