The Technological Door Into Lent

My colleague Cody set up a Facebook challenge for our staff and peer ministers, and other student leaders.

Our goal is 1500 invitations and 500 going.

This is a good start for using social media, but I think in 2014, we can seriously up those numbers. But it’s not like we don’t get hordes of people as is.

 

MR3 Skin Deep

I had an interesting observation last night at Mass. But first, some backstory …

Our parish’s third MR3 Mass setting is a revision of Steven Janco’s Mass of Angels and Saints. The Sanctus has been a bit rough. The “learning” to overcome is to sing the old words instead of “Lord God of hosts.” People at my parish don’t sing “lamb of God;” they are still used to the invocation. It makes me think that the revised Mass settings probably aren’t the best idea. But I’m keeping an open mind.

We had a small incident last night getting into the Sanctus. Our high school pianist, who is really a competent accompanist, got a bit distracted and played the wrong introduction on the piece. She stopped, got her bearings, and restarted with some nervousness. I noticed practically everyone sang the old words to the Sanctus. Seems like when folks were a tad nervous and distracted, they went with what they once knew.

Lots of discussion at PrayTell this week on the new Missal. For something that has been received, there sure seems to be a lot of lingering angst over it.

 

Beware the “Little” Prayer

Our student small group coordinator booked me for an in-service to the small group leaders this week. They have two meetings to catch our twenty-five leaders, and they wanted me to speak on prayer, especially on the skill of leading prayer.

I enjoy the topic. I also enjoy having the opportunity to organize my thoughts for college student leaders and the obstacles and opportunities of leading prayer for their peers.

The plan is to pray lectio divina because you can’t just learn by talking. You have to do it. Being a Christian, being a disciple is about so much more than the absorption of knowledge. Apprenticeship means practice.

One of the highlight comments was offered by my staff colleague Emily. She warned people from the temptation to treat prayer too casually, criticizing the frequent request:

Let’s start with a little prayer.

Yes! I was thinking to myself. One of my pet peeves: in addition to relegating prayer at meetings to the periphery, we attach a rather apologetic adjective, “little.” Prayer, Emily said, must be big. It must be really important to what we do.

What would happen, do you suppose, if we started a church meeting with something unexpected.

Let’s start with a big prayer. Let’s start with a prayer so big, so important, that it opens us up to being changed and converted by Jesus Christ himself. Let’s start with a prayer that will be a springboard into an experience so amazing, so full of grace, that the whole world will be transformed–and us with it.

Because, really: if we’re not aiming for that, what on earth are we doing?

 

Auxiliary Worship

Some of you may have had this experience … having an auxiliary room associated with the main worship space.

In our temporary Sunday worship, we have chairs and a video/audio feed set up in the lobby outside of the auditorium. We need that overflow space, as we routinely have more worshipers than can fill the 455 seats at our 10:30 Mass.

Yesterday was a scramble, as the chairs were set, and the video feed was working. But sound? Nothing. A staff colleague asked me if he should read the readings. The people on staff at the center were trying to get that audio hook-up to work. I gave them the first reading and the psalm before giving the go-ahead. We actually had a permanent deacon visiting from out of town. So after my colleague read 1 Corinthians, we had a deacon proclaim the gospel and give a mini-homily. First time that’s happened to me.

They never did get the sound link to work.

Anyone else ever have such a situation, possibly with a technology feed to a basement or other room? What’s the best practice? Do you make sure the Word is heard? A songleader to lead the responses and psalm and maybe a hymn or two?

 

Up

At the end of today’s sound system meeting, our committee chair and consultants wanted a closer look at the church ceiling. I tagged along.

Scaffolding has been up for weeks. First to facilitate asbestos removal. Now the ceiling is stripped down to the beams.

It’s surreal to be walking just six feet under your church’s ceiling. The sun was just setting, and way up near the top, there was a lot of light coming through those upper windows. Lots of plywood. Stacks of drywall. Strange light. Another two months in exile.

 

Hard Work Continues

The Grinch has hit our parish. A Christmas return from fire damage and repair was always up in the air anyway. We don’t have the final timeline with the subcontractors yet, but we’ve been told a March return is more likely than December. We can handle about two-hundred-plus in our lower lounge–nowhere near what we would draw in families at 4:45 on the 24th of December.

Above the nave is bedecked with scaffolding ten feet under the ceiling. Black plastic encloses the south balcony where asbestos abatement is proceeding. Workers are hard at it on weekdays. But its disheartening to see a place of worship empty of pews, instruments, and the spiritual life of people.

 

Counting At Mass

October is the month for counting people in my archdiocese. We had a “storm surge” for the university’s homecoming observances this past weekend, especially at our later morning Mass.

Overall, with merging our Saturday liturgy into the other parish’s, numbers are down “in exile.” Our 8:30 and 7PM Masses are about the same. Last year, we had about 850 at our 10:30 Mass–yesterday it was 603. The auditorium where we’ve worshiped only holds 470. Instead of chairs in a narthex (our usual response to overflowing our 797 seats) we had video screens in the lobby. Far from optimal.

Anyone else out there responsible for counting heads? Do you do it in October, the high tide of church attendance (Excepting Christmas and Easter)?

 

A Contemplative Ministry

I’m grateful for Rock’s providing us the text of Archbishop Rowan Williams’ remarks at the synod. I appreciate the strong theme of contemplation as a remedy for the dangers of being so narcissistic as we strive to do the mission of Jesus Christ. This thought begins an unfolding theme in the address:

To be contemplative as Christ is contemplative is to be open to all the fullness that the Father wishes to pour into our hearts.  With our minds made still and ready to receive, with our self-generated fantasies about God and ourselves reduced to silence, we are at last at the point where we may begin to grow.  And the face we need to show to our world is the face of a humanity in endless growth towards love, a humanity so delighted and engaged by the glory of what we look towards that we are prepared to embark on a journey without end to find our way more deeply into it, into the heart of the trinitarian life.  St Paul speaks (in II Cor 3.18) of how ‘with our unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord’, we are transfigured with a greater and greater radiance.  That is the face we seek to show to our fellow-human beings.

Read the whole address. I recommend it. There’s much more there.

As I strive for more contemplation and less of myself, I see the archbishop’s reflection as fitting for anyone in ministry. I don’t know how much was poking at the Catholic bishops present, but I see much that applies to me, and to the ministries in which I serve that are liturgical as well as evangelical.

Contemplation should move us from old ways of thinking: how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Contemplation also urges us to new ways of relationships. Instead of people who cling to others for what they can do for me, we become people who cultivate relationships based on what they can do for God. The evangelical mindset would have us ponder each person and wonder: how will they take their part in the Great Commission, in the mind and intent of Christ?

This is difficult, and wholly countercultural, even within the Church. Yet people are watching. Do they see believers using each other just like people in the world use others? Or do they see this substrate of contemplation penetrate our relationships and ministries, not just as a tool for individuals to “get ahead” with God? But as a discipline in which we strive to imitate Christ, and to acknowledge the interior opportunities for growth, change, and even metanoia?

Speaking for myself, I have to consider how I view parishioners. Cogs in a liturgical machine? Souls to be opened by God? People aligning with my mission and ministry? Brothers and sisters each with their own calling? More and more, I sense the truer and deeper path in parish ministry, at least the way I see it, is less as an orchestrator of tasks and more a facilitator of the interior life, urging people to go deep into Christ and come forth with their own great mission in the Lord.

What do you think about Dr Williams’ address, or the impact this view on contemplation may have on parish spirituality and life? Or the bishops in Rome?

 

A Critical Look at Pre-Synod

Paulists James C. Gorman and Robert S. Rivers write in America with their concerns on the upcoming Synod on the New Evangelization. Their leadoff premise:

(W)e have some worries about the pastoral implementation of this enterprise. We suspect that the recent emphasis on evangelization is merely an attempt to draw those who have left the church back to an institution of the past.

Fathers Gorman and Rivers move forward from there with a healthy assessment of where real evangelization is taking place these days. At the doors of the church, not so much. More at these “entry points”: Social/Peer Networks, Family, Work, the Search for Transcendence, Service in the Public Square, and Life Passages.

With the support and insistence of the pastor, my staff colleagues have gotten more outside of our building the past few years and on campus and into the campustown/Greek district which surrounds us. Not just the staff, but the peer ministers and other student leaders, too. I see the signs that we’re on the right track. Seventy-five percent of small groups and Bible studies now take place on campus or in the apartments of students. We know that many students are not prepared to darken our doors. But they will respond to the invitation, witness, and leadership of their peers.

An indictment of parishes:

Congregations have yet to figure out how to meet and engage people  where they are. Rarely are they present at the points of intervention listed above. The challenge is to be there—creatively! Only then can we gather people into communities of faith. Only then will we see a truly new evangelization.

As much as we look to the Synod Fathers for inspiration and recommendations for evangelization, the real challenge is ours. It is we who must go where people gather and provide Word, sacrament and fellowship to them.

This strikes me as true. I will watch what comes out of Rome this month. But I’m expecting more dead-ends–offshoots from misdiagnosis.

 

I Feel So 21st Century

Some of you know about the “small fire” at our parish center last week. The good news is that the cleaning company will get our basement classrooms ready for youth catechesis tomorrow, and staff will be back in our offices a week from tonight. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in a coffeehouse about a block from campus. A strong black coffee is steaming next to me. I’ve already gotten through my list of morning calls. Email replies are next. Lectio Divina rescheduled to the church next door. I needed to order a new shipment of hosts. Later I’ll assess if the altar bread in the sacristy is better off tossed, once we get back into the sacristy next week. We had significant soot deposits within our tabernacle–amazing how smoke penetrates everywhere.

In short, I can function as a parish liturgist pretty much anywhere I can get an internet connection and I have my laptop and cell. I feel much busier than usual: calls, texts, and emails coming and going all morning. If only I had a jet pack instead of a car, the feeling would be complete.

The bad news is that we’re out of our church until Christmas. Asbestos in a soot-stained ceiling will require extensive clean-up.

For Saturday Masses, we’ll merge with the other Catholic parish in town. The temporary site for worship on Sundays will be at a conference center on the edge of campus.

People at all the Masses laughed when this song was announced for entrance. It was wholly an accident of planning–chosen way back in August.

 

Busy Weeks Ahead

Posting may be light for a few days. Or maybe a week. I was very busy today, my usual day off.

The fire in the balcony over the narthex at my church has caused quite a bit more damage than we first thought. After I was told that clean-up would take weeks, I did a few “white glove” tests. I found gray soot everywhere. If my office was a 1, the receptionist area just outside was a 2, the student lounge about a 7, the sacristy was about a 4, as was the interior of the tabernacle. The liturgical to-do list is large and growing: piano deconstruction and cleaning or perhaps a new instrument; sound system speakers are toast; the organ may not be salvageable. Vestments will need laundering or dry cleaning. Overhead lighting within forty feet of the fire was destroyed. Asbestos issues will keep us out of church for some time. Then we have all the temporary worship space concerns.

The insurance contractor said that we might be able to get back in by Christmas. I told him our crowds for Parents’ Weekend and Homecoming are much larger.

My car is now the parish’s “mobile sacristy” as we bounce between different liturgical venues. A staff colleague asked me how I was doing. Fine, I said, thanks to my codependent family of origin–we thrive on crisis. And we had a good laugh over it.

 

Sunday In Exile

Building inspectors have advised us not to hold Sunday worship in the church this weekend. I’ve been busy exploring alternate venues that accommodate our many students who do not have access to transportation to get them very far off campus on a Sunday. My cell has been sending and receiving texts and calls all morning. Now quiet for the past half hour, I wonder if it’s time to jump in the shower. Odds are there will be a few messages when I get out.

Anyone out there with good or interesting experiences of emergency Sunday worship? No movie theatres, please.

 

Smoke Damage Day

While I was getting ready for bed, my phone fielded a v-mail about a small fire in the upper walkway at my parish. Building closed all day. The fire was quite limited, and nobody was harmed or injured. There seems to be a suspect in custody, according to the local news.

Instead of our staff breakfast, I guess my family gets to eat melon, grapes, and bananas. Instead of faith formation, the young miss has an extra ninety minutes to prepare for three tests tomorrow. Leaves on the ground, but no snow–so it feels weird to be home.

Which isn’t to say it’s going to be a loafing day. My wife has been sick the past four days, so I’m going to get some laundry done, a room cleaned up, putter a bit in the basement. Maybe I’ll even get to a bit of writing.

 

Orienting New Liturgical Ministers

This is a common sight in our church these days: liturgical minister orientation. Occasionally, two sessions occur simultaneously. On the left, our new liturgy peer minister, Jessica, is working with three new Communion ministers. On the right, 10:30 choir director Donna is putting a new grad student through the paces on how the psalmist functions at Sunday Mass.

I couldn’t stay for the end; I had another meeting to attend in another part of the building.

 

 

Off On Retreat

Posting may be somewhat sporadic the next three days. The campus ministry staff is leading a retreat for our fourteen peer ministers and coordinators at our diocesan retreat house. It’s rather strange to pull myself out of the retreat, even if I’m not so much in a reception mode. But maybe a few insights will hit. I’ll be praying as often as I can in the next few days.

One of the practices I picked up years ago from RCIA and liturgy conferences was to place a sign-up list for roles and encourage conference attendees to jump in as lector, psalmist, presider at the Hours, or such. With a community of eighteen, that’s small-scale compared to a professional workshop. (But big compared to two years ago when it was only four student peer ministers.)

But I like spreading the liturgical roles around a good bit. There is some trepidation about the “presider” role. But most all of these students will be in a position with their peers or in the parish to lead prayer. It’s a quality every lay person in any kind of leadership should be able to do: parent, committee chairperson, small group leader, and the like. It’s the kind of thing that I think helps point people in the direction of a religious or priestly vocation. How many seminarians or deacon candidates have actually led liturgical prayer as part of their discernment for the ordained life? Probably a lot, but I suspect it’s not universal.