Homily for 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 28, 1992

Collect
Holy Cross, Fairfield, Conn.

Since I was taking part in a workshop for Salesian Cooperators this past weekend, I didn't have a chance to preach.  Here's an old one that in some respects is a bit dated but in other respects is still timely.  The Bishop Gregory quoted near the end is our new archbishop in D.C.; at the time he was still bishop of Belleville, Ill.

“Father, you call your children to walk in the light of Christ” (Collect).

We hear this call to walk in the light of Christ thru the sacred scriptures and thru the sacred liturgy.  We respond to the call thru that same liturgy and thru the way we live,

Liturgy, i.e., the public, communal worship of God’s people, is, therefore, of paramount importance to our discerning the light of Christ and walking in it.  It is the junction box that brings to us the power of God’s word and makes the juice flow into our daily lives so that our lives may be in harmony with God’s word and give him praise.

Because liturgy is so pivotal to the life of the Church, the Fathers of Vatican II were concerned that it be reformed and renewed.  What did they do?  What has the Church done since 1962 to reform and renew the liturgy so that it might work better for us to praise God in Christian assembly and walk in the light of Christ from day to day?

1. Vatican II issued a Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy; in fact, this was the Council’s very 1st document (out of an eventual total of 16), showing both the fundamental importance that the Church attaches to the liturgy and the general agreement that the bishops reached, relatively quickly, on the principles set out in this constitution.  Then, both during and after the Council, a steady stream of decrees and encouragements came forth from Rome and the NCCB to implement the wishes of the Vatican Council.

2. The Vatican Council decreed that the liturgy could be offered in vernacular languages, altho Latin remains the Church’s official tongue and is still encouraged for public use, e.g., in Gregorian chant and in large international gatherings.  But since 1964 we’ve been able to celebrate Mass, all the sacraments, and the Divine Office in English.  We can understand better what we’re saying to God and what God is saying to us.

3. The Vatican Council and its follow-up have put great importance on our participation in the liturgy.  No longer can we be passive spectators, watching the priest pray in our name, or saying our private prayers while the Church’s supposed public, communal worship goes on in isolation at the front of the church.  Instead, we hear and speak and sing together, interacting with the priest, Christ in our midst.  He prays in our name, but we affirm the prayer by our responses and acclamations.  Choirs still have their purpose, but it’s important also for us to praise God in song together, to ask mercy together.  Singing the national anthem brings us together as an American people.  Singing hymns brings us together as God’s people.

4. All of the Church’s liturgical books have been revised; most of them have been completely overhauled:  the sacramentary, the lectionary, the sacramental rituals, the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours, the martyrology or official listing of the saints day by day, the book of blessings.  The 1st stage of this revision has been completed for all of the books except the martyrology (which has a lot of historical difficulties to be resolved), and in some cases 2d revisions have been done.

This 2d stage of revision is based on our ongoing experience of worshipping together in our own language late in the 20th century.  It includes cultural adaptations and is influenced also by what other Christian churches are doing in their liturgical reforms.  In the U.S. we’re now using the revised Rite of Funerals and the revised Lectionary for Masses with Children.  Our bishops are deep into the revision of our 2 Mass books, the sacramentary and the lectionary.

One minor change that the bishops have just decided upon is to be implemented at once: to conclude the OT and NT readings by proclaiming, “The word of the Lord,” rather than, “This is the word of the Lord,” as we’ve been doing since the 1960s.  There are several reasons for this, including:

1. It’s a more accurate rendering of the Latin verbum Domini, and it also parallels how the other European languages like Spanish and Italian render it.

2. One of the administrators in the bishops’ liturgy office in Washington told me it’s also intended to discourage readers from raising the lectionary dramatically while saying, “The word of the Lord.”  It’s not the book but the Scripture just proclaimed orally that is the word of the Lord.

3. There is a certain parallelism with the simple sacramental proclamation, “The body of Christ,” reflecting Christ’s presence in his word and in his sacrament.

We’ve seen many changes great and small in the way we worship.  Perhaps some have been less helpful to us than others.  But the Church will continue to evaluate and adapt her liturgy so that it may always enable us, God’s children, to walk in the light.  Bp. Wilton Gregory, the chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, put it this way:

You are well aware of how far we have come in the renewal of the worship of the Church during the past quarter century.  We have seen the revision, that is, the restoration and renewal, of nearly all the liturgical books, their translation into English, Spanish and, in some cases, one of the many languages of Native Americans.  But it is clear that transforming liturgical rites does not necessarily guarantee the transformation of the lives of the baptized, especially their spiritual lives.  We now have revised editions of the liturgical books, but the purpose of the liturgical reforms is not new books, but new lives, lives that are restored, reformed, and renewed.*

*BCL Newsletter 27 (1991), 37.