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Among the more fun things I'm doing this summer is attending the local county fair with Father and some of the parishioners, near the parish I'm working at. Pictured above is the ATV Rodeo, where folks of all ages ride vehicles of all sizes around a track. There's also an animal competition, rides, and food vendors. It's a very communal event and it's a wonderful.
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Another of my duties as a summer seminarian is to retrain and standardize the Altar Servers at the parish. The pastor has some elements he'd like to change. For example, he wants to add a gospel procession with candles and incense. It's an older, more reverent tradition and I'm happy he wants to emphasize liturgical reverence.
Unfortunately, the task falls to me, the Master of Ceremonies, to sort out this Monster of Ceremonies. I've bern serving for so long that much of how I serve now is muscle memory born of experience. I never realized the number cues and rules that are now second nature to me. As I juggle genuflections and generations of minor traditions, it's important for me to remember why. Sure, the when, where, and how of bringing up the water and wine is important, but more important is the deeper reality it signifies. Each gift brought up during the offertory represents a history of human labor, offered to the Lord to be sanctified. The wine the servers bring to the altar unites the work of the farmers who grew the grapes, the brewers who fermented them, the drivers who moved the product, the church workers who ordered them with the donations of parishoners, the volunteer sacristans who poured it into the cruets, and many, many more. While I want the servers I train to be technically excellent, professional, graceful, and knowledgeable, above all, I want to instill a sense of the beautiful mystery they're intimately participating in and experiencing from up close. The parish I've been working at over the summer has an old church building that's in pretty rough shape. We've finished building a new church building, where all our liturgies are currently celebrated, but now we're tasked with giving the old, worn building a respectful end after decades of use. As part of that project, I've was tasked with making an inventory of the eclectic assortment of items leftover in every nook and cranny of the decommissioned church.
It's a strange but beautiful job. One part of me enjoys sifting through old booklets, papers, and altar linens, seaching rooms of a century-old building for items that can be put to use in the new church or donated to places that repurpose liturgical goods. Another part of me has to deal with the reality of the place I'm working. I'm in a former church. Nearly a century's worth of masses were celebrated in the sanctuary I'm evaluating. Many priests prayed thousands of prayers, preparing for the Holy Sacrifice in the room I'm rummaging through. As someone who cherishes the sacraments and God's presentation of himself in and through them, it's difficult to witness the natural end of a holy place where God has worked for so long. It's sobering. But this Sunday's readings are consoling. In Deuteronomy 30:10-14, God speaks through Moses, urging them to keep his commandments and statues, and :to return to the Lord, your God with all your heart and all your soul." And he continues, "for this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you... No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out." Church buildings are amazing. When they're reverently and expertly designed, they remind us of God's goodness and beauty and redirect us to the Sacred Mystery taking place in front of us during the Mass. The building is nothing without Christ present in it. Even more than that, Jesus' presence in a church building is not meant to be static, but His greatest desire is to enter into the temples of our hearts. While I encourage you to take care of your church buildings and to become invested in the well-being your parish community, above all I urge you to welcome Jesus into your hearts through the Holy Eucharist. Matthew 23:19-22 It turns out I'm a southern boy at heart... southern part of the Steubenville diocese, at least. As much as I love the northern churches I grew up near, I enjoyed visiting all the different churches in a part of the diocese I hadn't really experienced before. In an age where the standard of excellence is bigger, flashier, and more extravagant, the reverent simplicity of a country parish is all the more beautiful. Although they're smaller, I found that many of the church communities I visited were more homely in a way that I could be very satisfied with.
A diocesan priest will never be as good of a preacher as a Dominican, have as deep of a spirituality as a Carmelite, or be able to live in the same holy silence that a Carthusian can. But like any biological father, he chooses to sacrifice some level of "career excellence" for the sake of his family. My experience of this summer so far has given me the opportunity to appreciate the simplicity and family-like quality of the diocesan life, particularly in my own diocese. Like any young man who's entering a serious relationship, my continuing discernment is showing me the imperfections in my diocese more closely: parishes in need of renovation, funding, parishoners, and more priests to staff them. Every person, every diocese has problems, even if some seem to have fewer problems than others. At the same time, true discernment also shows all the ways one can fall in love, and love covers a whole lot of faults. I think I could joyfully serve as a small-town diocesan priest. |
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July 2023
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