25 Years Ago, I Came Home - Part 2 - It's All About the Liturgy

In Part 1 of my reflections on 25 years in the Catholic Church, I focused on the community of friends in faith. Yes, community was one big reason I love the Church, have stayed and became more deeply involved year after year. The other reason is the liturgy.

Tonight, as we gather around the Easter fire, light and bless the new Easter candle, process into church and light the tapers of all those present, and launch into the Exsultet, the great proclamation of the Resurrection of our Lord, I will be doing the thing I love best - being part of the prayer of the community.


From the moment I attended my first Mass while I was in the RCIA process as a candidate for full commuion, I was in love. I found great comfort in the dignity, structure and ritual nature of Catholic worship. As I became comfortable with my own part in it, that love grew - and I went deeper.

Having grown up singing on and off in church and community choirs, I knew I wanted to join the parish choir as soon as the Easter Vigil was over. During the summer, I began training to be a cantor, and in the fall, I was asked to join the parish liturgy committee, where I learned much from the wonderful people who had been on it for years. Soon, I also volunteered to help the diocesan liturgy office to catalog  their music library.  Later, I would be asked to oversee that office during a 2-year hiatus when it was "closed" - and found myself being asked to coordinate diocesan liturgies.  My bishop kept telling me "You can do it!" I was not as sure as he was, but I had a lot of help preparing for the Rite of Election,  Chrism Mass, and Ordinations for two years.

It was when I was asked to attend a major liturgical conference, sitting in a room full of professional liturgists and bishops, that I found myself asking what I was doing there. At that point, a voice inside me said "Because you can do this!"  Armed with the sense that God was calling me to go even deeper, I began a 4-year process of obtaining a Master's Degree in Pastoral Studies with emphasis in liturgy. That has enabled me to coordinate liturgy in two parishes, and to serve the Church in many ways.

Why is the liturgy such a good fit for me? Many reasons.

• I love praising God. Without Him, and the community of faith with which He has surrounded me, I would not be here... in many ways.
• I love words. As someone who was once an English Major, I have a love for the words in the Mass.
• I love music. Born, fortuitously enough, on St. Cecilia's day,  my first songs as a young child were common Protestant church hymns and I had been in choirs and ensembles all my life before joining the Church. I also play guitar, which has occasionally come in handy.
• I love when things make sense. At heart, I am an intellectual. The more I study liturgy and the more I learn, the more the liturgy "clicks" with me.  The interweaving of how what we pray is what we believe, and the many ways that manifests itself in the Mass - that fascinates me.
• I love being part of something bigger than myself. Joining the "one voice" of the people raised in prayer to the Father through the Son, in the presence of the Holy Spirit - for that hour or so, I can put away the ego, the cares and concerns of life, and immerse myself in "God's time."

There are probably more reasons, but these, I think are the main ones. So, in two-and-a-half hours, when we gather around the Easter fire, I will be in my element. Immersed in the Mass, part of the great praise of God's people in response to the miracle of Christ's Resurrection.

25 Years Ago, I Came Home - Part 1 - The Cast of Characters

This year I celebrate my 25th Easter Vigil - my 25th anniversary of becoming a Catholic. I thought it would be easy to write about that... but actually, it's not. I find myself filled with many emotions and memories.  Yes, "it's been a long, strange trip" as the song says. A trip I have honestly never regretted. Most of all, it has been a trip during which I have never been alone. Through it all, I have had an unfailing community of friends.  It is one of the reasons I have felt at home in the Church from the beginning - I had been, all my life, searching for community - and at last, I had found it.

I see their faces as I write this - some living, some now gone to meet the Lord:  Sister Theresa, the feisty Irish nun who taught me about Catholic faith and led the RCIA team that brought me into the Church. (I remember the day we encountered each other, years later, at a national RCIA convention and how moved she was to see someone she had helped initiate now working in the ministry of initiation.)  I see Don and Elna, my devoted and caring sponsors, chosen by the parish because I walked in not knowing anyone, with my two young children in tow (their non-practicing Catholic father never came with me.)  I see the other team members, who after I came into the Church became close friends and fellow ministers in the parish. I see Sarah, a bright, mature and dedicated woman skilled in liturgical drama who ran the parish liturgy committee and was a member of that same RCIA team. Sweet, dear Sarah, who loved liturgy - and taught me to love it too - but who unaccountably, a few years later, broke my heart when she committed suicide. 

I see the faces of the women in the Altar and Rosary Society - who, after I was presented to the parish at the Rite of Welcoming,  came up to me and made me feel so sincerely welcome in that parish. I see the faces of my small community, the choir, who embraced me, formed me in liturgical music, and loved me through the painful breakup of my marriage.  I see those who faithfully served in the many ministries of my very active home parish. I see the faces of Cursillistas, women who returned year after year, to invite and assist other women to know Jesus and the community more deeply. I see the priests who formed me and helped me heal the hurts of life over the years through their roles as retreat leaders and spiritual mentors.

I see the gruff, yet compassionate diocesan vicar who picked me up when I was down in despair over my unemployment who told me: "You need a job, I need a secretary. Do you want to try this?"  (He later mentored and supported me through a master's degree program - for which I can never thank him enough.)  I see the faces of the sincere faithful women who were, for four years, my weekly companions in my learning cohort. I see my friend Patrick, a priest who died of AIDS, who called me every morning during his final weeks to talk.  I see the supportive pastors - the one who confirmed me, the one who recognized my leadership skills and hired me to be part-time liturgy coordinator, another who took a chance and created a dual position for me as director of religious education and liturgy. I see the young pastor, who darkly angry over a perceived betrayal of what was in fact part of his own indiscretion, told me I was fired. 

I see the face of my dear, departed best friend, the man who fell from grace as part of the same dark situation that got me ejected from that community, who taught me the power of unconditional love and of living a Catholic life faithfully through the storms of life. I see the vaguely bewildered face of the priest who, in the confessional, heard my tale of woe, absolved me of my anger and occasional mistrust in God - and welcomed me to life in a new parish in a new city. I see the faces of the people of my current parish, devoted older Anglo folks with years in the ministries of music, catechesis and parish leadership - along with their relative newcomer Hispanic  counterparts, the people who have shared my love of my parish for nearly 10 years. 

I see the faces of my now young-adult sons - one who rejects the Church, the other who embraces it deeply, but only on occasion.  I see the faces of fellow workers in and around the diocese, and even around the country, each one, in his or her own way, trying to build the Kingdom of God. I see the faces of faithful Catholics from all walks of life, who I have "met" virtually in my social networks and through my online course facilitator's role - and I know that even if I may never meet most of them, we all belong to something larger than ourselves. Most especially I see the faces of those in my family, parish and diocese and the friends who have supported me for the last three years, during a time of great grief and  loss - through one of my deepest experiences of Paschal Mystery.

This Easter Triduum, as I celebrate 25 years of Catholic life, I am grateful for all of them, in good times and bad. - and to all those I may not have mentioned.  I thank them for being part of my journey of faith. Indeed, I thank God for them.

Anticipation: How Do We Get Ready for Easter Triduum?

The week before Holy Week - time to take stock of how Lent has gone - and for musicians and liturgists to rehearse and finalize plans for Triduum. For RCIA teams, the final gatherings are filled with a sense of excitement. In short, everyone active in liturgy, music or catechumenal ministry in a parish is in some form of preparation mode. Last night in my parish, we rehearsed for 2 1/2 hours for Holy Thursday. Next Monday, we will practice for the Vigil.

Are the people in the pews, the ones who are not active in a particular ministry preparing for liturgy too? Ideally, yes. In reality, for most, probably not so much.

Families for whom Easter is a special day have probably planned the Easter wardrobe of new clothes for their family members - a time-honored tradition that most have forgotten the original meaning of (the wearing of new clothes echoes the new white garment of their baptism). They have also probably made arrangements for a family get-together and a special meal. The hams in the grocery stores are a testimony to the popularity of that particular Easter tradition. But are they readying for the powerful liturgical celebrations of the Triduum as well?

How many of the Assemby are excitedly anticipating the procession with the palms on Palm Sunday? Do you think they are looking forward to the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday? How many are in a state of breathless anticipation of the opening of the Easter Vigil, with the fire, in the dark and the  proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in the Exsultet?  Are people who do not have family members to be baptized at the Vigil even thinking about the moment when new Christians will be made among them? The question is how have we helped them?  

In our parish, we have been reflecting all through Lent on the meaning of our baptism, hoping that the renewal of baptismal vows will take on new meaning.  It is one small way to instill a sense of anticipation. Many parishes will insert some kind of invitation to the liturgies of the Triduum in their bulletins this weekend - yet we all know that attendance at Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Vigil normally only represent mostly those who are active in the parish.

If everyone who goes to weekend Mass were to decide to show up for any of these liturgies, we could not seat them! Yet, all are invited.  Is this a case of "many are called, few are chosen"?  Should we be content with this status quo? Or do we need to work harder to provide opportunities for the kind of conversion that would move people to be where the Lord is present in our great celebrations?

The Easter Triduum as a Graced Experience

Check out this moving and simple multimedia presentation from Florida Catholic on the Easter Triduum: http://www.thefloridacatholic.org/orl/2008_orl/2008_orlarticles/20080324_orl_triduum_mm.php

This is certainly a moving tribute to the power of technology - the slide show says so much about who we are as Catholics and what is important to us.