Monday, November 30, 2009

COME HOME TO MERCY!

WHY NOT GO TO CONFESSION DURING ADVENT

AND FINALLY FIND OUT WHAT PEACE IS?


ADVENT PENANCE SERVICE

With Bishop McManus and many Priests

On Sunday, December 13th at 3:00pm

at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, 38 High Street

Come Pray With Us

Go to Confession and Receive God’s Mercy

Preparing Your Heart

to Receive the Newborn Lord!


OR


St Paul’s Cathedral

In English:

Monday - Friday

12:45pm

Saturday 3:00pm


In Spanish

Friday 5:30pm

Saturday 5:30pm



HOW DO I GO TO CONFESSION?


1. Preparation—Before going to confession, compare your life with the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the example of Christ and then pray to God for forgiveness.


2. Confessing—After the Priest welcomes you, both of you make the sign of the cross. The Priest may read a short verse from the Bible. Then, after you tell the Priest how long it has been since you last went to confession, confess all of your sins. The priest will then offer suitableadvice and impose a “penance,” which may include prayer, self-denial, or works of mercy.


3. Act of Contrition—The Priest will then invite you to pray a short prayer asking God for forgiveness. You can pray in your own words, or pray the “Act of Contrition” found on the other side of this sheet.

4. Absolution—The Priest prays the prayer of absolution, making the sign of the cross over your head during the final words. You answer, "Amen."


5. Dismissal—Confession is completed when the Priest says God Bless You, or Peace be With You.



TWO ACTS OF CONTRITION


O My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In his name, my God, have mercy.

(Rite of Penance, no. 45)

or


O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell; but most of all, because they offend thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to confess my sins, do penance, and amend my life. Amen. (traditional)



1. Why do we need the Sacrament of Penance?

Because of human weakness Christians ‘turn aside from their early love (cf. Rev 2:4) and even break off their friendship with God by sinning. The Lord, therefore, instituted a special sacrament of penance for the pardon of sins committed after baptism, and the Church has faithfully celebrated the sacrament throughout the centuries—in varying ways, but retaining its essential elements.


2. What happens in the Sacrament of Penance?

In the Sacrament of Penance, "the sinner who by grace of a merciful God embraces the way of penance comes back to the Father who first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), to Christ who gave himself up for us, and to the Holy Spirit who has been poured out on us abundantly. Likewise, those who by grave sin have withdrawn from the communion of love with God are called back in the sacrament of penance to the life they have lost. And those who through daily weakness fall into venial sins draw strength from a repeated celebration of penance to gain the full freedom of the children of God.


3. What if haven’t been to confession in a long time?

Welcome home! The Priest is waiting to welcome you with patience and joy. He will gently lead you through your confession. Don’t worry about remembering anything. He will help you to receive this wonderful sacrament of mercy and peace.


Maybe you know someone who’s been afraid to come back to confession for a long time. Invite them to Come Home to Confession so that they can confess their sins and be forgiven by God. Christ waits for them with his mercy and his peace.


If you would like to print a copy of this posting for reflection or to share with someone, please use the program below.


Come Home to Mercy

ADVENT I HOMILY

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I’m not sure how old I was, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I’d press my little kid’s nose to the cold window pane in the front of the house and stare up the street as the shadows began to lengthen and I began to hope.


I was waiting for my father to come home from work, so I could show him what I had done in school that day. An A with a little superscript of a plus hovering over it’s right side told me and my classmates and my mom and my dad that I had done good. And I don’t know if I’ve ever known such joy or such a sense of accomplishment as when I heard the sound of his truck pulling over the graveled driveway and ran out to meet him, with my yellow-lined pride waving above my head.


He swept me up into his arms and cherished me, and carried me into the house as my mother enshrined the sacred text with a bright yellow refrigerator magnet.


That’s what it could be like, as the ancient collect of today’s Advent liturgy reminds us, when we “run forth to meet the Christ with righteous deeds at his coming...”


Imagine! Our arms so brimming with righteous deeds, that we run forth to meet our judge with joy!


There were almost 3,000 Priests in Dachau who knew that feeling. Almost three thousand Priests, almost half of whom died of disease, starvation, and hate.

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Forbidden to celebrate Mass, the Priests received particular abuse during Holy Week. One Good Friday, their wrists bound with chains, sixty of them were hoisted on gibbets where they hung until they expired or until their arms were wrenched from their sockets. On another occasion, a Polish priest working in the field, pretended he was pulling weeds, while he actually celebrated Mass on a small board he had taken as an Altar. He was arrested, crowned with barbed wire, and set on a small stage until he died.


The first time I visited Dachau as a seminarian, I remember I cried. Especially when I saw a long case filled with roughly wrought episcopal paraphanelia. There was a Bishop’s ring smelted together from brass plumbing fixtures, and an oak crozier hacked from the branch of a tree, and a chasuble and dalmatic and stole and even gloves and a mitre in purple, all stitched from prisoners’ uniforms.


I cried because the display case told the story of the young seminarian with tuberculosis whom Bishop Piquet decided to ordain before he died. So for months these Priests worked secretly to make everything they would need for an ordination, and on a Gaudete Sunday sixty five years ago, they risked their lives to celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Orders in an unholy place.


Dachau.jpg


If they’d been caught, any one of them, they would have been tortured and killed. But those Priests loved three things more than life itself: the poor young seminarian who would soon die, the Truth that burned in their hearts despite the surrounding darkness, and the Church, whose light could not be quenched even in the stinking dark Evil of Dachau.


Despite the darkness, they loved the seminarian in his brokenness. And Christ will judge them well.


But what of us, when he returns? Will the poor, the forgotten, and the wretched ones whom we have known speak well of us? What of the drunk by the side of the road, or the relative that no one talks to, or the sick old lady whom no one ever visits, or the kid in prison whose parents have disowned him, or the crazy guy who never shuts up. Will we run out to meet Christ when he comes, our hearts over-brimming with the love we have shown to his little ones?


Despite the dark lies that surrounded them, they loved the truth in Dachau. And Christ will judge them well.


But what of us, when he returns? Will the days we spent on our knees seeking God’s wisdom and trying to let go of our own foolish preoccupations have formed the choices and the plans of our lives into the image and likeness of him who is the way, the truth, and the life? Will the words we placed before our eyes, the websites we surfed, the books we bought, and the thoughts which preoccupied our waking hours have so conformed our thoughts to his, that we might run out to meet Christ when he comes, our minds over-brimming with the wisdom he has taught us and the knowledge which has guided each moment of each day?


Despite the evil that enveloped them, the Priests of Dachau loved the Church. And Christ will judge them well.


But what of us, when he returns? Will the fervor with which we celebrated the Sacraments and the devotion with which we ate his Body and drank his Blood have so detached us from the darkness of this world, that we will glow with the bright sanctity of the redeemed? Will our love of the Priesthood prepare us to welcome Christ, our great High Priest? Will we run out to meet Christ when he comes, so clothed in the ways of this Mystical Body that they will call us “a man of the Church, a true woman of the Church”?



Conclusion


What will Christ do, when we run out to meet him, our arms embracing all the righteous deeds of our lives? The ancient collect give us the answer. He will gather us to his right hand, sweep us up into his arms, recognize us as his obedient children, and carry us into his heavenly kingdom, where we will sit with him and all his children at the Heavenly Banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven.


Such was the case with the young seminarian with TB, I am sure. Father Karl lived for one more year, and saw the death camp liberated. And just before he died, less than a year after his ordination, he wrote these final words in his diary: ‘O God, bless my enemies!’


He was beatified by John Paul II on in 1996 in the Stadium built by Hitler for the 1938 Olympics. And the Pope used the same rough hewn crozier at the beatification Mass that had been used at Karl’s ordination, with the words roughly inscribed on its side: ‘Triumphant in Chains.’


With Father Karl, may we run out to meet the Lord, and may Christ embrace us both, and cherish us, and lead us home to heaven.




ADVENT BEGINS AGAIN!


My Dear Brothers and Sisters:


Advent is a time for preparation. We prepare for the judgement of Christ the King when he comes at the end of time as we prepare our hearts to receive him, just as the Blessed Virgin Mary prepared to bring him forth for the salvation of the world.


Preparing to receive the newborn Christ at Christmas time is a task that takes time. Charitable works, self-sacrifice, prayer, penance and study are all a part of such a preparation.


But perhaps the most important way in which I can prepare my heart to receive the Lord is by confessing my sins and getting rid of the selfish filth that clutters up my heart and my mind. A few weeks ago, as I prepared to pick up Cardinal George at Logan airport, I spent quite a while cleaning out my car. Why? Because an old friend and honored guest was about to arrive and I wanted to show him how important his arrival was to me. How much more so should I clean out my heart in preparation to receive the Lord Jesus this Christmas!


Yet the sad fact is that many Catholics have given up on cleaning out their lives. While we are particularly blessed with a larger number of Confessions than most, even the Cathedral Church could do better in encouraging our parishioners to go to Confession on a regular basis.


A survey of adult Catholics just a few years ago reported the sad fact that only twenty six percent of all adult Catholics go to confession at least once a year. Only two percent of Catholics do so once a month or more. Thirty percent say they go to Confession less than once a year and forty five percent of adult Catholics admit that they never go to confession!


Perhaps most surprising is the fact that while it is true that the more someone goes to Mass, the more they go to confession, 37% of those who go to Mass weekly go to confession less than once a year!


But these are just statistics. I am not writing to a statistic. I am writing to you. Have you not been to Confession in so long you’re afraid you won’t know how? Are you afraid that God could not possibly forgive that sin you’ve been carrying around so long? Are you too ashamed to go back? Are you convinced that you are too busy to take the time to go to Confession?

To you who’ve forgotten how, fear not! Enclosed with this week’s bulletin is a description of How to Go to Confession. To you who’ve forgotten your Act of Contrition, each of our confessionals has a lit copy right in front of the penitent ready for the reading!


To you who are afraid that God cannot forgive you or who are too ashamed, pray a bit about the Good Shepherd, going out to gently carry the lost sheep back to the fold. Pray about the one who loved you so much that he died to forgive your sins. Pray to the one who said to the woman caught in adultery: “Go and sin no more...your sins are forgiven!


To you who don’t think you have the time, take a look at the insert which announces all the times when confessions are heard throughout our deanery. There are a total of seventeen hours in every week when Confessions are being heard at Saint Paul’s, Saint John’s, Saint Peter’s, Mount Carmel or Holy Family.


And consider joining Bishop McManus and the many priests who will join him for a Communal Celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (with individual confession and absolution) here at the Cathedral on December 13th at 3:00pm.


Why not come home to God’s mercy this Advent? The Lord is waiting for you. Come find out what peace really is!


In the Lord,


Monsignor James P. Moroney

Rector

Thanksgiving 2009

My Dear Brothers and Sisters:


The cold winds which follow the October rains remind us that winter is returning to Crown Hill and Thanksgiving can't be far away. As you know, one of our wonderful Thanksgiving traditions is the distribution of Food Baskets to those who could not otherwise afford a Thanksgiving Feast.


If you would like to subsidize one or more family meals for Thanksgiving, please drop a check in an envelope marked THANKSGIVING FOOD BASKETS and include it in next week's collection. Your donation will be used exclusively for our Thanksgiving Food Baskets. Thanks, in advance, for your generosity.


And not too long after Thanksgiving is Christmas! Speaking of which, I don't think I've ever told you how much the Cathedral Priests enjoy celebrating Mass twice a month at Saint Mary's Nursing Home at 39 Queen Street, behind the old City Hospital. The remarkable dedication of Katherine Burbank and the other members of Saint Mary's Staff to the Catholic Pastoral Care of these residents is a sight to behold. Indeed, since so many of the residents are religious sisters and brothers, the residents often end up ministering to me!


I mention this holy house because they will be holding a Holiday Fair on next Friday, November 20th, from 10:00am until 4:00pm. There will be tables where you can purchase attic treasures, Chinese raffle tickets, Christmas items (of course!), crafts, food, and baked goods. All proceeds will go to the purchase of Christmas gifts for the residents! Please support this very worthy cause!


Finally, I wanted to share a couple pictures from Cardinal George's luncheon with some of our local business leaders last week. The presence of both Bishop McManus and Bishop Reilly, as well as the Cathedral Children's Choir School was a great treat for all who were present.


I pray the coming week brings many blessings to you and all those you love!


In the Lord,


Monsignor James P. Moroney




rectorsaintpaul@aol.com