Grassroots Liturgist

One of my university lecturers – the Professor, no less – was famed by an occasion when virtually an entire one-hour tutorial was held in silence.   A tutorial is very different to a lecture.   A wit once wrote that ‘a lecture is the process by which information is passed from the notes of the lecturer to the notes of the student, bypassing the brain of both.’ But tutorials have a more interactive format.   They are designed for discussion, clarification, and applying the knowledge gained in lectures.   You cannot expect to turn up and be passive or disengaged.   You must be tuned in. Now, this Professor had asked his students to prepare for the tutorial by doing some reading.   This reading was essential as it would prepare fertile ground for the advancement of their studies; their understanding of the topic would deepen though their shared exploration of the reading and, because of this, they would take ownership and think for themselves – developin...

If we stop to think about it, there is a wonderful, organic flow to the celebration of Holy Mass that is in harmony with the needs of our fallen human nature. We gather in song, a sign and celebration of our unity as members of the Church.   We then acknowledge to ourselves, to each other and to God, our failings and our need of him.   Then, liberated by his loving mercy, we may truly and joyously sing his praise in the Gloria.   Having done so, we are more able to open our ears, our minds and our hearts to listen to and absorb, to assimilate his life-giving Word to us; that his Word may written on our hearts, and not remain mere external instruction.   And, fed and nourished by his Word, we can confidently state our shared faith in the words of the Creed. Then, having expressed our baptismal faith, we exercise our baptismal priesthood – yes, all the baptised share in Christ’s priestly ministry – by offering up to God our intentions and petitions for the Church a...

We have already reflected on silence, and how important it can be for our spiritual life. But in our everyday life, when we are with other people, silence can be a comforting or a challenging experience.  At its worse, it can be awkward to the point of excruciatingly painful. At its best, it can be powerfully intimate, drawing us closer together – think of a well-observed minute’s silence for someone who has died.  After we have sung the Glory to God, we come to another of the small silences that we have previously mentioned; the priest says, “Let us pray,” and there follows a short period of silence before the Celebrant prays the Collect. What do you do during this silence? Are you simply waiting for the priest to pray the Collect?  The Collect is the opening prayer in the celebration of Holy Mass, it gathers together our silent prayers and is spoken on our behalf. But our own prayer actually starts during that silence. The General Instruction tells us that the silence f...

The Estonian people love their choral singing, at least as much as the Welsh do.   And, if you were to meet anyone from Estonia, they would tell you how they literally sang their way to independence through the ‘singing revolution’ of the 1980s.    This singing both expressed the unity of the people and, at the same time, helped to build up, to strengthen that unity.   And this unity of identity, as Estonians, kept them strong and resilient during the years of Soviet oppression. This bears repeating: their singing both expressed the unity that they already shared, and it promoted and fortified that unity. In some ways, this echoes our experience of Holy Mass. At the beginning of the Mass, the bell is rung, we stand for the Entrance Procession…..and we sing! The purpose of this Entrance Song (usually a hymn, though this is a relatively recent practice) “is to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, introduce their thoughts to ...

In this series of short reflections, we will explore how we can get more from the Mass that we celebrate each Sunday.   We won’t go through the Mass in a strict order, but today we will look at the beginning.   And the beginning……is before we even leave our homes and head for church. If we think of football supporters (please stay with me here), they don’t suddenly start thinking of the match when they take their seats in the stadium; they have been thinking about it all week.   They will most likely have been reading about the team, checking up on injuries, interviews given by the manager, etc.   They may have thought about the tactics for them to win.   The day of the match will be a conscious buildup of anticipation – this is not just another day of the week.   They will greet their fellow supporters, they will sing their songs, they will ‘kick every ball’ even though they are not on the pitch.   And their emotions will be heightened as the dram...