All Night Vigil

This is just a brief post to express how beautiful and sublime was listening to our Cathedral Choir perform Sergi Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil last night in our lovely Madeleine. The beauty of the setting and the singing were almost overwhelming for me. I had been looking forward to this concert for months and my anticipation was richly rewarded. This work of Rachmaninoff's, like many of his works, is so challenging, but our choir, under the direction of Gregory Glenn and Melanie Malinka, were more than up to the task. How nice it was to spend more than an hour in prayer!

So, to Mr. Glenn, Mrs. Malinka, and the men and women, girls and boys of the Cathedral Choir: Thank you for this beautiful experience!

A happy St. Joseph's day to one and all!

St. Joseph- pray for us

Especially for those of us who are fathers (spiritual and biological) St. Joseph is a patron whose intercession is worth invoking daily.

Finding God in all things

Spring seems to be springing here along the Wasatch Front. It is lovely to behold. It is the age-old observance of coming-back-to-life. The Paschal Mystery is such an integral part of our lives that we often fail to notice it. Take grace, in which we move all the time, like fish in the ocean, yet so often we are still trying to find God, even though God is here all the time, most especially in other people, and not just in the people we happen happen to like, or who like us. In addition to people, God is in the many occurrences in our lives, in our experiences- speaking to us, challenging us, calling us beyond ourselves, reassuring us, even if with just enough hope to get us beyond a stressful, sad, arduous moment. "No one has ever seen God," we read in St. John's First Letter. "Yet," he continues, "if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us" (1 Jn 4,12).

One thing that Lent is about is intensifying our prayer, spending more time perceiving God in our lives and in others. Spiritual maturity, like emotional maturity is tough to achieve. If you're anything like me, it is easy to feel like we condemn ourselves repeatedly to be forever spiritual adolescents by being selfish, demanding, arrogant, prideful, by not only refusing to forgive, but actively nursing our grudges, by seeing those different from us as threats rather than the gifts they are. Nonetheless, God is still at work in us, or, at the very least knocking at the door hoping we will open up to Him and to the people we encounter. One cause of these symptoms is our slowness to accept that life isn't just cut-and-dry all the time, but is often ambiguous, resisting being stuffed into our all too neat categories, what I call in some classes our God matrix. After all it is St. Paul who writes: "At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror" (1 Cor 13,12). Perhaps it is this that makes those moments in which we distinctly perceive God all the more precious. As St. Paul wrote to the Phillipians, "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil 1,6)

Hopefully that puts us in mind of St. Patrick's Breastplate, which ends:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation

Be mindful of "the Creator of Creation"! Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Easter on-the-way

Writing about how much the presence of friends and neighbors added to our celebration on Wednesday, I was reminded of one of my favorite Pater Tom (Merton) quotes, from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

"If I affirm myself as Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., in the end I will find that there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic: and certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it."

Along with the late Fr. Jacques DuPuis, SJ, I take the "you will know them by their fruits" approach. Why? Because over and above Fr. DuPuis, these are the words of our Lord himself.

Rejoicing, we now return to our regularly scheduled liturgical season. It bears noting that we are more than half-way to Easter!

These past few days

The last two days have been some of the most powerful experiences I have had as a member of the Body of Christ. I renewed old acquaintances, met new people, especially many bishops. We are so blessed to have so many shepherds who truly seek to emulate the Good Shepherd. It was a special pleasure to finally meet Archbishop Pietro Sambi in person. He is the Holy Father's personal repsentative to the Church in the United States, as well as the Holy See's ambassador to the U.S. government.

Finally, it was a privilege and a joy to serve as Master of Ceremonies for Bishop Wester's Installation Mass. It was great to joke around with Archbishop Niederauer before Mass. It was a nice blending of what was and what is come. It would be impossible for me to transcribe my experiences into words. In fact putting all my experiences into words is not necessary, or even desirable (Okay, those of who know me can quit laughing now). The picture below better communicates the joy of these past few days.



As Archbishop Niederauer said last evening in a speech at a dinner for Bishop Wester, now that these events are concluded, it is time for us get on with the joyful task of "being Church in Utah." And so it is under the leadership of Bishop Wester that we continue this sacred task, the fulfillment of our baptismal vocation, which is both a grace and a joy.

The occasion was made even more joyous by the presence of civic leaders and ecumenical leaders, all of whom I had the great privilege of introducing to Bishop Wester. Among the civic leaders were Governor Huntsman, Mayor Anderson, Mayor Coroon, Police Chief Burbank, and the presence of our Episcopalian neigbors, led by Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish, and including our dear friends from "through the block", Fr. Rick Lawson, Rector of St. Mark's Cathedral (Episcopal), and Canon Carol Marsh, also from St. Mark's. Pastor Michael Imperial from First Presbyterian Church, our direct neighbor to the East, right across C Street from the Diocesan Pastoral Center, was also on-hand. I am not betraying a confidence by relating that Pastor Imperial said to Bishop Wester, "My office is across the street from yours. We can shout out the window to each other." Of course, the presence of President Monson of the LDS First Presidency and Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve, contributed much to the communal atmosphere of the celebration.


(Photos from the Salt Lake Tribune)

An evening of celebration and conversation

Yesterday was a wonderful day, the first of two days of events surrounding the installation of Bishop Wester, which will take place today at The Cathedral of the Madeleine (on the other link it is your scribe who is at the left of Bishop Wester). I had the privilege of assisting Bishop Wester, along with Deacon Silvio Mayo, the Chancellor of our diocese and something of the dean of our college of deacons, at a celebration of Evening Prayer at St. Anne's Parish in Salt Lake City. As always, this celebration was made beautiful and more prayerful by our Cathedral Choir, under the direction of Mr. Gregory Glenn and Mrs. Melanie Malinka, with Dr. Douglas O'Neil at the organ. This service marked the first public liturgy presided over by Bishop Wester in his new diocese.

Later that evening I had the pleasure of attending a supper in honor of our new bishop and sitting at table with Msgr. J. Terrence Fitzgerald, who until last evening was our Diocesan Administrator, and the episcopal contingent from the Diocese of Orange, California in the persons of ordinary, Bishop Tod Brown, and his auxiliary, Bishop Jaime Soto. I had the opportunity of telling Bishop Soto what a great job he has done in locking horns with CNN's Lou Dobbs on the issue of immigration. Rocco over at Whispers has covered this well. Bishop Soto informed me that his appearances on Dobbs' program were likely not yet at an end. I am quite sure that he will make a fine ordinary for some very fortunate diocese in the not too distant future.

As we approach the installation of Bishop Wester:

Holy Mary. Mother of God - pray for us
St. John- pray for us
St. Charles Borromeo- pray for us
St. Joseph- pray for us
St. Francis of Assisi- pray for us
St. Mary Magdalene- pray for us
Sts. Peter & Paul- pray for us
St. Stephen- pray for us
St. Martin of Tours- pray for us
St. Clare- pray for us
St. Thérèse of Lisieux- pray for us
St. Peter Julian Eymard- pray for us
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta- pray for us
All holy men and women- pray for us

Sacramentum Caritatis

Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation
SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS
OF THE HOLY FATHER
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY,
CONSECRATED PERSONS
AND THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON THE EUCHARIST
AS THE SOURCE AND SUMMIT
OF THE CHURCH'S LIFE AND MISSION

Writing of bodies and redemption: we are Christ's Body by virtue of the communion we share in the one bread and the one cup.

St. Paul on the agon, Part II

In yesterday's post, which took its direction from 1 Corinthians 9,24-27, we see that holiness is not merely some abstract spiritual pursuit, but is a bodily endeavor. Sometimes we chop ourselves up into so many parts (i.e., body, mind, spirit, soul, heart, etc.) that we lose sight of ourselves as unified, whole, persons. This manifests itself in such things as "I am spiritual, but not religious." In this context at least, that is a bit like saying I am really into to fitness, as I lay on the couch eating chips and watching ESPN (add to that drinking a beer or two and you have- what is for me- a "get behind me Satan" moment- especially with spring Training underway and my beloved A's yet to undertake another summer, this one without Barry Zito, who moved across the Bay). Holiness, as Paul seeks to explain over and again in his teaching, which comprises most of the New Testament, requires discipline, the training of our bodies.

As we all know, our bodies are recalcitrant and often resist being trained. It doesn't matter if it is overeating, eating poorly, drinking too much, not attending Mass, even when we resolve anew each week to do so, physically exercising, getting enough rest, praying regularly, taking time to serve others, or disciplining our sexual appetites. The need to do the latter even extends to married couples. St. Paul addresses this in the seventh chapter of this letter both as to abstaining from relations and the dangers of abstaining too long (I take this opportunity to point out a new link to Intermountain Fertility Care, courtesy of the Director of our diocesan Office of Family Life, which is a resource on teaching the Creighton Model of NFP- another post to appear in the near-term). A good way to learn about salvation as a physical pursuit is by studying Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. In turn, a nice entry way into this beautiful and profound teaching of our late Holy Father, is Bishop Robert Baker's pastoral letter, The Redemption of our Bodies: The Theology of the Body and Its Consequences for Ministry in the Diocese of Charleston. He is the bishop of the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina and his letter is for his own people, but is well worth consideration of anybody who is sincere about how, as human beings comprised of spirit and body, we fulfill the end for which we are created. During this holy season, may we "not fight as if [we are] shadowboxing." Let us also not lose sight of the fact that discipline is a means, not an end. The end is closer union with God, becoming Christ-like through love of God and neighbor. Our efforts are but a way of cooperating with God's grace, not forcing God's hand, or trying to make ourselves better than others. To the contrary, true discipline, as we come to realize our dependence on God and our need for community, only humbles us.