Hello Everyone,
1. Today the Church celebrated the final day of the Octave of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday. The Masses were celebrated for the intentions of Cale Bombardier, a seminarian for the diocese, and for the intentions of all of the you, the parishioners.
2. The Divine Mercy Sunday Mass is available on the website! https://ourladyvt.org/sunday-mass
3. In case you haven't had a chance yet, you can access the online giving portal at https://ourladyvt.org/online-giving
4. Volunteer Opportunity: Randolph Area Mutual Aid Network (RAMAN). You can find information about their network here: https://racdc.com/covid19
Reflection:
(http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041920.cfm)
It's an astonishing claim, really, when you consider it. Jesus tells the Apostles,
As the Father has sent me, so I send you. He immediately begins to expound the implications. Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. Jesus became man and performed his public ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit. So too will the Apostles. He went around Judea forgiving the sins of the people. So too will the Apostles. At the end of Matthew's gospel, Jesus says, All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. The Father has sent him with all authority. Go therefore ... So too the Apostles.
When the incredible dignity of the Apostles' office begins to sink in, we realize the motivation behind the great forms of reverence that can be shown to them. St. Paul praises the Galatians by saying, I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. Can you imagine? They would have forgone their own eyesight if they could have helped St. Paul by doing so. The dignity of the Apostles referenced in the biblical readings does not die with them. Their office continues to their successors. When we meet a bishop, we're meeting an apostle. We're meeting someone sent as the Father sent his only begotten Son. What an marvel! That on this earth we could meet someone who stands as Christ stood, who forgives as Christ forgave, who blesses as Christ blessed.
In view of encountering and responding to this reality, what considerations can be made? The first is that we will be hampered from appreciating it without forms for expressing it. We are human creatures. Without seeing, hearing, feeling, touching, moving in accordance to an idea, the idea remains empty and barren. We can grasp a truth only when it is lived out. So, too, here. We can see the dignity and privilege of a bishop when he is at Mass, arrayed in splendor, much more easily than elsewhere. We will sense it more profoundly when we kiss his ring than otherwise. Unfortunately, it's fairly typical of American culture to downplay of all these expressive forms of interaction, and we lose the lived experience of them. But even the imaginative effort can bring them home to us in new ways.
Besides the culture in which we live, another obstacle to expressions of reverence is the worry that they will foster an undue pride in the recipient. We fear that, to use the same example, kissing a bishop's ring might puff up the man. (Besides the potential awkwardness!) On this score, though, our fears are overblown. At least in my own limited experience as a priest, the result has been exactly the opposite. As a newly ordained priest, one common tradition is the receive a first blessing from the priest, and then to kiss his hands. Which is certainly something outside of our everyday experience! The experience, though, far from exalting, was downright humbling. Similar cases have had similar results. The Filipino people often raise a priest's hand to their forehead as a mark of respect. The result is humbling. A European man once kissed my stole after confession. The result is humbling. These signs of reverence reaffirm the dignity of the office that bishops and priests inhabit, and thereby reassert his own unworthiness in comparison with the greatness of the office. Far from exalting, it humbles.
Finally, another great benefit of these expressions of reverence is that they train us to relate to God. When we habituate ourselves to relating to Godly things in a reverent way, we train ourselves to relate to God himself in the correct way. How can we reverence the God we do not see, if we do not reverence the man we do see? How can we be adequately humble with the almighty God, if we balk at the lesser matters of human respect? This world is a training ground for humility.
May we grow in reverence for our great and gracious God, but more profoundly laying to heart the reverence due to the greatness of his gifts hidden in human form in his bride, the Church.
God bless you all!
Fr. Rensch