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If you followed my posts on Facebook, you probably think all I did in Assisi and Rome was eat!  That’s not true, and I want to share some of the spiritual highlights of my retreat (really!).

Now that you’ve had to look up the citation of this title (which will be no surprise to you!), I’m sure you’re thinking that this essay is all about Catholic Charities.  In a way it is, but in a way perhaps more important it isn’t.

As I write this, I’m in Assisi as part of my winter retreat.  I have been blessed with many moments of grace, and I want to share some of them with you to let you know what my time away means and does for me.

This Sunday is the Solemnity of the Epiphany.  Because it is a Sunday, tomorrow will be the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and the conclusion of our liturgical Christmas season.  We’ve been “cheated” out of another Sunday and some other days in-between for singing our carols.  Oh, well!  

January 2023 is here.  I cannot honestly say “At last!” since it seems like we’ve been moving forward at a drag-racer’s pace.  But here we are.  Is it a “new beginning”?  Do we think our “New Year’s resolutions” will last to Epiphany?  We try…  

Today!  Today!  The Latin word “Hodie” (today) reminds us of the joy that is beginning as of this morning’s birth.  The Latin texts of the Entrance Antiphons for the Vigil, Midnight, Dawn, and Christmas Day all celebrate this word or its sense.

     This Sunday is our 4th and last Sunday of Advent.  Monday is also the beginning of Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights marking the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Some of you may remember the wonderful evening we had a few years ago (everything these days is dated pre- or post-COVID), with Rabbi Silberman and me, marking Christian and Jewish festivals of lights (the Hanukkiah, the 9-branch candlestick) the Christian 4-candle Advent wreath).  It was a joyous time of fellowship.

This week upcoming is bracketed with two festivals in honor of the Blessed Mother: the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception this past Thursday, and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe this coming Monday. At first glance they seem perhaps to be very disparate in their focus, but I think there is a great coherence to these two celebrations.

In short order we’ll be marking Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. November is our month for remembrance of the departed, and we know the celebrations in Mexico, for example, with Dia de los Muertos, honoring all those in our families and of our loved ones who have “…gone before us, marked with the sign of Faith…” It is an ancient custom.

This weekend’s multi-cultural festival is an important event for our parish, not only because of the opportunity to gather and celebrate (which we hadn’t been able to do, properly, for two years), but because it also reveals to us a basic truth of our Faith: that the Catholic Church is a catholic Church. What does the word “catholic” mean?

By Fr. David This past Friday we marked the (optional) Memorial of Pope St Callistus I, a martyr in the middle of the 3 rd century. He is worth remembering.

By Fr David DDPART VI      This is the last installment in the series on Desiderio Desideravi.  What I would like to do is describe the final vision of Pope Francis and add my perspective to it, with (perhaps) a few recommendations.      The congregation (and even more, the presiding priest) is formed by the action of the Liturgy.  The priest is “…not seated on a throne… He does not rob attention [to himself]…” (#60).  Rather, the pope wants the Liturgy to be celebrated in such a way that (like all sacraments) it conveys the Presence it signifies.  The goal is to shape priests and people to engage in the Liturgy in such a way that this regularly happens, rejecting calls for “the sense of mystery” and instead helps us to see and experience the “wonder and astonishment” that is there:  “For this reason we cannot go back to that ritual form which the Council fathers…felt the need to reform, approving, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit…the principles from which was born the reform.  …so that the Church may lift up, in the variety of so many languages, one and the same prayer capable of expressing her unity.  As I have already written, I intend that this unity be re-established in the whole Church of the Roman Rite” #61).

By Fr David DDPART V To face the problem of our unawareness of the symbolic, Pope Francis thinks there should be a  focus on what is called the ars celebrandi, or the art of celebrating. This has special responsibility  for presiders, but it also has a great deal to do with the entire assembly. To repeat the Holy Father in #36: “Let us always remember that it is the Church, the Body of Christ, that is the celebrating subject and not just the priest.” We’re not talking here about “rubrical mechanism,” nor  “imaginative—sometimes wild—creativity without rules.” “The rite is a norm, and the norm is never an end in itself, but it is always at the service of a higher reality that it means to protect” (#48)

By Fr. David DD PART IV “‘…we must learn anew how to relate religiously as fully human beings.’ What needs to be done to facilitate our encounters with the risen Lord in the Liturgy? Pope Francis quotes an influential liturgical theologian, Romano Guardini, to offer this insight: “‘…we must learn anew how to relate religiously as fully human beings.’ This is what the Liturgy makes possible. For this we must be formed. Guardini does not hesitate to declare that without liturgical formation ‘then ritual and textual reforms won’t help much.’” So Francis suggests two aspects for consideration: formation for the Liturgy and formation by the Liturgy. The first depends upon the second which is essential” (#34). How can this be begun, if not fully achieved?

By Fr. David The essence of Liturgy, according to Pope Francis, is that it is grace—it is not “…the fruit of an individual interior searching for Him, but it is an event [the encounter with God] given” (#24). It is the Lord who seeks us, for us to encounter Him, to receive the Lord into our hearts and souls in the Eucharist, to become part of Christ-Church (= Mystical Body, Head & members). The goal is community (us) rooted in unity (Christ the Head). if this is what Liturgy is all about, I wonder why we don’t wonder?

By Fr David Tokarz When I left off last week, I mentioned Pope Francis’ comment about wanting to preserve and safeguard the “truth and power...the beauty” (#16) of the Liturgy. He has desires; he also has concerns. He is worried that liturgical celebrations can be (and, frankly, have been) co-opted “…in service of some ideological vision, no matter what hue” (#16). He will be explicit later on in the Letter, but in the meantime, I can observe that he is making a critique both of alt-right and far-left “styles” that privilege “politics” over prayer. We don’t need “spiritual worldliness,” as he puts it, thinking that it’s all on our efforts or all and only about me. Liturgy, Francis observes, is always about “we,” not “me,” and it’s all a response to a prior invitation, not my own initiative, as though I were somehow doing God a favor by coming to church (##17-20).

DD, PART I By Fr David J. Tokarz No, this won’t be a series of essays on “Dungeons and Dragons”! But it will be some explications and reflections on a recent Apostolic Letter from Pope Francis, Desiderio Desideravi, on the Liturgy. The Latin title, by the way, comes from the Vulgate version of Luke 22:15—“With [great] desire I have desired to eat the Passover with you, before I suffer.”

 FIESTA SIEMPRE!! By Fr David J Tokarz     This weekend we gather to celebrate the long-standing relationship we have had with San Francisco de Asis in Temascalapa, Mexico.  Please come to eat, learn, and enjoy!   Our sharing has really taken a blow these last few years, as have so many other things, thanks to COVID.  For two years we were unable to make the trip to Mexico because of travel restrictions and health concerns.  Meanwhile, we learned that our once-thriving program “Keeping the Kids in School” was suffering because of deaths, families leaving the area, children forced to drop out of school to work, and so on.  We were reduced by about a third.  It is heart-breaking.

A “FORGOTTEN” APOSTLE By Fr David J Tokarz This week we celebrate the Feast of St Bartholomew the Apostle. We know the names and activities of many others of the Twelve—Peter, James & John, Andrew & Philip, Thomas… but it seems that Bartholomew is rather on the outside. I want to fill in some of the gaps in various ways (Scriptural, artistic, current).

by Fr David J. Tokarz This is the beginning of the wonderful antiphon that takes the place of the Angelus during the Easter season. Here is the original Latin, and my English translation follows: Regina Caeli, Laetare, Alleluia Quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluia Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia. Rejoice, O Queen of Heaven, Alleluia Because the One you were made worthy to carry, Alleluia Has risen as He said, Alleluia Pray for us to the Father, Alleluia (in some parts, freely translated)