Tag Archives: St. Andrew Catholic Church (Milford, Ohio)

Longing for Hope, Many Despair

5 Dec

At the closing prayer of our farewell dinner, with the lights in the room dimmed and candles burning, the Light of Christ shone brightly among us and within us, as we sang with Hala from Nazareth, Rogeece from Beit Sahour, Suhail from Zebabdeh, Waseim from Beit Jala, and Ruya from Nablus. They are teachers. They are Palestinians. They are Christians. They are our friends. They are brothers and sisters in Christ.

Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.

 

Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
light for the world to see.

Longing for peace, our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has pow’r to save us.
Make us your living voice. 

Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others,
shared until all are fed.Longing for shelter, many are homeless.
Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others,
walls made of living stone.

Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
making your kingdom come. 

Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.

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Emphasis on “Humble and Hopeful Pleading”

2 Dec

In the Mass prayers proper to the Second Sunday of Advent, we found these new words in the updated English translation, and noticed an emphasis on “humbly pleading hopefully.”

Collect: “those who set out in haste to meet your Son … gain … admittance to his company”

Prayer over the Offerings:  “come, we pray, to our rescue with the protection of your mercy”

Preface:  “when … all is at last made manifest … may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope”

Prayer after Communion: “we humbly beseech you, O Lord”

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Orations: December 4, 2011 – Second Sunday of Advent

2 Dec

As we prepare for Sunday Mass, we study these prayers that the priest prays from the Roman Missal as he stands at his chair and at the altar. It is quite easy to find the readings for Sunday Mass. It is not so easy to find these prayers.

COLLECT

Let us pray

Almighty and merciful God, may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste to meet your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to his company. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

PRAYER OVER THE OFFERINGS

Prayer over the Offerings Be pleased, O Lord, with our humble prayers and offerings, and, since we have no merits to plead our cause, come, we pray, to our rescue with the protection of your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Replenished by the food of spiritual nourishment, we humbly beseech you, O Lord, that, through our partaking in this mystery, you may teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and hold firm to the things of heaven. Through Christ our Lord.

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“It was kind of you to share in my distress”

1 Dec

A people without hope perish.

A program called HOPE – Holy Land Outreach to Palestinian Educators – brought Christians teachers together. They teach in Catholic schools, in Cincinnati and in the Holy Land. What they have in common is that they teach children – and they teach with hope.

During the visit of our friends from the West Bank, Israel and Jordan, we prayed in many places and at many times.

We prayed on a Sunday with the people of St. Andrew parish, Milford …

We prayed on a school day with the children of St. Lawrence school, Price Hill …

We prayed with the Sisters of Charity at their motherhouse, Delhi …

Having heard the personal stories of our Jordanian and Palestinian friends, and having shared in their struggles and sufferings as teachers, parents, citizens and believers living as a minority in their lands, we celebrated a last Mass together before they left toward home. Be in awe – and be filled with hope – as you read what was proclaimed at that Mass from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, noting that the reading was not specifically chosen for the occasion but “just happened” to be the reading permanently assigned to that day in the Church’s established calendar of readings:

“Brothers and sisters:  I know how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of  being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in  need. I can do all things in him who strengthens me. Still, it was kind of you to share in my distress. My God will fully supply  whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our  God and Father, glory forever and ever. Amen.”

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We got what it takes!

1 Dec

What does it take to begin a partnership between St. Andrew-St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School in Milford and the Latin Patriarchate School in Beit Jala?

passion for learning

love of children

hope and gratitude

desire and longing

talent and faith

… and …

SASEAS principal, Tom

Beit Jala teacher, Eman          Beit Jala teacher, Waseim

… and …

the “techies” – Waseim (LPSBJ) … George (SASEAS) 

… and …

the “teachers” – Sue (America) … Eman (Palestine)

What does it take to build and continue a partnership between our SASEAS and their LPSBJ?

passion for learning

love of children

hope and gratitude

desire and longing

talent and faith

Eman … Tom … Waseim … George … Sue

We got what it takes!

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the “Great Introducer” – and the “First Called”

30 Nov

Today is the feast of Saint Andrew. For us at St. Andrew this is big! On this day we remember Andrew – and Andrew remembers us.

Entrance Antiphon (Matthew 4: 18-19)

Beside the Sea of Galilee, the Lord saw two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and he said to them: Come after me and I will make you fishers of men.

Collect

We humbly implore your majesty, O Lord, that, just as the blessed Apostle Andrew was for your  church a preacher and pastor, so he may be for us a constant intercessor before you.  

Prayer over the Offerings

Grant us, almighty God, that through these offerings, which we bring on the feast day of Saint Andrew, we may please you by what we have brought and be given life by what you have accepted.

Communion Antiphon (John 1: 41-42)

Andrew told his brother Simon: We have found the Messiah, the Christ, and he brought him to Jesus.

Prayer after Communion  

May communion in your Sacrament strengthen us, O Lord, so that by the example of the blessed  Apostle Andrew we, who carry in our body the Death of Christ, may merit to live with him in glory.

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“Keep my spirit, until I come back”

29 Nov

At the farewell dinner the night before the Christian teachers from the Holy Land left us to fly back home, Rogeece, in the name of the group, presented me with a piece of olive wood in the shape of a heart. This is how she explained the gift: 

When we were at the Freedom Center, I watched a six-to-seven minute video about a young boy who was from a slave family. He was escaping, in order to look for freedom, and then return to his family. His hope was to bring back freedom for all of them. When the young boy was about to say goodbye to his mother and his young sister, he gave them a heart-shaped stone. Handing his heart to his sister, he said, “Keep my spirit, until I come back.” He meant to come back as a human being, with all his rights and dignity, to give freedom to all of them.

As we leave Cincinnati, we give a heart-shaped piece of olive wood to you, our father, and to our sisters and brothers that we leave behind. We ask you to keep our spirit, until we get peace in our land, the Holy Land, until we live with our families in peaceful and just conditions, and until we return with dignity.

I will keep your heart close to my heart, Rogeece. I will keep your spirit, until you come back.

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Emphasis on “Now”

28 Nov

In the Mass prayers proper to the First Sunday of Advent, we found these new words in the updated English translation, and noticed an emphasis on “now.”

Collect: “the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming … so that, gathered at his right hand”

Prayer over the Offerings: “gathered from among your gifts to us”

Preface: “the great promise in which now we dare to hope”

Prayer after Communion: “for even now you teach us … to hold fast to what endures”

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Did Not Keep Us from Praying

28 Nov

All day on Friday and Saturday, I had that icky, nervous, churning, unsettled, bothersome feeling in my belly, that feeling that I get whenever I feel uncertain or incompetent or inexperienced (or when I am worrying, as I regrettably do too often, about how I will perform or how I will look in the eyes of others).  

After Masses on Sunday I was exhausted and relieved – and grateful. It was an exhaustion and relief full of gratitude. 

Even during Mass on the weekend I was feeling grateful for the Deacon and the Music Director with whom I serve here at St. Andrew.

Dovile has been remarkably capable and positive (and patient with me). Her choir members were of immense assistance, some of them coming to more than one Mass in order to help the congregation (and me) to navigate our way through the changes.

I find it hard to imagine how priests could have survived the First Sunday of Advent this year without the presence and assurance of a liturgically savvy deacon like I have at my side when I am in the sanctuary.

Add to that the good sport and ever willing, flexible and humble (and brilliant) Sunday priest-associate that we have in Father Ken Morman.

All things considered, our transition to the new words and chant were as uneventful as they were eventful. How did it go at Masses this weekend at St. Andrew? It was as much a non-event as it was a huge event, thanks to Karen Kane and her Archdiocesan Worship Office and the outstanding learning opportunities and materials and worship aids provided for us, to Dovile Krempasky and her choir members, to Deacon Tim Schutte, to Father Ken Morman – and to the good people of St. Andrew who have been accepting, teachable, responsive and engaged during the time of preparation – and of especial good humor during the “first” Masses that we celebrated together.

Of course, we all flubbed up and stumbled a few times, but it did not keep us from praying. Contrary to the headline in this morning’s local newspaper, there was “no Mass confusion” here at St. Andrew. Today I feel proud to be a Catholic priest, and humbled to be able to be the parish priest among the Catholics of Milford.

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the Great Promise in which Now We Dare to Hope.

26 Nov

Moments ago at the end of Saturday morning Mass, November 26, we closed the book on the English words that we have used to pray at Mass for the last forty years – and the only words that I have used at the altar since my ordination thirty-six and a half years ago. There is sadness in the parting. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope. This evening, with the first Mass of the First Sunday of Advent, we begin anew with the updated English translation.

For a while we will need to focus on the words of the text and the notes of the chant. For a while it will be difficult to “pray,” but in a while the new words and notes will speak to our hearts.

Perhaps, when you hear new words, you will hear a new word from God, meant especially for you. Perhaps, in speaking new words, you will approach God in a fresh way.

As the prophet Isaiah suggests, perhaps the Lord, who is the potter, is forming us, the clay, into a new vessel.

That is an image that is suited to a lot of life. The clay does not know what it is becoming, only that it is in the hands of the potter. While the clay is feeling the spinning about that is taking place on the potter’s wheel, the clay also feels the warmth of the hands of the one who is forming it.

For many people at Mass this weekend, the adjustment in the words of Mass is far from being the biggest adjustment that they are making in life at this moment. There are bigger things in life that throw us off balance, and that cause us to be disoriented, and that make it difficult for us to pray. Compared to changes that you might be navigating in life, these changes in words at Mass are nothing.

And as I begin to think that my adjustments are bigger than anyone else who is at Mass this weekend – after all, every Eucharistic prayer is changed, and every prayer that I will pray from the chair will be a new prayer for the whole next year – as I begin to think that my adjustments are bigger than anyone else who is at Mass this weekend, I say to myself, “Wait a minute. God will give me the grace to make the changes I need to make. God will give you the grace to make the adjustments you need to make. That is true, not just for the changes in the Mass words today, but for all the adjustments that we ever need to make in life.”

In all things and at all times, in everything and in every way, the Lord is coming to us with newness of life and creating something new in us. As the Preface before the Eucharistic Prayer reminds us on this, the First Sunday of Advent, that is “the great promise in which now we dare to hope.”

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