Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

One thing that has filled my heart with encouragement as folks have returned to the Mass in the waning pandemic is this: Singing! It has been truly heartening to hear folks sing the Gloria and the Salve Regina especially!

The prayers that we learn to sing take deep root in our souls, and thus I recalled this lovely note that I received from a parishioner who had emailed an encounter that she had in Mass. I share that with you below:

Father Mosimann,

I wanted to tell you how much I love that we sing the Salve Regina after Mass. I love that my kids and I know it by heart now.

Today, I had a new reason to love it. We were sitting behind an elderly woman and her adult son. She appeared very infirm and somewhat “not here.” He was wonderful to her, finding the music/readings for her, putting his arm around her at times, etc.

He helped her get to communion and back to her seat. Then the Salve started and all of a sudden this beautiful, clear voice rang out—she was singing! I looked up and her son was staring at her with this smiling, gaping, open mouth, just like me, I’m sure. Then her son and I had to stop singing because it’s very hard to sing the Salve Regina with a lump in your throat.

We chatted with them after Mass, the son shared that his mom had a stroke 8 years ago, and doesn’t have much short-term memory, but her long-term memory is very solid. She was telling us about being taught by the Dominican Sisters in France during her childhood and how they would always sing the Salve in school.

I love how that piece of music ties us to Catholics all over the world, but also to Catholics out of time and place and to Mary. Amazing Mass today.

– A Parish Mother

Pax,

Father Mosimann

One new thing I learned this week: God spits.

Ok, that’s not really new, b/c I have noticed that in the gospel for years. But the new tidbit is this: that Jesus spitting in the Gospel would have triggered a recollection from Genesis of God creating Adam.

Genesis 2:7 reads: “Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

The verb ‘formed’ is a word that means forming and molding with clay like a potter. However dust is dry and would thus resist being formed and holding a shape. What I learned is that, at the time of our Lord, there was a Jewish tradition that God used spit to moisten the dust, and form Adam. Ahhhhh…..

In Mark and John’s gospels, when Jesus uses spit and dirt to form clay, for healing, evoking the Father’s creative power in healing and restoring what has been damaged by sin. We will read one of the accounts from Mark’s gospel (Mk 7:31-37) this coming Labor Day weekend.

Until recently, this was repeated in the Right of Baptism. Most of you older than 50, were baptized in the old latin rite. The priest had to touch the infant’s ears and mouth with his spit! I once did a baptism in the old rite and I thought, “really? gross!” Can’t say I’d be excited to see that make a comeback in the CoronaVirusAge. But it now makes much more sense as a constant thread from the act of creation in Genesis, through the miraculous healings of our Lord, to our re-creation in baptism.

pax,

Fr. John Mosimann