God in the Streets of New York

Here is a very moving video (created by Grassroots Renewal Productions on behalf of the vocations office of the Archdiocese of New York) about Eucharistic processions, evangelization, and vocations. It's called God in the Streets of New York. It was very inspirational in my fledgling efforts to bring a Eucharistic procession to our parish and neighborhood.

So You Want to Hold Eucharistic Procession - What Next?

In the spirit of sharing with others what I learned about organizing a Corpus Christi Procession, here we go with the first installment.

1. Desire. You have to want to do this. You will come across obstacles - some may be big, many will be small, but don't give up. What you are doing is too important. Overcome the obstacles through persistence, prayer, and charity (some obstacles may be people). There are a lot of things vying for people's time and attention. There may be apathy or misunderstanding. Be patient with others, yourself, and God. This is God's work, not yours, but he wants your "boots on the ground."



2. Pick an occasion. Corpus Christi (the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ) is a great place to begin (but it's not the only time you can have a Eucharistic procession). In 2009 in the U.S., Corpus Christi is observed on Sunday, June 14 (although the actual feast day is Thursday, June 11).



3. Get the permission of your parish's pastor (assuming you are doing this at a parish). Make it clear to him that you will handle everything. If he is unable to lead the procession (or if you have someone else in mind for specific purposes), let him know that you will get someone to lead it. Deacons can hold the monstrance (which holds the consecrated host). Pastors have a tremendous amount of work on their plate these days, and adding one more thing for them to do can seem overwhelming. The more your pastor understands that he is not responsible for making this procession happen, the more likely he will be willing to grant permission for it.



4. If the pastor gives you the green light, the parish needs the permission of the bishop to hold the procession. Draft a brief letter indicating the day, time, and procession route, have the pastor sign it, and then have the parish office mail it to the bishop. It is doubtful any bishop would not approve it, but you need to ask.



5. Determine who will lead the procession. It is required that the person holding the monstrance be ordained: a bishop, priest, or deacon. In our case, because the procession was to pray for vocations, we arranged for the archdiocesan vocations director (a priest) to carry the monstrance.



6. Determine the route of the procession. We went from the parish to the archdiocesan seminary and back to the parish for benediction - about 1/3 of a mile. Another parish in town processes from one parish to another - about 2 miles. Some processions are on the grounds of a parish. It is also traditional to have "stations" along the way (where you stop, set the monstrance on a temporary altar, pray and use incense, and then move on), but this is not required. We had two stations, one at a Catholic high school across the street from our parish, and one at the seminary.



7. Check with your local police department. In Cincinnati, if you use the sidewalks only, you don't need a permit. We did have to deal with stopping traffic a little longer than the traffic signals allowed to get everyone across, but we did that ourselves. If we were to process down the middle of the street, we would need a permit and police escorts. However, we didn't want to stop traffic, because we wanted to be seen. If the procession were substantially larger in terms of participants, though, the sidewalks would have been insufficient.

That makes for a good beginning. We'll look at what else is involved next time.

Eucharistic Processions

Last year something happened to me. I'd say, "I had an idea," but that would give the wrong impression. I didn't have an idea. The thought seemed to come from nowhere--or at least from anywhere but me. It wasn't something I'd thought of before. It wasn't something I felt some sort of connection with before. To be more precise, some one happened to me. The "idea" clearly came from the Holy Spirit. I always have to remind myself that God usually speaks to us in quiet, undramatic ways, as he did to Elijah:

And he said, "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord." And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:11-12)

The "idea" was this: organize a Eucharistic procession on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi) for my parish (Guardian Angels). I had never participated in one before. I barely knew what one was. I hadn't organized anything at my parish before. And yet, I didn't resist this call. It seemed completely right. I certainly had moments of hesitation. But I worked through them.

It was a wonderful experience. And the turn out was much better than I expected. I prepared myself for as few as 10 people, but estimates were that we had at least 50 or more. We processed from our parish to the Cincinnati archdiocesan major seminary (Mt. St. Mary's of the West) up the street. We prayed for vocations during the procession, which was led by the archdiocesan vocations director (Fr. Kyle Schnippel).

I cannot encourage people enough to hold Eucharistic processions at their parishes. They take a little work to put together, but it is not an insurmountable task. God put in my path a small group of dedicated, faithful people at exactly the right time to make this happen. And he will do the same for you.

I want to put together some resources to make it easier for other people to organize Eucharistic processions. The easier it is, the more processions there will be. And the more times we bring Jesus into the streets of our cities, the more he will transform the lives of those following him and those who have been passing him by.

There But for the Grace of God Go I

I was thinking about this common phrase today. "There but for the Grace of God go I." And then I was thinking about the secular variant, "There but for fortune go I." Both sentences express a certain degree of gratitude, but as I thought about it, I realized that it is important to note that the secular version is not expressing the same idea as the religious version.

For example, if we see someone who is homeless, we may say, "There but for fortune go I," in which case we mean that it is mere luck that I'm not homeless myself. Such an expression really describes, whether consciously or not, a nihilistic view of the world. We are saying that the world is simply random chance, and, thankfully, I happened to have dodged that bullet.

What is even worse is if we apply the religious version in the same way to the situation of the homeless person. Then we seem to be saying, yes, there is a God, and, thankfully, God shed his grace on me instead of thee.

What if we looked at a situation where there was culpability involved. Does that make a difference? For instance, if we say about a murderer or a priest who abused children, "There but for the grace of God go I," are we saying that God withheld his grace from that person and gave it to me? That doesn't seem like the just and merciful God I have heard about and try to know.

Maybe we are saying that God offers the same grace to all, but if I had not accepted God's grace, then I could have been that murderer or that abusing priest. I think that situation is getting closer to the mark. But even that makes me feel as though I am taking too much credit for any good I do. It still seems to smack a bit of the Pelagian heresy, which said that we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps (that our works can achieve salvation through our own efforts and without God's grace). Maybe it's what Fr. Benedict Groeschel calls "semi-Pelagianism." Certainly God's grace needs our cooperation and an act of our will, because God gave us freedoom to choose good over evil, or vice versa. He does not coerce our love, but nurtures it.

Perhaps the phrase is really not all that useful in the end. I was thinking today about why do I not do some of the deeply terrible things that our wounded human nature is prone to do? (Which is not to say that I don't sin.) I certainly don't want to leave all the explanation up to psychology. There is a mystery at work that science can't explain away. But how do we get a glimpse of that mystery of sin and grace, of you and me and Him, and how it all ties together? As St. Paul says, "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Romans 5:20). So maybe we should be thinking, "What profound transformation is God trying to work in that broken life, and am I too inured to my own sin to seek out the grace God is offering to me?"

Eucharistic Adoration and Pilgrimage

It is difficult to find Catholic churches open in my area in the afternoon during the week, when I usually try to go to adoration. Tomorrow, in solidarity with the March for Life, the Bishop of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, Roger Foys, has ordered all churches in the diocese to remain open all day. I wish that our churches were all open more often. There is a parish near where I work that has Eucharistic chapel, but it is not open during the afternoon most days. There is a parish near where I live that does have perpetual Eucharistic adoration, and it is a great blessing to us. Today I went for adoration to a church where you have to go sign in through the school to get into the church during the week (and they are always surprised when I come in and ask to go to the church). I understand the issues, but it shouldn't be this hard to worship the Lord in the Eucharist.

However, I have also come to see the value of these hardships. When I come to a church for adoration and the church is locked, I think of the woman who suffered from “a flow of blood” for twelve years but touched the fringe of Jesus’ garment and was healed (Luke 8:43-48). Even if I cannot get closer to the tabernacle, merely touching the handle of church door can be close enough, and I hope also thereby to be the recipient of Jesus’ words to that woman: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace” (48).

One of the few places I can count on for access to a tabernacle during a weekday afternoon in the area where I work is at a Catholic hospital. I spend about 45 minutes of my 60 minute lunch hour traveling to and from the hospital to spend 15 minutes with our Lord. Today as I was going to a different church for adoration, I heard on our local Catholic radio station a segment about pilgrimage. Then it dawned on me that I was on pilgrimage. If I look at the travel to a tabernacle not as wasted or delayed time (as if I were commuting to work) but as a pilgrimage, as a prayerful journey to a holy site, then that travel becomes transformed, and hopefully, so do I.

Inaugural Prayer

On the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, let us pray for him, for his administration, and for our country. Let us pray that God will guide him in all his decisions. May his election usher in a new era of racial healing in our land. May President Obama's compassion for the poor and the oppressed also come to extend to the unborn.

President Obama is often compared to President Kennedy. May President Obama take up the call at the end of President Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address and make it his own:

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

Feast of St. Anthony of the Desert

Today is the Feast of St. Anthony of the Desert.

St. Anthony is often called, "The Father of Monks" for his role in the establishment of Christian monasticism, and he is among the first of the Desert Fathers (although there were a few Desert Mothers as well). The Desert Fathers were men and women who lived either as hermits or in small communities in the deserts of Egypt, primarily during the fourth century. St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria and one of the thirty-three doctors of the Church, wrote a biography of St. Anthony.

I highly recommend a wonderful book: The Sayings of the Desert Fathers by Benedicta Ward, SLG. These sayings are very powerful and give important insight into lives of self-sacrifice, hospitality, penance, forgiveness, and compassion.

One of the sayings of St. Anthony has implications for living the Eucharistic life:

Someone asked Abba Anthony, "What must one do in order to please God?" The old man replied, "Pay attention to what I tell you: whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved." (3, p. 2)

St. Anthony's distilled advice here is incisive. Whoever you are, whether rich or poor, powerful or powerless, you need to understand that you are a creature and that God is the Creator, and if your focus is ever on God and not yourself, then such humility will put things in their proper perspective. Certainly we can "always have God before our eyes" by thinking about him, but we can deepen that thinking by literally have him before our eyes in Eucharistic adoration, or contemplatively before our eyes through spiritual communion.

In all that you do, make sure your life and your actions correspond with how God has told us in the Bible how we should live and act. Too often in contemporary life we think that we can be "good people" without "having to follow a lot of rules." It is true that following rules will not guarantee that we will become good. However, we must also remember that breaking rules will not make us good, either. Saying, "God, I love you, but I don't think I need to go Mass on Sunday" is like saying to your spouse, "Honey, I love you, but I don't think I need to talk to you during the week." Love is demonstrated through actions. When love is talk only, it is usually used to manipulate another person. Jesus showed us his love through his actions, by laying down his life for us. The Scriptures are God's love letter, and with love, comes responsibilities and obligations, works and sacrifice.

St. Anthony's last point is perhaps the most unusual. I suppose the way I take him here is that wandering often leads to a lack of commitment. In a hermit's context, moving frequently may be an attempt to run away from one's self--one's own sinfulness, forsaking God's mercy and trying to escape God's demands. In a monastic context, moving frequently may be an attempt to run away from others, so that we are not beholden to anyone or anything. The same is potentially true for laity as well. Some people leave spouses and families because they are not willing to take on the daily task of fidelity and all that it requires. Some people date many different people for the same reason. Some people leave jobs frequently, either because they become bored from routine or because they cannot live in "community" in the workplace.

Let us live St. Anthony's words, and may his prayers help sustain us in that life.