Grassroots Liturgist

What does it mean to be Christian? There is a temptation to think of our Christian faith as a set of teachings.   But Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that “ Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or moralism.   Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story; it is an event. ” In 19 th Century France, an old peasant would enter the church and sit silently each morning before going to work, and return to do the same before going home.   One day, Fr John Vianney, asked the man what he said to the Lord during his visits.   “I say nothing,” replied the man, “I look at him and he looks at me.” Prayer, the divine encounter, can be as simple as that.   We don’t need to make it overly complicated.   A friend of mine always starts communal prayer by saying, “Let us be aware that we are in the most holy presence of God.”   God is always beside us and simply being aware of that is prayer.   In our last reflection we...

“Show me your calendar, and I will tell you your priorities.” A few days ago, I watched a YouTube video featuring Bishop Robert Baron, where he used this phrase.   And there is clearly truth in those words.   We spend our time, we offer up our time to things that, for whatever reason, are important to us.   For example, I remember offering up a great deal of my time taking my children to their various evening and weekend activities.   I say ‘offering up’ because, frankly, if I were to have made a selfish choice about what to do with my days, they would not have been spent watching endless lengths of swimming or standing in the freezing wind and rain watching a rugby or football match.   But enriching our children’s lives is very important and so I offered up that time, and did so joyfully.   But what else is important to us? In our reflections on the Holy Mass, we have noted the importance of our full, conscious and active participation in the litur...

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...