God’s Breathtaking Love For Us

It’s so easy to let worldly concerns get in the way of our spiritual lives, to forget how absurdly fortunate we are to call ourselves Christians.  Perhaps because God’s love for us is so much greater than we can comprehend, because it’s not something we can see, we can sometimes lose sight of it.  But oh how He loves us!

And it’s precisely because He loves us so that we have nothing to fear.  No matter what concerns are before us, He is always in control.  His plan is unfolding with each passing moment, and though we don’t always understand it fully, He is making everything work for good.  I can’t help but marvel at the fact that God lets us know anything of His plan at all.  He is our Creator and so certainly doesn’t have to explain Himself to us. Yet He humbles Himself to work with His creatures.  His love is so great that He wants us to live in Him and do His work!  Though He is so much higher above us, He doesn’t treat us as slaves.  He doesn’t even treat us as servants.  No, rather, incredibly, He calls us friends (John 15:15)!  And through our Lord are not only friends, but sons and daughters of the Creator Himself!

It’s so easy to lose sight of all this, especially when things are rough.  Sometimes it feels like we’re going to buckle under the weight of our crosses.  But Jesus tells us not to worry, to trust Him.  The burdens of this world can be heavy, can be suffocating, but Jesus wants to help us carry our crosses.  He wants to take away all of our pain and suffering and give us His light yoke, but He can’t if we’re too focused on ourselves.  Jesus is calling us to fix our eyes on Him so we can be filled with His love and peace.  Jesus is desperately seeking for us to open our hearts to Him so that they can be filled with Him.  He wants to drive away all the darkness and be one with us in His marvelous light.

So let us give thanks for such incredible love; for a love that couldn’t be stopped by death and so can’t be stopped by anything else we experience in this world; for a love that is pursuing us with every breath we take with an intensity unlike anything else.  Let us be grateful for so great a Savior and respond to His love!  Let us go and be filled with His love, meeting Him in the sacraments, in prayer, and in each other.

Noster Deus nobiscum, quis quidque contra?

See Also: God’s Radical Love For Us

Changes to the Mass in 2011

It is important to begin by noting that the Mass itself is not changing.  It’s perhaps misleading to speak of the “New Mass.”  Some of the texts of the Mass are changing, but the elements of the Mass remain the same: the Introductory Rites, the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the Communion Rite and the Concluding Rites.  That being said, here’s what you need to know about the Roman Missal, Third Edition (if you want a shorter explanation: click here).

Why are changes being made?
JPII promulgated the third edition of the Latin Roman Missal (Missale Romanum) in 2001, and our new missal will now reflect the additional prayers and revisions found in that missal.  We are, after all, one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church and the Mass should reflect our unity.  You will notice quite a few changes in wording largely because when the Latin Mass was first translated into English after Vatican II, some liberties were taken by the translators that are now going to be corrected.  While perhaps an inconvenience, the words we say will now be closer to the texts used at Masses around the world.

When will the Missal begin to be used in the liturgy?
The new translation will be used with the start of Advent, 2011.  That particular Sunday falls on November 27, 2011.

What are some of the changes?
The changes are bolded.  The non-bolded text is there to give enough context so that you can recognize in which part of the Mass the change is occurring.  Again, these changes have been made to make our English missal more true to either the Latin missal or to Vulgate (the Latin Bible).

What does all this mean?
It means that come Advent we will all have to follow the Missal closely as we get used to the changes in the Mass.  For the most part, the changes in our responses are small (nearly the whole of them are listed in the table above, with the exception of the Mysteries of Faith).  So that will make the transition easier for us as we assist at Mass.

The biggest changes are found in the prayers the priest recites.  As the USCCB’s website tells us, “the style of worship will be more formal. But it will also be deeper theologically and more evocative emotionally and intellectually.”  Meaning what?  Some of the language may sound strange to our ears at first, but it’s intended to remind us that we are worshiping the one, true God.  It’s supposed to sound a little strange so that we remember that what we are doing is neither unimportant nor ordinary.  In the Mass we are doing nothing short of sacramentally renewing Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross – if this doesn’t call for special language, nothing does!

Hopefully this post has been some help to you.  If you’d like to learn more, you can go to the USCCB’s site directly here.  Or better yet, look at the new text of the Order of the Mass.  I can’t encourage you enough, no matter how many years you’ve been Catholic, to take this opportunity of an updated Missal to deepen your (and your family’s!) understanding about the purpose,  the structure, and the mysteries of the Mass!  You may also want to check out A Deeper Understanding of the Mass.

Taking Another Look at the Our Father

We’ve all said the Our Father so many times it’s easy to forget how much is packed into it!  So let us all be reminded of some of the deeper meanings within the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in Heaven

• We say our Father – we’re praying with and for our brothers and sisters
• This is a reminder that God is in Heaven and we’re in exile – we’re praying that we’ll one day make it home

Hallowed by Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven

• The grammar is such that the three petitions are all linked to “on earth as it is in Heaven” – so we’re actually praying that His name be hallowed on earth as it is in Heaven, and that His kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven (not just that His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven)
• God’s name is holy, so why the prayer that it be hallowed?  We’re calling upon the name of the Lord.  There’s power in invoking His name, and we’re calling upon God to help make us holy (among other things)
• With these three petitions we’re praying that we may increase in the theological virtues: invoking His name (faith), praying for His kingdom (hope) and putting God’s will before our own (charity)

Give us this day our daily bread

• The remaining petitions will pray for the cardinal virtues.  Interestingly, these are all phrased as commands (which we can’t see in the English, but is revealed in the Greek or Latin)
• This is a prayer for prudence – that God will provide for all that we need, and that we may be prudent with what He gives us
• Can also be interpreted as a prayer for the Eucharist (more on this in an upcoming post)

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

• This is a prayer for justice
• Since God died so that our sins might be forgiven, how can we not forgive others?

Lead us not into temptation

• This is a prayer for temperance
• As the Catechism tells us, there are two petitions within this prayer.  We’re asking that God not allowed us to be tempted, and that He may not let us yield to temptation if/when we are tempted

But deliver us from evil.  Amen.

• This is a prayer for fortitude – the literal translation is from the evil one
• Our lives are a spiritual battle and we need the courage to fight!  We pray that we will never be separated from God in this life or the next

Basically, we’re praying that God will make us saints.  The insights above are ultimately from the Church Fathers – may we learn from those saints as we try to follow in their footsteps!

Real American Religious Freedom

Happy 4th of July!!  The last few days I’ve been thinking about Americans’ concept of freedom, particularly our notion of the separation of Church and State.  Not enough Americans realize 1) that this term isn’t actually in the Constitution, and 2) that Thomas Jefferson coined this phrase as a way to protect religion and the people from the State’s interference – NOT the other way around.  (If you’re curious to read the letter where Jefferson used the term you can google the phrase, his name, and 1802).

All people are to be free to practice and express their religious beliefs.  All too often Catholics are silenced by cries of “imposing their beliefs” on others when they call for things like an end to abortion or one-man, one-woman definition of marriage.  But the truth is that even atheists have their version of “religious beliefs” and they likewise want to embed them in the fabric of society.

The State can’t be free from religious beliefs because the people who run her and make her laws all have their own “religious” beliefs.  All laws are simply the moral beliefs of the nation (assuming the representatives actually represent their constituency and not just particularly vocal special interest groups).  And these moral beliefs are based on people’s “religious” beliefs.

Does this mean the government endorse a particular religion?  No, of course not.  That would be a clear violation of the first amendment.  But neither should she attempt to rid all of her laws morality based on religion.

And since I’m too sick to celebrate the 4th today, allow me a tangent.  The notion of a secular morality or secular rights is just silly.  If God does not exist, then who says that any man has any worth at all?  Who says that we shouldn’t be free to kill one another at leisure?  Who says that such an idea of private property exists?  If God hasn’t created us, if He hasn’t given each soul a infinite worth, if He hasn’t established a code of morality that is for our benefit, then one simply doesn’t exist.

Man can “create” it – but that is simply to say those rights can just as easily be uncreated, or destroyed.  They can be changed at the will of whoever has the most power and have temporal existence at best.  They can’t be called truths (or rights) if they are subject to man, instead of man being subject to them.  This idea is clearly expressed in one of the most famous lines of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

What’s that you say?  That sounds like a belief in objective truth, not relative morality that can be given and just as easily taken away by men.  Yup!  May God bless America and return to her people the Founders’ notions of religious freedom!

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

-America the Beautiful, by Katharine Lee Bates