Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Happy Easter, today. I hope that the joy of Easter and our many beautiful celebrations remain with you, with us, well into the coming year. There are so many people to thank… all artists, decorators, musicians, liturgical ministers, priests, deacons, our Sisters and staff, our seminarian Joseph, our volunteers. The Expo Center effort is, every year, a project that involves workers and volunteers for several days leading up to Easter, as well as packing up and moving everything back to the church on Easter Sunday afternoon. I am always so grateful for all of you who stay with us to the end!
We also decorate the altar at school for Masses there, and of course our church, too.

This year was one of the most powerful and remarkable experiences of faith that I have had in my life, and I am grateful that you were here to celebrate it with. Such lively participation, I get the sense we are doing something right! We are an amazing parish family. I can only imagine how pleased God is, with children like you. May the Cross be our faith and Risen Life be our hope as we live in the love of God’s family. Please pray for one another.

I got a beautiful email during Holy Week this year and wanted to share it with you. (You see, we get really good emails, too—actually, many more good than bad!). Here is the text, I have removed her name to respect her privacy:

Hello Father Rooney,

I hope this email finds you well. No doubt, you’re extremely busy with Easter just around the corner. I hope I do not take too much of your time. A little over a year ago I was living in Fredericksburg. Things were not turning out the way I planned during my time there. During last year’s Lenten season, I was at the lowest point of my life and felt completely alone. One Saturday, for an unknown reason, I decided to attend 5:00 o’clock mass at your parish. When I walked in I was stunned to see the church so packed! I just figured everyone in the South was Baptist and Catholics were few and far between. I certainly was wrong when I saw everyone at St. Mary’s! I began searching for a seat and wasn’t having much luck. Just when I was about to give up and stand in back by myself, I heard one of your parishioners, a woman, say to me “There is a seat here for you.”

Father Rooney, this woman and her act of kindness she extended to me while I was in your church completely changed my life. In that moment, I finally felt at peace and felt hope for the future for the first time in months. Shortly after this experience, I made the decision to move home to Chicago and to join RCIA at my local parish. I am so pleased to inform you that I am about to fulfill my sacraments this Saturday at my church’s Easter Vigil. I am so thrilled to be taking this next step in what I know will be my lifelong faith journey.

Because of this woman whose name I will never know and because of your church, I am becoming Catholic. Because of your church and your parishioner, my life and soul have been changed forever.

Thank you and may God bless you, the entire St. Mary parish and all those you hold dear.

Happy Easter!

Look at what is happening—often we may not even be aware of what impact we are having on the lives of others. An act of kindness, a kind word, a simple prayer for another has an unlimited echo that carries into the lives of others.

There is a different, stronger light in the sky, a new fragrance, a gentle, sustaining spirit to our world because Jesus is risen. There are so many things that don’t make sense to our limited sight that can be confusing and frustrating, but the new life of Jesus helps us to see that there is always more than only what we can see or touch. In his name we can offer that new life to one another and change the world.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Please receive our best wishes for Easter joy and blessings to you and your families during these happy days of Easter. The Lord is risen, indeed, and we are changed.

Throughout these Holy Days of Jesus’ passion, and death and resurrection, we have found a continuing theme and profound reflection on the power of remembrance.

At the Last Supper, Jesus’ own words are “Do this in remembrance of me,” and we spoke about how Jesus’ own understanding of that word is quite different from our way of remembering an event or feeling in our lives. The power of our memory, with sacramental grace, makes the event not happen again, but the “present moment” when that event happened is made really present to us now, at this moment in time. Of course, Jesus knew what he was doing. When he says “This is my body,” it is not only at that evening hour before his arrest that it happened. God is not limited by time, and what God does, God does once, for all time. All moments are saturated by God’s eternal moment. Our humanity is forever saturated by Jesus’ desire for Communion with us, changed by his being really present—“present” in the sense of the word meaning both here and now.

It continues on Good Friday. Having received recently the new translation of the Mass, there is a word that we use now that we didn’t use before, the word “conciliation.” It is an interesting word, given in definition as “the action of stopping someone from being angry, placation,” or “the action of mediating between two disputing persons or groups.” The prayers of the Mass always refer to the Eucharist as the act of conciliation, that which could not have occurred in absence of Jesus’ offering of himself on Calvary, for us and for our salvation. For you. Once again, our memory, combined with sacramental grace, makes this moment now: both in Eucharist and in confession. Our work is a work of re-membering, e-presenting, re-conciliation. It is the work of union with God.

This mystery of our memory is something that is most undeveloped as an integral part of our spirituality. Memory requires prior experience, it also requires a desire to recall. Maybe I’m just getting older, but I seem to hold onto the things that I know I must remember, and don’t retain so readily the mundane details, routine minutiae of everyday life. Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas  Aquinas, however, give much importance to the memory. Without it, both say, we could not be fully human. It is likely one of the things that sets us apart from “lower forms” of life, the ability to  learn, to apply knowledge to circumstances in the form of wisdom, helping us to not make the same mistakes over and over. But also to do the good and noble things of our exalted humanity over and over! Imagine how frustrating it might be to glimpse the truth only once, and know that it was gone from that moment forward.

Today I think about my Uncle John: he is in memory care in Kansas City. He remembers his family. The last time I visited I loaded a bunch of 50 year old family photos in my phone. He was delighted
to see them and remembered all of them and told many stories. But he can’t tell you what day it is, or what he had, or even if he had, breakfast. He forgets that you came to see him and is pleasantly
surprised while you are sitting there with him: “When did you get here?,” he smiles.

All his life he went to Mass every day. It was the most important thing to him. And he took Communion every day to people in nursing homes. Now, at Villa Saint Francis, he goes to Mass every day still. They tell me he knows every prayer, sings all the hymns, finds moments of great peace in the middle of days that are confusing and frustrating for him, as he realizes he is losing his grip on memory. If you ask him, he can never tell you whether he went to Mass or not that day, though he did. But notice, he hasn’t lost his grip on the present moment, only of his memory of it.

Of course, when we are in heaven, everything (and I mean everything) is now, everything we have ever or will ever know. There will be no need of memory, it will all be the moment of blinding flash, joy of new life. It will be fresh morning and empty tombs, all will be alive and all potential will be fulfilled. The moment of sacrament, a song that fills our senses and a complete peace we have never known—there will be no longer past and future.

But for now, we are people of hope, living in a prayer and a song we call to mind, a memory of God’s great love for us in Jesus. Alleluia!

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Our daffodils decided to bloom for Confirmation this year. Each year I marvel at how those things continue to return, even know how to continue to come back each year. When we were kids, we would wait for the crops to break through the ground, suddenly there would be the slightest green tint to the black soil when we knew that the seeds had sprouted. There is a gardener in each of us, I believe,whether we have a green thumb or not: all of us are called to bring forth new life.

It is the perfect meditation for us this Sunday, especially, as we reflect on the offering that Jesus makes for us in his passion, death and resurrection with the Gospel of Palm Sunday.

Have you ever wondered about the miracle of a seed? It is planted into the earth, the shell of the seed breaks open, a new plant sprouts. Somehow locked inside that seed is the potential of producing maybe dozens of seasons each with thousands of seeds many times over. It has some kind of software in there that knows exactly how the new tree will sprout, grow, anticipate weather and seasons, bloom. It is uniquely its own. It relies upon the environment in which it is planted to survive.

Jesus uses this image about himself, we heard it last weekend in preparation for the proclamation of the Passion this Sunday: unless a grain of wheat falls upon the ground and dies, it remains but a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit… In this way, Jesus entered the earth in his Incarnation, and finally when the fullness of time came he broke open like a seed, on the cross, and all this life came out. The new life that came out is you and me.

Consider Jesus’ image, for a moment. He uses the word “dies” because from our human perspective the seed, as such, ceases to be a seed. But in reality, it has become the end that God really intended for it: life itself. Everything that the new plant is, it owes to the seed who continues to live through it, with it, in it. Do you see where I am going with this? “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, Almighty Father, forever.” The process of planting life requires the seed, and continues forever with  the same imprint of God’s creative design in the generations of our own humanity. What comfort this can be to those who have lost parents: they live, we are because they gave us life, but that gift has never ended, and they continue to live in us. It is a communion that goes much deeper than mere DNA.

If you will, now allow this meditation to go one step further. For many years I have been frustrated with myself, and I have listened to other peoples’ frustration: however much we try, how hard it is to seek that kind of perfection that belongs to Jesus! Aren’t we supposed to, in a certain sense, become him? It is a level of courage, of humility, of love that goes beyond my limits, however I try.

The fact is, no matter how much we try and fail, we will never have what it takes to become Jesus by our own efforts. Perhaps this is a new look at the whole idea of Justification. I can’t make myself become Jesus. But, as his seed, his dying on the cross, has given me life, he has chosen to become me. Everything I have, I have received from my Father; everything the Father has given to me, I give to you… We are who we are by a special divine DNA from God himself. It is beyond our wildest imagination.

One further thought, it can’t become more literal than it is, right? He chooses to become the Passover meal—the ritual of Passover from death which is the Last Supper united to the Cross on Good Friday—so that we might receive him,the nourishment that gives us life and grows us into new life. We are made one with him in his Cross, we are seeds planted at baptism, to break open with him in offering our life to God the Father through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, so that this life might also break forth and produce fruit a thousand thousands-fold.

Join us this week as we pass, with Jesus, from death to life. The three sacred observances of the Last Supper (Holy Thursday), the Passion of Jesus and Veneration of his Cross (Good Friday) and his Resurrection at Easter are, once and for all, the celebration of who we are in Christ Jesus our LORD. There are no more beautiful and moving liturgies at any other time during the Church year. You are welcome.

God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Last week I was in a conversation with someone and we were speaking about music after Mass. This person obviously was not current with all that is being written about liturgy and life (who is?) and was speaking out of her own grassroots spirituality as a Catholic who has gone to Mass all her life. She, as you might imagine, had well established opinions. “I don’t think we should have to sing anything after they take up the collection,” she said. “I just want to pray in silence in the presence of my God, and not have to think about everyone else, what they are thinking of me, or what I’m supposed to be doing.”

I tried my best to explain the reasons behind the music, but I’m not sure I got very far. Opinions can become so strong sometimes that you can still have them and not remember why. We default to lines like, “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it.” One of my favorites of all time was once when somebody actually said to me, “Well, if Latin was good enough for the Apostles, then it is good enough for me.” (The secret is, of course, that the Apostles didn’t speak Latin. Maybe Peter and Paul, later, when they went to Rome. But the language of the New Testament Scriptures is Greek, maybe some Hebrew.)

It makes me wonder, though, why singing can seem so tentative at times when it should be most robust? For example, the Great Amen at the completion of the Eucharistic Prayer before the Lord’s Prayer—the great Affirmation of the faithful (you) for the prayer that has just been completed—thrice Amen in response to the prayer which began with the angels, “Holy, holy, holy…” It is often barely whispered. Did you know that the book says “the people respond…”? It isn’t the priest’s line, it is the people’s Amen.

I asked my interlocutor if this theory might have merit. “Is this why, do you think,” I asked, “that people don’t respond with the sung Memorial Acclamation at that precise moment that bread and wine is consecrated into the Body and Blood of Jesus: Jesus is now present on the altar.?” “Precisely,” said she, “because we are silent in the presence of the Lord, at this most holy moment.”

My good people, it is at this moment that we are to be overcome with joy, with response. As present to Jesus as he is to us. At that moment we can cry out, “Save us, Savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free!” That isn’t a whispered line! It is called the “Memorial” Acclamation because we acclaim our personal memory of the Great Story of Jesus: suffering, death and resurrection, NOT simply that it happened, but that God loved us so much that he did it for me, for us. Next time you are in the church for your silent moment, pick up the hymnal and find #685. I’m not crazy about the tune, but you could spend a week on the words!

And the moment of consecration isn’t the most holy moment of the Mass. The moment begins with consecration, yes, but isn’t fulfilled until
the last person in the church has received that holy Food! God the Son becomes Man, becomes bread, not to exist as bread, but to be consumed by us. He is waiting, he is hungry. The consecration exists for the moment of Communion. It does no good for God to become present if there is not a desire that fills us to receive him! To be one with him, and in the sacrament, to be his chosen people and become one with each other, too.

Yes, even with the people that you might rather wish weren’t there, with the cell phone or the screaming kids. Even with enemies. It can be a challenge. We are called to be Christ and to find Christ in others, no matter how difficult it may be with all the distractions. Being in Christ to others involves patience and kindness, but it also requires the courtesy to help others to focus. We need to be more mindful of each other, too.

If it is silent prayer time you seek in a silent church in the presence of the Lord, the church building is open all day…pick any time you like whenever Mass isn’t happening. But the Mass is the coming together of the Body of Christ with that great cry to the Father that comes from the Cross, across the chasm of death, the Word which came forth (first half of the Mass) and the word that returns to the Father in the form of Christ who unites himself to us in holy Communion, so that you and I may be caught up in that great offering to God for us and for our salvation.

Music exists for a purpose; it is clearly not for our entertainment. Anyone who has had training in a choir understands. When voices blend in song they can become one voice (in a way that can’t nearly be as perfect as when spoken), and that voice, with no single voice standing out, becomes the voice of Jesus himself. May we be so.

Still, put away the phones.

God bless you.