40 Hour Devotion: A Time For Prayer

Please join St. Mark on our annual 40 Hour Devotion leading up to this weekend's Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.  The remaining times are:

• Thursday until 10pm
• Friday after 6:15am Mass to 10pm
• Saturday from 8:00am to Benediction at 3:30pm.

What is Adoration?

Confused about what Adoration is and why we do it?  Read this quote below, which is taken from a small book produced by Ligouri Press called In the Presence, by Sr. Joan Ridley, OSB (PDF).

When we sit in silence in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, we are being gazed upon by the Lord. Actually this is true every moment of our lives, but in church or chapel, we have intentionality in gazing at the Lord. That is why we are there. It is an experience of adoration. We do not have to be rationally aware of this reality. It does not depend on our mind so much as our heart... Adoration is our fundamental stance before God, the essential act of relating ourselves to the Absolute. It involves worship. We worship and adore God alone.

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." -- Jesus, Matthew 11:28

Simply put, Adoration is a time for us to pray, to listen, and to be in the presence of Jesus.  Give it a try.  Bring your family.  Time with God is never wasted.

Image Credit: ElectricDisk on flickr

Where Communion Hosts Come From

Have you ever wondered where Communion hosts are made?  Well now you can find out with a look inside the Cavanagh Company, the good folks who make the bread we use at St. Mark and throughout the United States.  I like to think of this video as a Mr. Rogers-esq trip into a religious bread company.

This video requires Flash.  If you're using an iOS device, sorry!


You can read the entire article here.

Note: There's been a lack of posting and updates on the blog mostly due to the flurry of preparation time that goes into First Eucharist.  After first Eucharist and Confirmation are completed, we'll be back to regularly posting.

First Eucharist at St. Mark: Welcome Guests!

Welcome to any guests who will be joining us May 5-6 or May 12-13 for our parish-wide celebration of First Eucharist!  To help make this day beautiful for everyone, here are some pointers:

• Please be aware that the front parking lot may be full, meaning you may be required to park in the rear parking lot.
• Contact the parents of the First Communicant for information on where your family will be sitting on that day.
• Arrive inside the Sanctuary no later than 5 minutes before the start of Mass if you wish to sit with the family members of the First Communicant in the reserved pew.  Ushers are instructed to fill in any empty seats at this point.
• Mass times are:
• Saturday at 5:30PM
• Sunday at 8:15AM, 10:00AM, and 11:45AM
• No photographs are allowed during Mass, with the exception of when the First Communicants are processing in during the Gathering Song at the beginning of Mass.  After Mass, children will congregate around Fr. Pat for a picture near the altar.
• Please join us with full heart and full voice to help make our worship of God and our celebration of the Mass fuller and more meaningful.
• For more information on what we believe about the Eucharist, watch this short, 5-minute video.

Please pray for all our First Communicants as they begin this new and exciting part of their journey with God!

Photo Credit: m.gifford on flickr

The Eucharist (how we receive)

With First Eucharist coming up the next two weekends at Mass, it's a good time to brush up on what we believe about the Eucharist.  Check out this quick video that explains a little of what we believe and a little on how to receive:

Keep these children in your prayers!

Holy Thursday

To prepare for Holy Thursday's liturgy (Mass of the Lord's Supper), take a look at this video from Fr. Robert Barron's Catholicism series.  In it he talks about the words of Jesus in John 6.



What's my experience of the Eucharist?  Do I believe with my actions as well as with my mind that Jesus has the words of everlasting life?

Holy Week in 2 Minutes

This two minute video which runs through the holiest week of the year, Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday.
What did you learn from this video?  What could you pass on to your children?

Car Conversation: On Your Way to Mass

Kids in the car!

It can be a struggle to get in the car, but once you're there you have a great opportunity to engage your children in preparing for Mass.  Here are a few ideas:

• If possible, you can have someone in your car read through the Gospel.  Talk about the Gospel for the few minutes you have.  Your kids will be more focused during the Gospel after having talked it through.
• Only one driving?  When we're at Mass, we have a chance to bring in all that happened during the week and pray through the events and circumstances of our lives.  Have everyone answer and share one of each the following:
• What are you thankful for this week?
• What do you need need forgiveness for this week?
• What sacrifices have you made this week?
• What do you need to pray for for this upcoming week?
• Need some quiet time?  Ask everyone to spend a few moments conversing with God (AKA praying).  Sometimes when we're running close to the start of Mass, this quiet time is important to help us transition  into Mass.

What sorts of conversations do you have in the car with your children before Mass?  Is it pure chaos?  Leave a comment below and share.

Image Credit: Thomas Widmann on flickr

New Roman Missal: Liturgy of the Eucharist

People using a prayer aid:
our reality the next few months

Finishing our series on the New Roman Missal, we turn our attention to the prayers surrounding our reception of Jesus in the Eucharist.  Even though I knew the change was happening, the degree of change in the Eucharistic Prayer really caught my attention.  Below we'll take a look at a few of the different prayers prayed by the priest and the assembly.

Hosts ≠ wafer

We've been praying the revised Holy, Holy, Holy for a few months now in song.  There's only one minor change.  Instead of being a "God of power and might," we now pray that God is a "God of hosts."  Ask any second grader preparing for First Communion and they'll tell you host means wafer, but that's not the cast.  Here, hosts means a multitude of angelic beings.

As with many of the changes, "hosts" is a direct allusion from Scripture, this time Isaiah 6:3:

One [angel] cried out to the other:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”

Sounds familiar?  Here, the prophet Isaiah is having a vision of God sitting on a thrown on high surrounded by angels (whose name literally means messenger).  Having dwelt with God, the angels should know a thing or two about God, so their proclamation that God is holy should be taken seriously.  And just before this prayer, the priest invites us to join the heavenly choirs of angels in praising God.  When we do this, we're uniting our voices not only to their voices, but the voices of countless generations of Jews and Christians who have acclaimed the holiness of God through multiple millennia.  Our prayer and worship of God becomes united to the prayer and worship of all those saints and angels.  What a truly awesome experience!

Chalice not cup
The best summary I've found of change from cup to chalice is found in the Life Teen video for Parents, the same one I posted previously.  Below is that video linked up to the time where he talks the shift (the explanation is less than one minute).



As an aside, the change from cup to chalice reminds me of the fictional Indiana Jones scene where Dr. Jones is picking the Holy Grail, believed to be the true cup of Christ (he chose poorly, he chose wisely).  Even though the vessel the poor man chose looks more ornate than the vessel Dr. Jones picked, Indy's choice does look like the chalices we use at ST. MARK.

Is many less than all?
One of the more controversial changes was the decision to translation the Latin word pro multis from "all," as in the previous translation, to "many."  Does this mean Jesus didn't die for less than all, because many is less than all?  No.


The official US Conference of Catholic Bishop's website provides a very helpful FAQs about this translation.  Below is an excerpt from the FAQs:

Does this mean that Christ did not die for everyone? 

We believe Jesus died for all

No. It is a dogmatic teaching of the Church that Christ died on the Cross for all men and women (cf. John 11:52; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; Titus 2:11; 1 John 2:2). The expression “for many,” while remaining open to the inclusion of each human person, is reflective also of the fact that this salvation is not brought about in some mechanistic way, without one’s own willing or participation; rather, the believer is invited to accept in faith the gift that is being offered and to receive the supernatural life that is given to those who participate in this mystery, living it out in their lives as well so as to be numbered among the “many” to whom the text refers. 

What is the significance of “for many” in this context and in the context of the Gospel? 

With these words, Jesus identifies his mission to bring salvation through his Passion and Death, his offering of himself for others. In a particular way he identifies himself with the Suffering Servant of the Prophet Isaiah, who suffers to “take away the sins of many” (Is 53:12).

Again, this shift focuses on harmony with our biblical texts.  Matthew 26: 26-28 says (emphasis added):

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body.”  Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.

Enter under my roof
Like many of the revisions, when we pray "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my souls will be healed," we're alluding to Scripture.  If you're unfamiliar with the story of the centurion, there's a brief recap below:

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion said in reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.” -- Matthew 8:5-8, 10

Swap servant for soul and we quote Scripture directly.  When we pray this prayer, we're placing ourselves in the shoes of the centurion who showed great faith.  And we're hearing from Jesus about how great our faith is "as you have believed, let it be done for you" (Matthew 8:13).

We're all searching for healing in life.  Others hurt us and we hurt others.  Words, actions, inactions, thoughts, social systems, our complacency: we are a world in need of a savior, in need of a healer.  Jesus is that healer.  When we say "roof" we're not talking about the roof of our mouth.  Instead, we're praying that because of our unworthiness, because of our sinfulness, we feel unworthy to have Jesus enter into the house that is our heart, our soul.  May Jesus continue to heal us as individuals and as community!

photo credit: michael_swan; Bruce Guenter