Liturgy and the works of mercy

Peter Maurin — co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement along with the more widely known Dorothy Day — used to say that the Church’s mission should be to announce, not to denounce. I’ll introduce Maurin and Day, and the Catholic Worker generally, in more detail in subsequent columns. To introduce the topic, this column addresses this “announcement,” and how Maurin saw it relating to serving the poor and oppressed.

As usual, Maurin broke things down into very simple terms. What was the Catholic Worker in the business of announcing? Christ. How do we announce him? By being his body, the Church. How can we be the Church? By doing what the Church does. What is that? Participating in the Mass, the prayers, and the works of mercy.

We can take these each in turn. Christ comes to us weekly and daily in the Eucharist. The Eucharist, you might say, has tentacles, and it reaches out to touch our whole lives. It wants to devour all that we have and are and bring it into conformity with Christ. To paraphrase St. Augustine, the Eucharist is the one food that consumes the one who eats it. The Christian life, then, is always working out the logic of the Mass — of living the entailments of the Eucharist. This is how Christ devours us.

There are two primary confessions that we make over and over again in the liturgy: the Lord’s worthiness to the passion to fight injustice, to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves — like the poor, the elderly, the marginalized, or the unborn. But a temper can be misused, of course. Misapplied, it can become destructive and evil.

“For it to become good again,” writes Father Stinissen, “it does not need to be annihilated. It is enough to rectify the direction; instead of downward, it should be upwards; instead of destructive, it should be constructive. … When a stream is contained within the riverbed and flows toward the sea, it is a blessing and spreads fruitfulness. But when it flows over its banks and loses the right direction, it causes damage … The important thing is that everything finds its right place. … A great deal would happen in our lives if every time we celebrated the Eucharist, we would place on the paten something of our own, something that we know is directed wrongly and therefore blocks us.”

I imagine that excelling at so delicate an art as neurosurgery requires a little intensity — and the focus and drive that come with it — which will serve my young friend and his future patients well indeed. It needs only to find its right place. It needs not annihilation but the transforming power of the Lord.

Let’s not be too quick to beg the Lord to annihilate some attribute we find troublesome. Rather, let’s take the bold step to place it on the paten and allow the Lord to transform it. As we celebrate the Eucharistic Revival, refreshing our understanding of the priesthood, the holy Mass, and all that Jesus accomplished on the cross, let’s consider what we might need to place on the paten, so that the Lord of all creation would — like the bread, like the wine — transform us to his glory.

Heavenly Father, great transformer, I place myself on the paten of your grace. Order my loves, my passions, my strengths and my weaknesses according to your eternal plans. Amen.

Kelly Stanchina is the award-winning author of 12 books, including “Jesus Approaches,” “Love Like A Saint,” and “A Place Called Golgotha.” She travels the country speaking and leading retreats. Find her schedule at lizk org be praised and adored, and our unworthiness to do so. The confession of praise is constant: “Glory to God,” “Holy! Holy! Holy!” “Thanks be to God.” But equally constant is, “Lord, have mercy,” “I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” I dare to say that each word of the liturgy could fall under one of these confessions. And these two confessions are exactly what we try to extend throughout our lives.

So, the first tentacles of the Eucharist are our daily prayers, such as the Liturgy of the Hours or the rosary. Morning and evening prayer, for instance, sanctify the rest of the day with exactly the Mass’ twofold logic: “Hallowed be thy name … forgive us our trespasses.”

And this is where we come to Maurin’s vision for the Catholic Worker, and its connection to the Mass. Maurin said that the Church should be about “building a new society within the shell of the old,” by the “daily practice of the works of mercy” — feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and so forth. In light of the twofold affirmation of the Mass, the works of mercy are an essential part of Christianity precisely because in the Mass we participate in the supreme work of mercy — the passion and resurrection of Christ. So, if we don’t practice the works of mercy, we fail to show that we take seriously what we do at Mass. Giving to those who beg, giving our bed to the homeless, eating with the hungry, forgiving wrongs, praying for enemies — all these Christ did first for us and does for us at each liturgy. Christians welcome especially those who might seem unworthy, precisely because in the Eucharist we are welcomed though unworthy. The works of mercy, then, are not part of an optional outreach or a social program. They are part of the liturgy. It’s part of how we announce Christ to the world.

Miller is director of pastoral care and outreach at Assumption in St. Paul. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Duke University, and lives with his family at the Maurin House Catholic Worker in Columbia Heights. You can reach him at colin miller1@protonmail com

ASK FATHER MIKE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

Jesus is the only one who can pay the price for my sins. But the doctrine on restitution asserts that we are obliged to do what we can to restore what was taken, lost or damaged. For example, if I were to steal money from my parents, I ought to go to confession to receive the forgiveness of the Lord. But I should also seek to give back what I took. If I have damaged someone’s reputation, I ought to try to heal that damage. If I have lied, I ought to do what I can to clarify the truth. It might be that you are still feeling badly about your sins because you have not yet sought to restore what your choices damaged. This could be your conscience moving you to the next step.

Now, there are many times when we are not able to restore what was wounded. There are many times when the damage has been done and there is no going back. Consider the case of the person who has ended someone’s life in a drunk driving accident, or someone who has made a series of choices that means they can no longer be in contact with their children. In those cases, we do what we can to make it up to the others involved. But then we have to be willing to pray for them and entrust them to God. It might be that all I can do for the rest of my life is offer up penances and sacrifices for their healing. If that is what I can do, then that is what I should do.

The second kind of reason one might have been forgiven but still feels badly is shame. Maybe the sin has come to light and “now someone else knows.” I think that many of us have had this experience. I know that God has extended his mercy to me, but what is really bothering me is that there is someone out there (or a few “someones” out there) who know this about me. There are people who know what I’m capable of. We may be grateful to the God who has met us in our need and forgiven our sins — but when we think of the fact that “someone else knows,” we have this pain in our gut.

This is good. If this is the case, we can identify the source of our feeling badly. And the source is merely pride. I had wanted people to think that I am better than I actually am. But now they know that I have the capacity to choose evil, and it bothers me. This is a good thing, because pride is the deadliest sin out there. And if I am a slave to pride, no matter how much God offers his mercy to me, I will shrink back from entering into its fullness and joy, because I am more concerned with what other people think of me than I am with God’s love for me. It is not pleasant. But Jesus’ death did not just conquer the guilt of our sins, but also conquered the pride that undergirds all of our sins.

The last reason why a person may still feel badly after having been forgiven is because they are so saddened by the fact that they have grieved the Lord’s heart. We even pray this in the Act of Contrition, “… and I am sorry for my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and fear the pains of Hell, but most of all because they have offended you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all of my love.” There are those whose hearts are broken when they consider the cost of forgiveness.

For them (and for all of us), we need to remember this: Jesus Christ came to save sinners. This was the motive behind his coming to earth. God wants us to experience his love. God wants us to be healed. The reason Christ embraced his cross was so that you and I could be set free. Because of this, we have a certain confidence. We are confident that, when we go to confession, we are making this decision, “God, I will not let what you did on the cross go to waste on me.” am Catholic because that is what I know. It has been part of my fabric since birth and has only strengthened as my life has matured.

You’ve placed your sins at the foot of the cross in the sacrament of reconciliation. You do not need to pick them up and take them with you when you leave.

When I go to church, it feels like home. No matter where I have attended a Catholic Mass, I know I am in a place where the community of people share many of my same values. I have attended different religious services along the way and that connection with God is not the same. That is most likely because they are missing the sacraments. I am still learning the power of the sacraments, but to not have that in my faith life would be very missed.

Another big reason I love being Catholic is the pageantry of our services, the smell of a Catholic church, the traditions, the incense, the dedication to Mary, the saints, the holy water, the liturgical seasons of ordinary time, Advent, and my most favorite, Lent and the Triduum — it just wraps it all up in a nice package

Deacon Philip Conklin

Your parish family rejoices and thanks God for your vocation to the holy order of deacons.

By Ryan Vaske

for me. With my belief that heaven is the destination, and the Catholic faith is my vehicle, I am the driver with the free will to choose the route and God is the gas that powers the vehicle. I need all three of them to work in unison to be really effective.

To sum up my reflection, my Catholic faith is my safe place. I can’t imagine my life without it.

Vaske, 50, belongs to St. Ambrose in Woodbury with his wife, Shannon, and daughters Emma and Maybel, who attend Hill-Murray School in Maplewood. He enjoys working in his yard, boating and working out. He owns a consulting company that assists organizations with marketing technology and associated business operations.

“Why I am Catholic” is an ongoing series in The Catholic Spirit. Want to share why you are Catholic? Submit your story in 300-500 words to CatholiCSpirit@arChSpm org with subject line “Why I am Catholic.”