Laudet Dominum

This was my last weekend at St. Mary’s Parish in Malta, MT. As such, this will be the last of the “Ask Fr. Cory” columns for a while. They may return in the future.

10 years. A decade seems so long, and yet looking back it seems to have passed in a blink of an eye. I still remember the happiness of coming back to the Hi-Line, and the wonder at what the future would hold for us and our parishes.

As this is my last weekend here, I’d like to take the opportunity to say thank you to everyone. Thank you for the chance to serve you. Thank you for the chance to be a part of your lives, even in a small way. Thank you for the joys and sorrows. Thank you for the prayers, and your willingness to join in the worship of Our Lord at Mass. My time here in Malta, Dodson, and Saco has been a great opportunity to serve Our Lord and you, and I am thankful for each and every one of you.

At the same time, there have been difficult moments for us. For the moments that were caused by bad decisions or actions that were hurtful on my part, I apologize and ask your forgiveness. For the decisions I had to make that were unpopular, I hope you can understand that I made them out of a desire for what is best for each of you as individual disciples and for the parishes as a whole. I also hope we can disagree while still maintaining mutual civility and respect.

Please welcome Fr. Felix as your new pastor. He will be with you for at least the next 6 years, God willing, and is looking forward to his time here. I hope he will be welcomed into your families and our communities. We are fortunate to have him coming here, and will be a great addition to the parishes.

As I leave, I want to assure everyone of my prayers for you. May God bless each of you and your families. Please keep me in your prayers as well and pray for the parishioners in Cascade and Ft. Shaw. May the next 10 years be a time of joy and love in the Lord Jesus!

During this Sunday’s Mass, we have one of those rare events: a Sequence between the second reading and the Gospel. We don’t see Sequences very often, because there are currently only three throughout the liturgical calendar, but they are generally very ancient and beautiful hymns that have become a part of the liturgy during major feasts, such as we see today with Pentecost.

The Pentecost Sequence starts out with what could be a prayer all its own: “Come, Holy Spirit, Come!” This brief acclamation is one that we should pray every day, especially when we need the inspiration and help of the Holy Spirit. It also sets the basic theme of the Sequence: Come, Holy Spirit, give us your help!

Throughout the Sequence, we see how the Holy Spirit helps us. Through refreshment of the soul and providing comfort in the midst of difficulty, the Holy Spirit aids us in persevering in our journey following Our Lord. The Holy Spirit shines within us, lighting the way to Jesus. He works within us to heal our spiritual wounds and soften our hardened hearts towards God. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit works within us and the Church to bring us to salvation.

We cry out to the Holy Spirit for help, because Our Lord sends the Holy Spirit as our Advocate: an intercessor and guide for our lives. Of course, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, and so this help we receive from the Holy Spirit is from God Himself. Our Heavenly Father loves us so deeply that He gives us the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, drawing us closer to Him if we allow it.

This is probably one of the most important things to remember about the Holy Spirit: He does not force Himself upon us. The Holy Spirit will give us every aid that we need in our spiritual journey, but only if we open ourselves up to Him. Love cannot be forced upon anyone, and so we must accept the love of God, given to us through the Holy Spirit, out of a selfless love for Him. The love of God is beyond anything we can imagine, but it takes trusting in Him and surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit to experience that power and love.

I would encourage all to look at the Pentecost Sequence, and take it to prayer. It really is a beautiful, meditative, and comforting prayer that shows all that the Holy Spirit does for us in our lives. Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

Can you imagine what it was like to be with the Apostles as Our Lord ascended into heaven? Just the fact that He rose from the dead was amazing enough, but then He leaves them by lifting off the ground and floating upwards until He disappeared behind a cloud. It was so stunning to His Apostles that they kept looking into the sky until a couple angels told them to stop!

Our Lord did not need to enter into Heaven in this way. He could have just disappeared from their sight. He could have staged a special effects show that would make any movie producer envious. But Jesus ascending into Heaven as He did shows us that He opened the gates of Heaven to us, that He took His place in the Heavenly kingdom, and that we will join Him body and soul.

We know that through sin, the gates of Heaven were closed to us. This is symbolized by the angels guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden. By Our Lord’s death and resurrection, those gates are now open again! We no longer need to be locked out due to sin! When He ascended into Heaven, He threw open the gates and led in the righteous who were awaiting Him.

Once He entered into Heaven, He took His place at the right hand of the Father, as we profess in the Nicene Creed every Sunday. Like an earthly king going to his throne for the first time after coronation, Jesus took His place as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Now, if we wish to enter into His Kingdom, we have to follow Him.

If we do follow Him and His teachings, we will enter into Heaven after our deaths most likely, unless He returns during our lifetimes. When we do, we will be separated from our bodies until the final judgment, then we’ll be reunited with our bodies for all eternity. These bodies we inhabit now will be part of us for the entirety of eternity.

This last point is one we probably need to be reminded more than the rest. Too many people think of the body as a “meat puppet” that contains our souls, the “real us”. However, our bodies are important. We are both physical and spiritual. Our bodies and souls are united to make up the totality of who we are.

We respect the body of somebody who has died as a sign of our respect for that person. This is why burial is so important, and why scattering of ashes (or other desecration of the body) is condemned. This is why we bury those who have died in beautifully decorated cemeteries and care for their graves.

Our Lord is on His throne in the Kingdom of Heaven. One day, may we stand before Him!

Laying hands on someone’s head is not something we do on a normal basis in our daily lives. Yet it’s seen quite often in the New Testament, like today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. We also see it during the celebration of the Sacraments of Confirmation and Ordination. Confession has it in a virtual, distant way with the priest holding his hands over the penitent’s head, and the priest holds his hands over the gifts during the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass.

Obviously this action of laying hands on a person’s head, or holding hands over someone or something has a special significance. In every case, the action is accompanied by a prayer calling down the Holy Spirit. This is made explicit in the first reading where it says, “Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.” Ritual texts also make this clear, whether in the prayer itself or in the instructions accompanying the prayers.

The fact is that the Holy Spirit is truly our Advocate, the one who intercedes for us and brings the grace of God to us. It is through the working of the Holy Spirit that the Sacraments have their power. The gifts of bread and wine would not be transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ except for the actions of the Holy Spirit. The forgiveness of sins would not happen except for the Holy Spirit wiping them away. Men would not before deacons, priests and bishops except for the Holy Spirit changing them. As we see in the reading from Acts, our baptisms wouldn’t be complete without the working of the Holy Spirit.

Over the next couple weeks, we are being prepared for the great celebration of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. A great practice of preparation might be to enter into the novena to the Holy Spirit, which traditionally runs from the Ascension of the Lord to Pentecost Sunday. Ascension has been moved to next Sunday, but the novena can still start this Thursday. You can find out more about the Pentecost Novena at Pray More Novenas.

The Holy Spirit wants to come to each of us. May we be open to it. Come Holy Spirit!

The first reading today might seem kind of strange to focus on. It looks like the description of some administrative issue within the early Church, and how the Apostles handled it. However, there is something far more important happening here: the establishment of a group of men within the Church dedicated for the purpose of service both inside and outside of the Church. The seven men picked for service are the first deacons of the Church.

The diaconate is something that’s become more prominent in the US Church since the 1970’s, and in our diocese since Bishop Warfel was named our bishop a little over 12 years ago. There’s a good reason for this. For a long time prior to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s, the position of deacon was generally reserved for those men who were ordained Transitional Deacons on their way to becoming a priest. Vatican II called for the return of the Permanent Diaconate, allowing men to be ordained as a deacon as his permanent vocation. The US Church as a whole, and Bishop Warfel in particular, have embraced the Permanent Diaconate, and so we hear more about this vocation in recent years.

So, what is the purpose of the diaconate? Ultimately, a deacon is called to serve. In fact, the words “deacon” and “diaconate” come from the Greek word “diakonia”, which means “service or ministering”. A man is ordained to the diaconate in order to dedicate his life to service: service at the altar, service in the Church, and service in the community.

First, a deacon is called to service at the altar. Within the Mass and other liturgies, there is often a role for a deacon. Deacons can proclaim the Gospel and give homilies at Mass, assist with setting up of the altar, and are considered ordinary ministers of Holy Communion, like priests and bishops. They also can perform weddings and baptisms, lead funeral services outside of Mass, and perform Sunday Celebrations in Absence of a Priest (as Deacon Ed from Glasgow has been so graciously willing to do here a couple times).

The deacon’s service doesn’t end at the altar. They are also called to serve within the non-liturgical life of the Church. Deacons will often help out with religious education, volunteer labor around the parish, outreach from the parish into the community and more. Anywhere that service is needed within the parish, the deacon can be there.

The final service of the deacon is to the community. In general, deacons are not employed by the Church, nor are they paid by their parishes for the service they perform. Some deacons are hired as employees of the Church, but that is rare. Instead, deacons often need to work a regular, full-time job to take care of themselves and their families, in addition to the service they perform. While this could potentially limit their service within the Church, it does put them in the position to serve the wider community. Through their jobs, community involvement, and more, deacons can serve to proclaim the Gospel with their lives.

While we do not currently have a deacon serving in our parishes, it’s my hope that some day a man from these parishes will be ordained to serve as a deacon. As we pray for vocations, may we also pray for the call to service to be heard!