23 April 2017 - Beginning to Explore the Ministry of Public Prayer (2) - Updated

On this weeks programme we have a very timely second discussion with Noirin Lynch about the new step being taken in Limerick diocese this week with lay led liturgies in parishes on 25th April. We have our regular reflection on this weeks Sunday gospel as well as our usual review of the the saints of the week, local notices and other odds and ends.

You can listen to the podcast  of this weeks full programme HERE.

Limerick Diocese and Lay Led Ministry of Public Prayer

Limerick hit the headlines this weekend about the journey we are undertaking to rediscover ways of praying as church and being church for each other following on from our diocesan synod in 2016. But headlines can be misleading and sometimes the spin put on things especially by RTE may only increase confusion - generating more heat rather than light! 

A few weeks ago Noirin Lynch joined us on SS102fm to speak about the Synod 2016 led request to develop the skills and confidence for lay led liturgies and public prayer in our parishes for the times when the need may arise. And she graciously rejoins us again this week to answer a few more questions.

On next Tuesday morning April 25th, in Limerick diocese, every parish will offer a lay led Liturgy of the Word. There will also be at three public evening Masses and several parishes will celebrate the Morning Prayer of the Divine Office. 

All the liturgies of the Church are complimentary, nourishing and beautiful. In offering local communities the resources to explore the full breath of what is available to us as a praying community on weekdays, the diocese is not taking attention from one sacrament, but rather enriching all our prayer.

You can listen to the interview with Noirin excerpted from the main programme HERE.

You can listen to the first programme about this new journey for the diocese HERE.

Other resources and articles on this issue:

• Resource page from the website of Limerick Diocese
• Article in the Irish Catholic - Letting the laity lead - With declining numbers of priests, lay people are stepping up to lead worship.
• CatholicIreland.net - Back to the future in Limerick diocese
• Irish Examiner - Lay-led prayer trials in Limerick 
• Limerick Leader - Bishop confirms no Mass for a day across Limerick Diocese; Services to be led by Lay Members with Priests attending 'in-service'.

UPDATE

Letter from Bishop Brendan Leahy at all Masses the diocese of Limerick this morning available HERE.

Gospel - John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Reflections on this weeks gospel:

Sunday Reflections
Word on Fire
Centre for Liturgy
English Dominicans

Liturgical odds & ends

Liturgy of the Hours - Psalter week 2; 2nd week of Easter

Saints of the Week

April 24th - St Fidelis of Sigmaringen
April 25th - St Mark the Evangelist
April 26th - St Marcellinus
April 27th - Saint Asicus of Elphin
April 28th - St Louise de Montfort
April 29th - St Catherine of Siena

Bishop Brendan Leahy on Sacrosanctum Concilium

As part of the Year of Faith and for the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Brendán Leahy gives an excellent introduction to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium.  Bishop Brendán outlines what liturgy means and some of the main themes of this beautiful document in a profound, but accessible way:



The full document on the liturgy is available HERE.

The Liturgy as a school of prayer - Pope Benedict XVI

From VIS - 26 Sept 2012

The liturgy as a school of prayer, as a "special place in which God addresses each one of us ... and awaits our response", was the theme of Benedict XVI's catechesis during his general audience, held this morning in St. Peter's Square.

The Pope explained how, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "we read that the word 'liturgy' originally meant a 'service in the name of/on behalf of the people'. If Christian theology took this word from the Greek, clearly it did so thinking of the new People of God, born of Christ Who opened His arms on the Cross to unite mankind in the one peace of God; 'service in the name of the people', a people which exists not of itself but which has come into being thanks to the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ".

"The Catechism also states that in Christian tradition, the word 'liturgy' means the participation of the People of God in the work of God". In this context Pope Benedict recalled how the document on the liturgy had been the first fruit of Vatican Council II. "By beginning with the issue of liturgy, light was very clearly thrown on the primacy of God, on His absolute precedence. ... Where the gaze on God is not decisive, everything becomes disoriented. The fundamental criterion for the liturgy is that it should be oriented towards God, in order to ensure we participate in His work.

"Yet, we might ask ourselves", the Holy Father added, "what is this work of God in which we are called to participate? ... And what makes the Mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, Who brought salvation, real for me today? The answer is this: the action of Christ through the Church and the liturgy; in particular the Sacrament of the Eucharist which causes the sacrificial offer of the Son of God Who redeemed us to be present; the Sacrament of Penance in which we pass from the death induced by sin to new life; and the other Sacraments which sanctify us".

Quoting again from the Catechism of the Catholic Church the Pope affirmed that "a sacramental celebration is a meeting of God's children with their Father, in Christ and the Holy Spirit; this meeting takes the form of a dialogue, through actions and words'. Thus", he explained, "the first requirement for a good liturgical celebration is that it be prayer and dialogue with God, first listening then responding. ... Sacred liturgy offers us the words, it is up to us to enter into their meaning, absorb them, harmonise ourselves with them. ... One fundamental and primordial element of dialogue with God in the liturgy is concordance between what we say with our mouths and what we carry in our hearts", he said.

The Pope then referred to a particular moment in which the liturgy calls upon us and helps us to find such concordance: the celebrant's invitation before the Eucharistic prayer: "sursum corda", meaning "let us lift up our hearts"; lift them up, that is, "out of the mire of our concerns and desires, our worries and our distraction. Our hearts, the most intimate part of us, must open meekly to the Word of God and join the prayer of the Church, in order to be oriented towards God by the very words we hear and pronounce".

"We celebrate and experience the liturgy well", the Pope concluded, "only if we maintain an attitude of prayer, uniting ourselves to the mystery of Christ and to His dialogue of a Son with His Father. God Himself teaches us to pray. ... He has given us the right words with which to address Him, words we find in the Psalter, in the great prayers of sacred liturgy and in the Eucharistic celebration itself. Let us pray to the Lord that we may become increasingly aware of the fact that the liturgy is the action of God and of man; a prayer that arises from the Holy Spirit and from us; entirely addressed to the Father in union with the Son of God made man".

Full address available here from Vatican Radio.

Some web browsing.........

Some web browsing for you.........

• A few brave men - Iraqi Catholics risk their lives to join the priesthood and serve their own in a turbulent state.
• Alarm bells are ringing in the Middle East for the fate of Christians
• Fear in the pulpit - Catholic priests face arrest and torture by Robert Mugabe’s secret police masquerading as Massgoers as the dictator’s instruments of repression turn their attention to the Church, branding it an enemy of the state
• Mugabe's communion angers Africa - Tererai Karimakwenda, a human rights activist, wrote for SW radio Africa that “the obligation of the church to accept all sinners, including assassins and dictators, was defended even by those who were disturbed by Mugabe’s visit. But it was the warm welcome extended to the leader of the ZANU PF that caused the greatest outcry”
• Three priest-martyrs of Nazi's beatified in Germany.
• Advice on how to stay married - say I do but mean I'll be.
• Archbishop Nichols reminds us that "Liturgy is not ours.Its not a form of self expression....."
• John Allen at NCR looks at "the new Crown Prince of Catholicism".
• Ever wonder how much the Vatican earns in a year? Positive financial report for Vatican.
• Stillsong Hermitage reflects on Loneliness
• Global Catholic reflects on Breaking Bread - "One of the most important aspects of the Eucharist is the way that it helps us to re-imagine the boundaries that separate us from them. War creates unity among us by sharply dividing us from the enemy; we are defined by national boundaries that set us into potential opposition against those who stand outside those borders. In the Eucharist, on the other hand, we are incorporated into a much larger, transnational body, the Body of Christ, which transgresses national borders."
• The Anchoress asks is the root of all sin selfishness?
• Should there be a place in care of the elderly for the spiritual? - The report released by the Dilnot Commission on Funding of Care and Support sets out the need for the financial reform of the social care system in the UK. Coupled with the recent findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission with regard to the home care of elderly, it seems as if social care in the UK needs to take a new direction. Angela Kitching describes a crucial element in the Japanese social care system which could make a difference in the UK – what is ikigai?
• Mary Craig writes about her second son Paul, diagnosed with ‘gargoylism’, in an extract from The Death of a Child - The suffering son who gave me so much
• A blogosphere discussion that arose during the week around clapping during Mass - two alternative views from Deacon Greg and the Anchoress with a different view point from Googling God.
• A bishop reminds us that despite being locked behind bars, prisoners are still part of our Church.
• Poor does not mean stupid 
• Why do we need to canonize more lay saints?
• Deacon Greg notes that thanks to Facebook, many of us have more friends than we know. But how can thousands of friendships be meaningful?

Liturgical Hospitality

Liturgical Hospitalilty

Sr M. Louise O'Rourke PDDM

The increasing and varying patterns of migration and the influx of immigrants into Ireland over the past decade have raised the question for many parish communities: how can we welcome the stranger? Many of us have visited churches for prayer and for the celebration of the Eucharist, only to find ourselves excluded from liturgical involvement: the liturgical style seems odd, the postures are different, and the hymns are unfamiliar, and so on. Does uniformity necessarily mean unity? What happens when liturgical hospitality is a pleasant sounding concept and not an ingrained reality within our liturgical celebrations? The task for liturgists today is to offer liturgical hospitality and create welcoming spaces for all yet respect the distance that necessarily exists between persons in public encounters, as well as respecting and integrating the differences and uniqueness that culture may bring. 

Hospitality is an art of making people feel 'at home' when they are in a place that is not their own.[1] It has deep biblical roots recalling how God's elected people were always 'strangers' in the land and dependent on the hospitality of others. Subsequently they extend this same hospitality to others (Gen 18:1-8, 19:8; Judg 19:23). These customs of hospitality overflow into the New Testament and are crowned especially in the text of Matthew 25 [2] allowing us to verify that what we practice on Sunday, we live on Monday and what we practice on Sunday is primarily hospitality. Liturgy or leitourgia[3] meaning "the work of the people" is quite literally the work of all people to ensure that all feel welcomed at our liturgies. True liturgy pulls people together while it also keeps them apart.[4]

The rites and rituals of liturgy form a tapestry of words and actions that provide a "path and shelter" for the identity of a specific group of people. It follows then that by participating in worship a path into the heart of the community is provided—why it gathers and what binds it together. Liturgy also provides a shelter for a community's identity as it maintains a ritual centre in relationship to the influences of society, diverse cultural groups, and other faith traditions.