One of the graces of this winter break has been time to reflect and journal for myself on my transition from parish ministry back into full-time study, along with my move back into the world of the student brothers still completing their initial formation in the Order.
Some of the interior challenges and struggles have been pretty intense. I'm still not at peace with how I am managing all of them. Thus, I have tried to make sure I remember and pray gratefully for all of the blessings and freedoms that my new situation has also brought. One of them is the ability to promptly offer Mass for our brethren who are recently deceased.
When a friar dies in my province of the Capuchin Order, each priest left on earth is supposed to offer a Mass for the deceased brother. This is easily accomplished by concelebrating at his funeral, but one can't always get to funerals. The parish where I worked was the same church in which our brothers' funerals were celebrated, but since I usually served as MC, I couldn't concelebrate.
As a parish priest, I found it somewhat difficult to find a time to offer these Masses for our deceased brothers. The parish had a very strong culture of individual Mass intentions, and there was never a scheduled Mass without one. Sometimes it would take me quite a while to find a day on which I was free to offer these Masses for deceased friars. I remember one spell when a few of our friars died not far apart from each other (we do everything as a group) when it took me about six months to clear out my queue of outstanding Mass intentions.
This is all different in my current assignment. I have scheduled Mass obligations on just three days a week, so I have plenty of opportunity to offer Mass for other intentions. So it's a beautiful blessing to have a morning like this one, a ferial day in Ordinary Time (a feria of the iv class, as they used to say) when I can not only offer Mass for one of our recently deceased brothers, but put on violet (we don't have black) and do so with a proper Mass for the dead.
The deceased was Fr. Ellis Zimmer, one of those friars whom you meet and just know he has found the secret to spiritual peace and joy. Requiescat in pace.
Showing posts with label The Transition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Transition. Show all posts
January 11, 2011
December 11, 2010
Done
Classes are over for the semester. I have one more term paper to go through, fixing and editing, and then it will be time to return library books, recycle and straighten up. It's really one of the joys of the school-based life; that sense of being finished.
One never gets to enjoy that feeling in the parish ministry. A parish is always running. There are individual projects that arrive at completion, but most of the work is continuous and never-ending. It slows down at certain times of the year, like in the middle of the summer and in the last few days before Christmas, but the thing itself never really pauses. It's also true that one gets to feel a little sense of rest and doneness at the end of principal celebrations, but it doesn't last. After the Paschal Triduum there's a great sense of gratitude and relief, but there is almost always a funeral to do on Easter Monday, having been set aside from Saturday or Friday (or even Thursday, when funerals are permitted, but not funeral Masses.) Christmas is a similar thing; the afternoon of Christmas Day is a blessed quiet and relief, but as soon as the office opens on the next first weekday, the new wedding engagements start calling in. (I didn't know this before I was a parish priest, but a lot of people get engaged at Christmas.)
So right now I'm just appreciating the sensation of having finished the semester, and am enjoying all of the little rituals of recycling, filing, and clearing that go with it. Not that there won't be more work to do after another day or two: I've left several mundane projects and errands for the time of the semester break, I have a presentation to prepare for January and a directed reading course for next semester to plan in more detail. And off in the not-so-remote distance is my reading list for comprehensive examination, and (dare I say it) a dissertation proposal to be made.
One never gets to enjoy that feeling in the parish ministry. A parish is always running. There are individual projects that arrive at completion, but most of the work is continuous and never-ending. It slows down at certain times of the year, like in the middle of the summer and in the last few days before Christmas, but the thing itself never really pauses. It's also true that one gets to feel a little sense of rest and doneness at the end of principal celebrations, but it doesn't last. After the Paschal Triduum there's a great sense of gratitude and relief, but there is almost always a funeral to do on Easter Monday, having been set aside from Saturday or Friday (or even Thursday, when funerals are permitted, but not funeral Masses.) Christmas is a similar thing; the afternoon of Christmas Day is a blessed quiet and relief, but as soon as the office opens on the next first weekday, the new wedding engagements start calling in. (I didn't know this before I was a parish priest, but a lot of people get engaged at Christmas.)
So right now I'm just appreciating the sensation of having finished the semester, and am enjoying all of the little rituals of recycling, filing, and clearing that go with it. Not that there won't be more work to do after another day or two: I've left several mundane projects and errands for the time of the semester break, I have a presentation to prepare for January and a directed reading course for next semester to plan in more detail. And off in the not-so-remote distance is my reading list for comprehensive examination, and (dare I say it) a dissertation proposal to be made.
November 15, 2010
My New Friends
How much my life has changed in recent months! A year ago I might have spent a Monday morning at a funeral Mass and burial or in the office receiving wedding and baptism inquiries.
Now, instead of giving my attention to the newly engaged or deceased, I give it to Peter Lombard, Anselm, and Alexander of Hales:
Now, instead of giving my attention to the newly engaged or deceased, I give it to Peter Lombard, Anselm, and Alexander of Hales:
November 9, 2010
Some Things I Miss
I've been here in Boston for three months now, and I'm starting to feel adjusted into the assignment. Term papers are starting to take shape and I'm thinking about what to do next semester. Off in the distance of imagination are the first thoughts about my reading list for comprehensive exams, and--dare I say it--dreams for a dissertation proposal.
Settling down into this new kind of student life reminds me of some of the things I miss from parish life. I was just thinking about some of them this morning:
A regular and stable liturgical matrix. At the parish, liturgy had an intense regularity; every day the same chapel, the same church, the same altar. Liturgical time cycled through days, weeks, seasons, and years. The linear time imposed by the steps, grades, and goals of something like school or religious formation starts to fade away. Cycles replace time-lines. In the cycles of prayer, the Now of eternity starts to peek through. I miss that. Here in the student house, liturgical life is very different. I offer Mass at four or five different altars in the course of a week. Not that this isn't without its gifts; I'm really enjoying my weekly visit to the Poor Clare monastery, for example. But it can feel scattering. Here in the house, in the morning we sometimes have Morning Prayer in common and sometimes have Mass, a practice which feels choppy and scattering to me. I like to have a regular early-morning routine, but I can't really because sometimes I have to pray Morning Prayer in private and sometimes I don't. So I miss the regularity and stability of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours in the parish.
Days off. The parish is always going. It's active seven days a week from early morning until the middle of the evening. For a priest, the only way to get a break is to leave, so that's what they do. They 'go on their day off.' I look over my posts labeled 'Day Off Adventures' and I see a certain lightheartedness and freedom from care that I no longer have. When you are a student the books are always there, and the papers always need to get composed. This isn't to say that I never take any time with friends or a day just to relax, but somehow there just isn't the same ability to leave the whole business behind and get away for a little while.
People. The parish priesthood is a personal service kind of job. From the parlor to the confessional, from running meetings to praying with folks at the funeral home, you are always with the people. It's one of the greatest blessings of the parish ministry; the people keep you sane and are very encouraging for the most part. The job is so social that you have to be careful about getting the solitude that you need; it becomes a treasure, really. Here I think of some of my 'Sunday Afternoon' posts. In the doctoral student life, the situation is quite different. It's a solitary life for the most part. Yes, I have new friends at school and I spend time with the brothers here at home, but most of my days are just me and text. I read text, I struggle over text, I try to make text about text. So here I must take the opposite care, of making sure I find some social time. Such is far harder for me than making sure I find time for solitude, so I miss being in the opposite situation in the parish.
Settling down into this new kind of student life reminds me of some of the things I miss from parish life. I was just thinking about some of them this morning:
A regular and stable liturgical matrix. At the parish, liturgy had an intense regularity; every day the same chapel, the same church, the same altar. Liturgical time cycled through days, weeks, seasons, and years. The linear time imposed by the steps, grades, and goals of something like school or religious formation starts to fade away. Cycles replace time-lines. In the cycles of prayer, the Now of eternity starts to peek through. I miss that. Here in the student house, liturgical life is very different. I offer Mass at four or five different altars in the course of a week. Not that this isn't without its gifts; I'm really enjoying my weekly visit to the Poor Clare monastery, for example. But it can feel scattering. Here in the house, in the morning we sometimes have Morning Prayer in common and sometimes have Mass, a practice which feels choppy and scattering to me. I like to have a regular early-morning routine, but I can't really because sometimes I have to pray Morning Prayer in private and sometimes I don't. So I miss the regularity and stability of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours in the parish.
Days off. The parish is always going. It's active seven days a week from early morning until the middle of the evening. For a priest, the only way to get a break is to leave, so that's what they do. They 'go on their day off.' I look over my posts labeled 'Day Off Adventures' and I see a certain lightheartedness and freedom from care that I no longer have. When you are a student the books are always there, and the papers always need to get composed. This isn't to say that I never take any time with friends or a day just to relax, but somehow there just isn't the same ability to leave the whole business behind and get away for a little while.
People. The parish priesthood is a personal service kind of job. From the parlor to the confessional, from running meetings to praying with folks at the funeral home, you are always with the people. It's one of the greatest blessings of the parish ministry; the people keep you sane and are very encouraging for the most part. The job is so social that you have to be careful about getting the solitude that you need; it becomes a treasure, really. Here I think of some of my 'Sunday Afternoon' posts. In the doctoral student life, the situation is quite different. It's a solitary life for the most part. Yes, I have new friends at school and I spend time with the brothers here at home, but most of my days are just me and text. I read text, I struggle over text, I try to make text about text. So here I must take the opposite care, of making sure I find some social time. Such is far harder for me than making sure I find time for solitude, so I miss being in the opposite situation in the parish.
September 19, 2010
Money Talks, Ecclesiology Walks
In one of my classes this past week we were studying the moment when (in the Roman church) it became necessary to begin to multiply Sunday Masses. Of course the liturgical and ecclesiological value--'as we have always taught'--is not to multiply Masses, but (ideally) to have one Mass on one altar in one cathedral in one local church on a Sunday.
In making his point against the abuses that have attended the normalization of multiplication of Masses in the western Churches, the professor gave the illustration of a parish in which "there's a 7:15 Mass for just ten people." How could such a thing be maintained, asked the professor, rhetorically.
Because I enjoy being a pain the classroom and because I enjoy answering rhetorical questions at inappropriate moments, I said, "It depends on the envelopes from the 7:15 Mass."
What I meant was that a pastor, even if we could see the absurdity of having a whole other early Mass for just ten people, (though in some cases his objections might have less to do with liturgy and more to do with how early he had to get up or how early the heat would have to go on) would be unlikely to cancel such a celebration if it happened to be that it was the material contributions of the 7:15 massgoers that allowed him to pay the light bill.
"You were in the parish too long, Charles. Don't let reality intrude on this," responded my professor, with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.
In making his point against the abuses that have attended the normalization of multiplication of Masses in the western Churches, the professor gave the illustration of a parish in which "there's a 7:15 Mass for just ten people." How could such a thing be maintained, asked the professor, rhetorically.
Because I enjoy being a pain the classroom and because I enjoy answering rhetorical questions at inappropriate moments, I said, "It depends on the envelopes from the 7:15 Mass."
What I meant was that a pastor, even if we could see the absurdity of having a whole other early Mass for just ten people, (though in some cases his objections might have less to do with liturgy and more to do with how early he had to get up or how early the heat would have to go on) would be unlikely to cancel such a celebration if it happened to be that it was the material contributions of the 7:15 massgoers that allowed him to pay the light bill.
"You were in the parish too long, Charles. Don't let reality intrude on this," responded my professor, with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.
September 11, 2010
Sweetnesses
I have written a lot lately about the difficulties and interior trials of my transition from parish ministry back to full-time study. Indeed, these have occupied a lot of my prayer in these days. On the other hand, in light of this, I have also found it to be an important spiritual practice to recall and meditate on some of the good and sweet aspects of the transition.
For one thing, the change in lifestyle has permitted me to recover my natural daily rhythm. The hours were one of the hardest aspects of the parish for me. It's basically a bi-phasic job; most of the work clusters around early to mid-morning and early to mid-evening. In the morning you have regular Masses, funerals, and attendant chores to take care of. Evening brings committee meetings, work with couples preparing for marriage, etc. Religion in our culture is an elective activity, and so those who form its customer service must be available to the customers at the times when ordinary folks have free time, namely early morning, evenings, and weekends. I know that the analogy is a little crass, but it carries some truth. Of course I didn't begrudge any of this, and the blessings and graces of the saints with whom it was my privilege to work more than made up for any temptations to laziness I had to suffer. But the parish did upset for me the fundamental model of prayer on which I had always built my spiritual practice previously: get up early and pray before the day begins and anyone or anything exterior has to be dealt with. It's just the time at which my mind is least distracted and the spirit and body are most willing. At the parish this just wasn't possible in the way to which I had become accustomed; you just couldn't end the day early enough to start it again a couple hours before you had to open the church again.
So it's good to be back getting up early and having my core prayer time at the time of day at which it seems to occur naturally for me. The other day I laughed to myself when I realized that I was well into my reading and note-taking when I had to pause to go offer the parish Mass at 9 am.
Another aspect of the transition I have been enjoying is cooking for the brothers. In the parish we had a cook each day, and one who didn't really appreciate the brothers cooking in her kitchen when she wasn't there. I enjoy trying to cook and learning new things, but most of all I find it to be a spiritually healthy act of charity and nurturance in community life. It's also an act of healthy vulnerability.
There are lots more examples, but all this is just to say that, as I go through this transition, it is good for me to notice the easy and the sweet as well as praying through the difficult and the challenging.
For one thing, the change in lifestyle has permitted me to recover my natural daily rhythm. The hours were one of the hardest aspects of the parish for me. It's basically a bi-phasic job; most of the work clusters around early to mid-morning and early to mid-evening. In the morning you have regular Masses, funerals, and attendant chores to take care of. Evening brings committee meetings, work with couples preparing for marriage, etc. Religion in our culture is an elective activity, and so those who form its customer service must be available to the customers at the times when ordinary folks have free time, namely early morning, evenings, and weekends. I know that the analogy is a little crass, but it carries some truth. Of course I didn't begrudge any of this, and the blessings and graces of the saints with whom it was my privilege to work more than made up for any temptations to laziness I had to suffer. But the parish did upset for me the fundamental model of prayer on which I had always built my spiritual practice previously: get up early and pray before the day begins and anyone or anything exterior has to be dealt with. It's just the time at which my mind is least distracted and the spirit and body are most willing. At the parish this just wasn't possible in the way to which I had become accustomed; you just couldn't end the day early enough to start it again a couple hours before you had to open the church again.
So it's good to be back getting up early and having my core prayer time at the time of day at which it seems to occur naturally for me. The other day I laughed to myself when I realized that I was well into my reading and note-taking when I had to pause to go offer the parish Mass at 9 am.
Another aspect of the transition I have been enjoying is cooking for the brothers. In the parish we had a cook each day, and one who didn't really appreciate the brothers cooking in her kitchen when she wasn't there. I enjoy trying to cook and learning new things, but most of all I find it to be a spiritually healthy act of charity and nurturance in community life. It's also an act of healthy vulnerability.
There are lots more examples, but all this is just to say that, as I go through this transition, it is good for me to notice the easy and the sweet as well as praying through the difficult and the challenging.
September 8, 2010
People and Place
Yesterday was the first day of classes. I didn't have any, but I went to school anyway to explore the library and to find someone to help me register for courses (I couldn't figure out how to do it online.) Everyone was very helpful and it was a good day. The midday Mass at St. Mary's Hall was as devout and peaceful as I remembered; one feels almost hidden in prayer there and I love it.
But here's what was funny about it all: The Boston College School of Theology & Ministry is partly what used to be the Weston Jesuit School of Theology across the river in Cambridge. I spent ten semesters there. So as I wander around this totally new geography, I meet all the same people I used to know from Weston. I walk into an unknown library and the head librarian calls me by first name. I go to the new and shiny school office and I meet the same receptionist I knew from the old place.
All of this is striking because it is the opposite of how it is here at home in the friary. I lived in this neighborhood for five years when I was in studies for priesthood, and so I know the area and the friaries pretty well. But things are quite changed because it's a whole different set of friars. Most of all, the friaries have new guardians. (The guardian (i.e. superior) of a house makes a big difference regarding the mood of the place.)
So I'm grateful this morning to notice that I have something familiar and encouraging in both the school and fraternal aspects of my new assignment.
But here's what was funny about it all: The Boston College School of Theology & Ministry is partly what used to be the Weston Jesuit School of Theology across the river in Cambridge. I spent ten semesters there. So as I wander around this totally new geography, I meet all the same people I used to know from Weston. I walk into an unknown library and the head librarian calls me by first name. I go to the new and shiny school office and I meet the same receptionist I knew from the old place.
All of this is striking because it is the opposite of how it is here at home in the friary. I lived in this neighborhood for five years when I was in studies for priesthood, and so I know the area and the friaries pretty well. But things are quite changed because it's a whole different set of friars. Most of all, the friaries have new guardians. (The guardian (i.e. superior) of a house makes a big difference regarding the mood of the place.)
So I'm grateful this morning to notice that I have something familiar and encouraging in both the school and fraternal aspects of my new assignment.
September 5, 2010
More on Sunday Mass in Spanish
Today I celebrated Sunday Mass in Spanish for the second time. A funny thing happens.
Before my first assignment, I had been assisting at Sunday Mass in Spanish for almost my entire time of formation in the Order. For a year or two right before diaconate, I was even a lector. Over the years I learned and even half-memorized a lot of songs and settings for parts of the Mass.
So now that I am a priest at Sunday Mass in Spanish, an odd unevenness is revealed. I know all this music and can sing it freely, but I still have to be deliberate and careful with the prayers, even though they are usually simpler in grammar and vocabulary. For example, I work tensely through the preface, trying to pronounce everything properly while still maintaining my recollection and right intention. The comes the Sanctus, set into more complicated constructions and sung much faster, but since I've been singing one or another of them for years, I sing it right out easily and freely.
Before my first assignment, I had been assisting at Sunday Mass in Spanish for almost my entire time of formation in the Order. For a year or two right before diaconate, I was even a lector. Over the years I learned and even half-memorized a lot of songs and settings for parts of the Mass.
So now that I am a priest at Sunday Mass in Spanish, an odd unevenness is revealed. I know all this music and can sing it freely, but I still have to be deliberate and careful with the prayers, even though they are usually simpler in grammar and vocabulary. For example, I work tensely through the preface, trying to pronounce everything properly while still maintaining my recollection and right intention. The comes the Sanctus, set into more complicated constructions and sung much faster, but since I've been singing one or another of them for years, I sing it right out easily and freely.
August 15, 2010
First Spanish Mass
This morning I offered Mass in Spanish for the first time. I had concelebrated at Spanish Masses a few times before, but had never been celebrant until today. I was fairly nervous this morning as I paged up my little Spanish travel ritual and reviewed the orations in my Spanish hand missal.
Though I'm very out of practice, I think my several years attending Mass in Spanish on Sundays carried me. It's all in the ear even if I'm not used to pronouncing the words myself, or looking at them in the missal. I also had a deacon to preach, for which I was grateful.
I've always felt a gratitude for hospitality in the Lord when I've had a chance to pray or work with communities of another culture or language, but today I felt it even more. To be received in the role of priest, a role that sets me both below the community as servant and at its head as presider, put a sharper point on the graciousness of the people's welcome to me. It's very humbling.
Maybe it was Br. Matt's reflection on itinerancy that had an effect on me, but I was also seeing the Mass as a moment in the homelessness of my own mendicant life. Pronouncing the Lord's words in a language-home not my own, I felt something deep about the itinerant, mendicant vocation: we are meant to live the truth that are home is not here, but in heaven. (Latin doesn't count as a foreign language in this regard; as Roman Catholics Latin is everyone's mother tongue and nobody's at the same time.)
As a Franciscan my home is everywhere, but also nowhere in this world. It's a gospel challenge, but it's also a gospel freedom.
Though I'm very out of practice, I think my several years attending Mass in Spanish on Sundays carried me. It's all in the ear even if I'm not used to pronouncing the words myself, or looking at them in the missal. I also had a deacon to preach, for which I was grateful.
I've always felt a gratitude for hospitality in the Lord when I've had a chance to pray or work with communities of another culture or language, but today I felt it even more. To be received in the role of priest, a role that sets me both below the community as servant and at its head as presider, put a sharper point on the graciousness of the people's welcome to me. It's very humbling.
Maybe it was Br. Matt's reflection on itinerancy that had an effect on me, but I was also seeing the Mass as a moment in the homelessness of my own mendicant life. Pronouncing the Lord's words in a language-home not my own, I felt something deep about the itinerant, mendicant vocation: we are meant to live the truth that are home is not here, but in heaven. (Latin doesn't count as a foreign language in this regard; as Roman Catholics Latin is everyone's mother tongue and nobody's at the same time.)
As a Franciscan my home is everywhere, but also nowhere in this world. It's a gospel challenge, but it's also a gospel freedom.
August 10, 2010
From My Confessor: Logismoi
A new town means testing out new confessors. I think it hit a home run on the first try:
Two things, Brother.
First, remember that our angers, frustrations, and distractions--and therefrom, our sins--derive from our consent to and coupling with our erroneous and distorted views and interpretations of ourselves, other people, and the world. Therefore we must always be praying for the grace to see things as they really are, as they are in God's sight, rather than as they might appear to be.
Second, remember that a sturdy sense of humor is invaluable in religious life.
Indeed, many times the second counsel fulfills the first. And pray for me, too.
Sacristy Finds
One of the adjustments of moving is getting used to new sacristies. There is the joy of discovering things that are beautiful, cool, or just neat, the aggravation of not being able to find what you need, and the adjustment of stuff just being different from what you had before.
One compartment in the sacristy here amused me especially:
Really? There are religious items in the sacristy? Who knew?
One compartment in the sacristy here amused me especially:
Really? There are religious items in the sacristy? Who knew?
August 6, 2010
Becoming a Boston Fan (Sort of)
Lots of little questions arise through moving to a new place. One that comes up for me here in Boston is what to do for a baseball cap. I just can't go out without something on my head; it's too hard on my eyes. It would seem to be in poor taste--not to say perhaps dangerous--to wear my Yankees cap, so what to do? I don't feel like I can play the Red Sox fan; my nearest baseball fan ancestor from the area, my maternal grandfather, was a Boston Braves fan.*
Who knew that fifty-seven seasons after leaving town, a Braves cap could still be had in Boston?
*When you combine this with my father being from Cleveland, it's amusing to realize the common family memory of the 1948 World Series, in which Cleveland beat Boston four games to three. My father was twelve and my mother six.
Who knew that fifty-seven seasons after leaving town, a Braves cap could still be had in Boston?
*When you combine this with my father being from Cleveland, it's amusing to realize the common family memory of the 1948 World Series, in which Cleveland beat Boston four games to three. My father was twelve and my mother six.
August 4, 2010
Seeking New Roots
I had imagined that arriving at the new friary would give me a lot of write about. On the contrary, my mind feels pretty blank. It's not necessarily a negative state; I just feel somewhat uprooted and like I'm only visiting this new place. I'm not bored either; I have plenty of holes in my reading that I would like to fill before school starts, not to mention getting my Spanish back together so that I can help with Sunday Masses here. Today I'm cooking for the brothers for the first time in three years (we had a cook in my last assignment) and tomorrow I have my first public Mass in the parish where we live.
Here's my new room, more or less set up. I was happy to learn from NLM that I instinctively put my icon corner in the traditional place without even knowing it. They are, going clockwise: Christ crucified, the Virgin of the Sign, St. Joseph, St. Francis, St. John of the Cross, and the Transfiguration. In the middle is my 'relic' of St. Bonaventure.
Here's my new room, more or less set up. I was happy to learn from NLM that I instinctively put my icon corner in the traditional place without even knowing it. They are, going clockwise: Christ crucified, the Virgin of the Sign, St. Joseph, St. Francis, St. John of the Cross, and the Transfiguration. In the middle is my 'relic' of St. Bonaventure.
August 2, 2010
Moving In
I arrived at the new friary yesterday afternoon. There are three other friars here right now. What a blessing to have supper and Evening Prayer with them! Perhaps we take it for granted, but one of the deepest supports of life in the Order is being able to go almost anywhere and find brothers who pray and share a meal.
Starting to set up my room and unpack all the boxes is a little overwhelming. Going from a large room and an office to just a smaller room, I've been downsized to about a third of the physical space I inhabited in my last assignment. A lot of books will stay in boxes, and a lot of pictures won't make it onto the wall.
I have an eastern exposure, for which I am grateful. Enjoying it this morning as I prayed the Office of Readings for the feast of the Portiuncula, I realized that my first moving task this morning would be to wash the windows. After that, I'll think about books.
Starting to set up my room and unpack all the boxes is a little overwhelming. Going from a large room and an office to just a smaller room, I've been downsized to about a third of the physical space I inhabited in my last assignment. A lot of books will stay in boxes, and a lot of pictures won't make it onto the wall.
I have an eastern exposure, for which I am grateful. Enjoying it this morning as I prayed the Office of Readings for the feast of the Portiuncula, I realized that my first moving task this morning would be to wash the windows. After that, I'll think about books.
July 29, 2010
Jarring
The room as it will look upon my moving out is starting to appear. Yesterday I had the state inspection done on the parochial vicar car, had it washed and filled the tank before turning over the keys to my successor. The move is starting to become very real. Though I have been expecting these moments for over a year, it still seems like a surprise.
I guess it has to do with the way I conceive the parish in the story of my life. When I came here it was like a landing. After the many steps and moves of my six years in the formation program, I had arrived. Here it was, my first assignment. The parish then took me into its embrace; the schedules of days and the cycles of seasons, the support and prayer of the people, the headaches, the fights, and the interior trials. The linear timeline of the formation program (postulancy, novitiate, temporary profession and its renewals, diaconate, priesthood) gave way to the cyclical time of the parish. I had landed. Whether I was happy or struggling, joyful or stressed, devout or in a rut, it was home and I could breathe with some new kind of peace.
Now I'm going back to Boston and back to school, into something very like the condition I was in before coming here to the parish. I was ten semesters at the former Weston Jesuit School of Theology before my first assignment, and now I return to the same school's successor institution, the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Writing this out makes me realize that jarring nature of the transition: the parish, which was a landing and an arrival for me up until now, will now become for me an interlude between two academic lives in Boston. Not that this cheapens anything about my experience and the graces of the past three years, but it changes their nature in my imagination, in how I understand and narrate to myself the story of my desire to convert to Christianity.
I guess it has to do with the way I conceive the parish in the story of my life. When I came here it was like a landing. After the many steps and moves of my six years in the formation program, I had arrived. Here it was, my first assignment. The parish then took me into its embrace; the schedules of days and the cycles of seasons, the support and prayer of the people, the headaches, the fights, and the interior trials. The linear timeline of the formation program (postulancy, novitiate, temporary profession and its renewals, diaconate, priesthood) gave way to the cyclical time of the parish. I had landed. Whether I was happy or struggling, joyful or stressed, devout or in a rut, it was home and I could breathe with some new kind of peace.
Now I'm going back to Boston and back to school, into something very like the condition I was in before coming here to the parish. I was ten semesters at the former Weston Jesuit School of Theology before my first assignment, and now I return to the same school's successor institution, the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Writing this out makes me realize that jarring nature of the transition: the parish, which was a landing and an arrival for me up until now, will now become for me an interlude between two academic lives in Boston. Not that this cheapens anything about my experience and the graces of the past three years, but it changes their nature in my imagination, in how I understand and narrate to myself the story of my desire to convert to Christianity.
July 26, 2010
Overheard in the Friary
This conversation is so religious life:
Father Guardian: What do you want for dinner for your going-away party?
Me: That depends on who's cooking.
Father Guardian: What do you want for dinner for your going-away party?
Me: That depends on who's cooking.
July 25, 2010
To Parishioners
Today is my last Mass here at the parish. I don't know if I will be called upon to make a speech at the reception, and I don't feel the need to do so, but I prepared one in my head just in case. Here it is.
Thank you very much. Thank you for gracious welcome into the life of your parish, for the opportunity to pray, to work, and to open the Word of God with you. Thank you for the opportunity to give reverence to the presence of God within you as we prayed together at the baptisms and weddings in your families, as well as at the funerals of our friends and loved ones.
Most of all, though, I want to thank God. I believe that Providence arranged for me to be ordained priest in the course of my assignment here. As you know, I didn't grow up Catholic, and so when it came time to think about where to offer my first Mass, there was no traditional 'home parish' to go to. So it was a great gift to me to have already made a home here, and to have been graciously received into this parish by the weekend of my ordination. I was very grateful to you on that day of my first Mass, and remain so. Many of you were there. I'm happy to say that all of the altar servers from that day remain devout and active altar servers today.
So I'm very grateful. Because of all these particular contours of my first assignment, my religious life and certainly my priesthood will always belong to this place, to you, and to this church in a very special way. I believe that I have a good record of returning to places that were home to me, and so you can be sure that I will see you around.
I ask forgiveness of anyone whom I may have wronged or taken lightly during my time here, and for any moments in which I may have not fully returned the graciousness and kindness shown to me through my own failure to look after my spiritual life. Probably those folks for whose forgiveness I really need to ask aren't here right now, but--knowing how word gets around this place--I'm sure they will hear that I asked for it.
Thanks as always for your prayers and good example, and I ask for your prayers as I go forward to my next assignment, in which the interior challenges and trials may be more intense for me than those I have been through here. Be assured of my continued prayers for you, and may God bless Sacred Heart.
First Mass, September 9, 2007
Thank you very much. Thank you for gracious welcome into the life of your parish, for the opportunity to pray, to work, and to open the Word of God with you. Thank you for the opportunity to give reverence to the presence of God within you as we prayed together at the baptisms and weddings in your families, as well as at the funerals of our friends and loved ones.
Most of all, though, I want to thank God. I believe that Providence arranged for me to be ordained priest in the course of my assignment here. As you know, I didn't grow up Catholic, and so when it came time to think about where to offer my first Mass, there was no traditional 'home parish' to go to. So it was a great gift to me to have already made a home here, and to have been graciously received into this parish by the weekend of my ordination. I was very grateful to you on that day of my first Mass, and remain so. Many of you were there. I'm happy to say that all of the altar servers from that day remain devout and active altar servers today.
So I'm very grateful. Because of all these particular contours of my first assignment, my religious life and certainly my priesthood will always belong to this place, to you, and to this church in a very special way. I believe that I have a good record of returning to places that were home to me, and so you can be sure that I will see you around.
I ask forgiveness of anyone whom I may have wronged or taken lightly during my time here, and for any moments in which I may have not fully returned the graciousness and kindness shown to me through my own failure to look after my spiritual life. Probably those folks for whose forgiveness I really need to ask aren't here right now, but--knowing how word gets around this place--I'm sure they will hear that I asked for it.
Thanks as always for your prayers and good example, and I ask for your prayers as I go forward to my next assignment, in which the interior challenges and trials may be more intense for me than those I have been through here. Be assured of my continued prayers for you, and may God bless Sacred Heart.
First Mass, September 9, 2007
July 19, 2010
Finishing My First Assignment
After Masses yesterday I was finished with my assignment here at the parish. Now I have two weeks of vacation before beginning my new assignment in Boston on August 1. It's a very odd feeling. The life of parish ministry is so such an all-encompassing structure that it feels strange to be suddenly out of it.
I have only been here for three years, but it seems like longer. Perhaps this is because one's sense of time in parish life is somewhat cyclical, and so touches eternity. Morning Prayer, Mass, Evening Prayer, supper. Sundays, weekdays, days off. Advents, Christmases, Lents, Easters, and everything in between. Other little things that cycle around, no less regular but much less important, carrying their own meaning: the quiet of Holy Saturday, the camaraderie of the exhausted on Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday, Chinese takeout on Christmas eve before heading back to church for the Mass in nocte.
We human beings strive for and desire eternity. It's why the engaged know that only the total self-giving of 'forever' will satisfy the revelation of God's love they have found in each other, and why novices look forward to their vows. It's why two kids in love can write 'together for ever' on a wall or a tree, even though they know nothing of life and commitment. It's why we make children and art. Life in cyclical time imitates eternity, and thus becomes a satisfying vehicle for grace. This is why structures like the Divine Office and the liturgical year are so important; they plan prayer and present revelation to us by arranging them in cyclical time, thereby giving us a saving taste of the nunc stans of God's own eternity.
Even the adventitious work of the parish priest proceeds according to regular patterns within which particular and individual grace comes to be revealed: The short encounters of confession, heavily scripted but full of the honest and particular intimacy of the desire for faithfulness God puts in the hearts of his saints. From the first look at a family at a wake, to the offering of the funeral Mass, to my last private prayer at the grave. From the first call from a newly engaged, through meetings and paperwork and planning, to the particular intensity of the dismissal at a nuptial Mass: "The Mass is ended; go in peace." These are the patterns and cycles in which grace is revealed and the eternity of God comes to dwell among us.
As I transition out of this life, I feel neither more nor less free. I feel a little unhinged and adrift, but not in a frightening way. The graces and the challenges will be somewhat different now, but grace is grace, and God is one.
I have only been here for three years, but it seems like longer. Perhaps this is because one's sense of time in parish life is somewhat cyclical, and so touches eternity. Morning Prayer, Mass, Evening Prayer, supper. Sundays, weekdays, days off. Advents, Christmases, Lents, Easters, and everything in between. Other little things that cycle around, no less regular but much less important, carrying their own meaning: the quiet of Holy Saturday, the camaraderie of the exhausted on Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday, Chinese takeout on Christmas eve before heading back to church for the Mass in nocte.
We human beings strive for and desire eternity. It's why the engaged know that only the total self-giving of 'forever' will satisfy the revelation of God's love they have found in each other, and why novices look forward to their vows. It's why two kids in love can write 'together for ever' on a wall or a tree, even though they know nothing of life and commitment. It's why we make children and art. Life in cyclical time imitates eternity, and thus becomes a satisfying vehicle for grace. This is why structures like the Divine Office and the liturgical year are so important; they plan prayer and present revelation to us by arranging them in cyclical time, thereby giving us a saving taste of the nunc stans of God's own eternity.
Even the adventitious work of the parish priest proceeds according to regular patterns within which particular and individual grace comes to be revealed: The short encounters of confession, heavily scripted but full of the honest and particular intimacy of the desire for faithfulness God puts in the hearts of his saints. From the first look at a family at a wake, to the offering of the funeral Mass, to my last private prayer at the grave. From the first call from a newly engaged, through meetings and paperwork and planning, to the particular intensity of the dismissal at a nuptial Mass: "The Mass is ended; go in peace." These are the patterns and cycles in which grace is revealed and the eternity of God comes to dwell among us.
As I transition out of this life, I feel neither more nor less free. I feel a little unhinged and adrift, but not in a frightening way. The graces and the challenges will be somewhat different now, but grace is grace, and God is one.
July 17, 2010
In Cervisia Veritas
Back when I was in school, this amusing thing used to circulate making a distinction between theologians--and therefore the theologies that derived from them--who drink beer and those who drink Scotch. I don't remember how enlightening it was, but debemus distinguere, after all.
Now I wouldn't claim to be a theologian. But this morning, as I take advantage of the least hot part of the day to pack my own theological books into the car, it becomes abundantly clear into which category I would fall.
And for those who question whether it's good to drink beer at all, go ahead and check out what St. Thomas had to say on the subject.
Now I wouldn't claim to be a theologian. But this morning, as I take advantage of the least hot part of the day to pack my own theological books into the car, it becomes abundantly clear into which category I would fall.
And for those who question whether it's good to drink beer at all, go ahead and check out what St. Thomas had to say on the subject.
July 15, 2010
Bonaventure and the Daily Mass Crowd
This morning was my last regularly scheduled Mass with the 8:30 crowd. We have two daily Masses here, 6:45 and 8:30, but the latter is a much larger group.
As a parish priest, the folks who come to daily Mass get to be like family. They are the first people you get to know by name, and the ones whose spirituality and style of prayer you get to know the best. In turn, they know you better than anyone, both because they experience the more relaxed preaching and prayer of weekdays, but also because they get to see you both when you are generous and on fire with the love of God and also when you are grumpy and petty and not praying well. You get to be grateful for them as a kind of anchor in your daily life.
It all makes me realize how deeply supported the life of a parish priest is. The work has plenty of headaches and stresses about which I have often written gracelessly in these posts, but one is supported and held in prayer in a way that far outstrips them. I will very much miss the little group of folks with whom I have regularly shared in the secret of the Lord's Sacrifice.
Providence made today the feast of St. Bonaventure, which is appropriate because I am leaving the parish ministry to return to the life of a student. I preached on one of my favorite lines from the Itinerarium: In hac consideratione est perfectio illuminationis mentis...videt hominem factum ad imaginem Dei. "In this consideration is the perfect illumination of the mind...[when it] sees the human being made in the image of God." (VI:7) So often we take the doctrine of our creation in the image of God in a matter of fact way. As it turns out, however, it is the key to our journey into God. Our imagination, by which we can be anywhere and reach out in love and care both forward and backward in time, we imitate God's own eternity and ubiquity, finding a way into the consideration of these mysteries. But above all it is by our capacity to love, and in our freedom to dispose of ourselves completely in love for each other, that we imitate the delightful and delighted will of God.
As a parish priest, the folks who come to daily Mass get to be like family. They are the first people you get to know by name, and the ones whose spirituality and style of prayer you get to know the best. In turn, they know you better than anyone, both because they experience the more relaxed preaching and prayer of weekdays, but also because they get to see you both when you are generous and on fire with the love of God and also when you are grumpy and petty and not praying well. You get to be grateful for them as a kind of anchor in your daily life.
It all makes me realize how deeply supported the life of a parish priest is. The work has plenty of headaches and stresses about which I have often written gracelessly in these posts, but one is supported and held in prayer in a way that far outstrips them. I will very much miss the little group of folks with whom I have regularly shared in the secret of the Lord's Sacrifice.
Providence made today the feast of St. Bonaventure, which is appropriate because I am leaving the parish ministry to return to the life of a student. I preached on one of my favorite lines from the Itinerarium: In hac consideratione est perfectio illuminationis mentis...videt hominem factum ad imaginem Dei. "In this consideration is the perfect illumination of the mind...[when it] sees the human being made in the image of God." (VI:7) So often we take the doctrine of our creation in the image of God in a matter of fact way. As it turns out, however, it is the key to our journey into God. Our imagination, by which we can be anywhere and reach out in love and care both forward and backward in time, we imitate God's own eternity and ubiquity, finding a way into the consideration of these mysteries. But above all it is by our capacity to love, and in our freedom to dispose of ourselves completely in love for each other, that we imitate the delightful and delighted will of God.
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