I’m very excited about this Year of Faith. Perhaps over-the-top excited. I’ve been mentioning it at almost every Mass and in almost every bulletin article that I write. Over the past few decades, many within the Church have drifted further and further away from what the Church has actually taught. Rather than thinking with the mind of the Church, many have allowed worldly ideas, novelties, and gimmicks to influence their catechetical and liturgical practices. It’s no wonder there is a great loss of Catholic identity. There is so much confusion about what the Church is supposed look like because so many people have promoted their own vision of the Church instead of proudly displaying what the Church is supposed to be.
This is why the Pope has encouraged us to study the Catechism of the Catholic Church – something that we are doing here at St. Edward’s every Saturday evening. The Catechism is a compendium of Church teaching. Knowing the Catechism will go a along way in recovering our own Catholic identity and will help us to think with the mind of the Church.
The Pope has also encouraged us to read once again (or perhaps for the first time) the documents of the Second Vatican Council so that we will know what they REALLY say. Too many have misinterpreted and/or misused Vatican II for their own purposes which has caused great confusion within the Church. The Pope has called us to learn what Vatican II really taught (which is what the Church has always taught) and to implement it properly in our own lives and in the lives of our parishes.
But I also think that this is a wonderful opportunity to recover the Church’s teaching of what the Mass is – namely, it’s about God and not about us. Unfortunately, many places have been allowed to do what they want regarding the liturgy for way too long. That’s why Mass looks one way at one place and another way at another place. This has only caused great confusion among the faithful leading many to say things like, “Well Father so-and-so used to do it this way.”
I think that the Year of Faith is an opportunity for us to take a look at how the Church wants us to celebrate the Mass and then to celebrate it accordingly. No gimmicks. No novelties. No innovations. No made up stuff. Let Mass be Mass. The Mass is supposed to be an action of God. Things that people make up and insert into the Mass (even if they come from good intentions) are not actions of God but are actions of themselves. When I come to Mass, I want God, not man, to nourish and inspire me. I want to know His mind, not the mind of the worship committee. So let’s get out of the way by offering Mass the way the Church asks us to so that God will let it bear fruit in us and in the Church.
