Worship as the Wellspring of Life

The Fruit of the Vine and the Holy Eucharist

Thank you very much. It’s an honor to be here with you—a great privilege. And because I do have a doctorate in agronomy and I work with a group called Catholic Rural Life, I thought we would start with a little prayer that I adapted just a bit for the environment that we’re in right now.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear Lord, in many vineyards of this vast valley, the grapes are growing now. Some are still young and green, some are maturing, and all before very long will be ripe. Most of them, dear Jesus, will be pressed into wine. In countless ways, this wine will find its way to tables in city and country and almost all over the world.

Still, some of it will be used at another table. It will be pressed into fine wine and used to make the wine for Holy Mass. Priests will take it into their anointed hands and pronounce over it the words of consecration, and it will cease to be ordinary wine and will become the precious blood of Jesus Christ. It will look as it did before, but we know and believe that it will be the body and blood, the soul and divinity of you, Lord Jesus Christ, truly present under the appearance of wine.

O Jesus, bless the broad, rich vineyards in this valley. Protect them from blight and rust, from fire, windstorms, and drought. Let them be full and rich so that the hungry may be fed with the Holy Eucharist and may praise you and thank you as you deserve. And may all the holy Masses that will be said with this wine made of these grapes hasten the day when at last there will be enough reapers working in your harvest, which is ripe and ready now, waiting only to be gathered home. Amen.

Worship as the Wellspring of Life

Our conference theme, however, is: What is it to be human? And so we have to look at this from the perspective of humans. Humans—we all have a need to worship. And if we don’t worship God, we know that there are many other gods that are waiting to be worshiped, so to speak.

And so, with St. Augustine, we must say, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”

When considering life, we not only think of our natural lives, but we also need to think of our supernatural life through the gift of grace. Moreover, divine worship of the Holy Trinity elevates any culture of nature and establishes a supernatural culture. This is what we call “inculturation.”

Because of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ—He took our flesh and shared in our humanity so that we might share in His divinity—this includes inculturation into His redemptive suffering in union with the sacrifice of Jesus, as we suffer for the sake of His body, the Church. This is at the heart of worship as the wellspring of life.

Mystery and Inculturation

This inculturation in the Incarnation and self-offering of Christ is a gift. Yet we need to be aware of and open to mystery. It is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.

This quotation from the second paragraph of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is something we need to take a look at, because of the fact that we’re human yet participate in the divine:

It is of the essence of the Church that she be both human and divine, visible and yet invisibly equipped, eager to act and yet intent on contemplation, present in this world and yet not at home in it. And she is all these things in such wise that in her the human is directed and subordinated to the divine, the visible likewise to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, which we seek.

This tension that we live—this is part of our human existence. We long for heaven. We long to be with the Lord. We long for suffering to be over, etc. But yet, here we are. But this tension shouldn’t be anxiety-producing; it should inspire us or spur us on to have a deeper love for our Lord Jesus Christ and for the Church.

The Need for Grace

How do we do that? We need grace. And so, grace—just a little definition: an inner quality produced in us by God, inhering in the soul. This natural and supernatural life—it’s a mysterious sharing in God’s life and God’s divine nature. And we deepen our love of God through grace, and our neighbor because of God.

Sometimes we forget—or it seems like for a few decades we forget—that we have love of God and love of neighbor. But if we don’t first deeply love God and have a deep relationship with God, and we try to love our neighbor without loving God, it won’t sustain us very long. And so that’s why, when we worship God, we need to be able to say that in the first place, we worship God.

St. Thomas Aquinas: Doctor of Humanity

Now, St. John Paul II named St. Thomas Aquinas as the Doctor of Humanity, which of course is an important title for our conference because he was always ready to receive the values of all cultures. This includes how we need to believe in the goodness of each person as made in the image and likeness of God and as a creature created to live in communion with our Creator through worship.

St. Thomas didn’t write very much about the liturgy per se, but he did write about solemnity—implying that with solemnity, such as we had this morning—this beautiful Eucharistic procession (I mean, the canopy was great, putting it together—I was so glad I wasn’t involved in it!)—and so, because I thought, okay, a little break here this time. But the incense, the beauty, the singing, the chanting, the booklets prepared—that enhances our devotion. And our devotion is enhanced because of the solemnity. And with solemnity, then we enter into a deeper relationship with God through worship.

I have found in my little bit of time in Detroit—which is always an interesting experience—is that we don’t understand the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We have people asking: What is the Mass? Why do we need to go to Mass? Why do you have Eucharistic processions and adoration but you’re not talking about the Mass? Well, we really are talking about the Mass, because our practice of worshiping God outside of the Mass is rooted in the Mass.

The Sacred Paschal Triduum is the Mass in Slow Motion

And so, I thought very quickly and succinctly, I would go through a process that I tend to teach when I’m talking about the Mass. And that’s the Sacred Paschal Triduum.

When we think about it—and sometimes perhaps we don’t—this Holy Week is the prime week of our faith. Surely, Christmas—the Incarnation—is important. But when we celebrate the redemptive suffering, death, passion, and resurrection of the Lord, we look to Holy Week. What we don’t often think about, though, is that the Sacred Triduum is the Mass in slow motion.

Sometimes we say, well, okay, we go—or maybe we won’t go—we’ll try to go on Holy Thursday, but not necessarily Good Friday, etc.

So, we start Holy Week with Palm Sunday. We have a procession on Palm Sunday. These processions are symbolic of our pilgrimage. We have three processions within the Holy Mass: the entrance procession, the procession of offering the gifts, and we have the procession where we receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, processions are always symbolizing our pilgrimage.

Then, on Holy Thursday, we have the most beautiful opportunity to celebrate together the Chrism Mass, during which our priests renew their promises to their bishop and to serve. We, the faithful, renew our promise to pray for and support our priests. And the oils that are used for our sacraments are blessed or consecrated.

Then think about the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday. The celebrant begins with the Sign of the Cross—but how do we leave? There’s no dismissal. There’s adoration. We’re dismissed in silence. We leave in silence. But there isn’t a dismissal.

Then what happens when we come back on Good Friday? Is there an opening hymn? No. It’s silence. Silence. We kneel, and the priest, bishop, prostrates on the floor, because that form of prayer, that gesture of prayer, is of great humility. And the significance is that we have no words to thank God for what Jesus did for us and with His salvific death.

So Good Friday doesn’t open with a greeting. It opens with humble submission and petition for forgiveness from the Lord.

And how do we leave Good Friday? We celebrate the Passion of the Lord, hear the Gospel chanted or proclaimed. But when we leave, we leave after the reception of Holy Communion, but also the veneration of the Cross. But there’s no dismissal, right?

And so we come to Holy Saturday. And what do we start with, with Holy Saturday? The Easter fire. And then when we begin with the Easter fire, then we have the readings—sometimes shortcut, sometimes the whole history of salvation—that’s permitted for the Church. And then we enter into Holy Saturday, the Easter Vigil, and then the Resurrection of the Lord.

Experiencing the Triduum as a Spiral of Love

I wanted to take just a minute to point out solemnity and how our awareness is heightened with solemnity. So this is the prayer that is part of the marking of the Paschal candle:

“Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. All time belongs to Him and all ages. To Him be glory and power through every age forever.”

At the Easter fire, then the grains of incense symbolizing the holy wounds of Our Lord:

“By His holy and glorious wounds may Christ the Lord guard us and protect us. Amen.”

I bring this to our attention because we don’t necessarily take in all of what we can during the celebration of the Sacred Triduum. I used to teach liturgy—now and then I do a little something in a parish—but I used to say that I didn’t really like the circle. You know, we teach the liturgical year as a circle, and the reason I didn’t like it is because it’s kind of like running around in a circle, which I’m not prone to do.

And so I would say it’s a spiral. Every time we celebrate and enter into the mysteries, our intensity of love is greater. So when we think of how much did I love the Lord last year when we celebrated Good Friday, is my intensity of love as I come to worship Him deepening because of my exercise of virtue and also exercise of love of Him?

Then we have, finally, at the end of the Easter Vigil:

“Go in peace, Alleluia. Thanks be to God, Alleluia.”

And I was looking at this, and I thought of the image of Cardinal Tagle the other day at the Eucharistic Congress in the UK. He said:

“Go. Go. Go. Don’t stay. Go.”

Because we’re entering into the missionary year of the Eucharistic Revival, and we must go. The Holy Spirit is giving us these gifts and this opportunity to really evangelize. And so we don’t want to waste even a minute.

So we have this celebration of the Mass during the Sacred Triduum. So what happens next?

We can look to the communication of Our Lord walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, when they said, “Stay with us,” and at table He took bread, He blessed, He broke, He gave—and their eyes were opened.

How are our eyes opened at every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Are we attentive to:

“At the time He was betrayed and entered willingly into His Passion, He took bread, giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples saying: ‘Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is My Body, which will be given up for you.’”

Likewise:

“He took the chalice, and once more giving thanks, He gave it to His disciples saying: ‘Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of Me.’”

And when we think of worship as the wellspring of life, Our Lord gave us Himself so that we would continue to be able to worship God. And so these words are repeated.

Invoking the Holy Spirit in the Christian States of Life

I wanted then to talk a little bit about the Holy Spirit, because as we’re looking at not only the holy year and the missionary year of the Eucharistic Revival, we also want to say, “Well, how do we wait for the Holy Spirit?” How do we not come up with another program or plan when we’re faced with a dilemma in whatever parish or church setting that we’re working in? How do we wait for the Holy Spirit?

And I wanted to point out that within the three Christian states of life that I’ll mention—ordination, holy matrimony, and religious life—there is always an invocation to the Holy Spirit as part of the prayer that accompanies a very significant moment of grace in the life of an individual.

For the ordination of a bishop, we see:

“Pour forth upon this chosen one the power that is from You—the governing Spirit.”

The ordination of a priest:

“Renew within them the spirit of holiness.”

The ordination of a deacon:

“Send forth the Holy Spirit upon them, O Lord.”

Then we look to holy matrimony. In one of the nuptial blessings—one of the options:

“May the power of the Holy Spirit set their hearts aflame from on high.”

And then we also have for the rite of religious profession:

“Father, we humbly pray and beseech You to send forth upon these daughters or sons the fire of the Paraclete, that He may nourish the flame of resolve that He Himself has enkindled in their hearts.”

Religious Life as a Light in Darkness

I want to pause for just a couple of moments to speak about religious life. The states of life need to be always working together in a parish, in a school, in our communities. But for a while, it seemed like religious life was—it seemed like people were questioning the future of religious life.

And now we often see our people really questioning the future of religious life. In fact, reading the Acta of the Second Vatican Council, there was a discussion during the discourse on Lumen Gentium—what is religious life?

One of the interventions that was put forward by the then-Benedictine abbot of Beuron said—he made this assertion: “I’m not quite sure religious life is part of the hierarchy, but yet it isn’t the lay [state] either. So it’s somewhere in between.”

And he said, when we think about it, think about St. Peter’s Basilica for the Midnight Mass and also for the Easter Vigil. All of the lights of the Basilica are turned off and we’re in darkness—except for the niches of the founders and foundresses of religious communities.

And he said, for him then, it meant that during the darkness and the darkest times of the Church, we need religious communities and religious men and women to lead us into the light.

So Lumen Gentium took up the question of religious, and actually, religious falls under the virtue of justice—to bind and rebind. And so the vows that we take actually bind us directly to our spouse, Jesus Christ. And by this, our whole life becomes an act of worship. So how about faith? So the Holy Spirit and then our habits of faith.

Faith is a habit we could say, so as a habit, but a that is a stable disposition of the spirit through which eternal life takes root in us and reason is led to consent to what it does not see. And this is a a definition by St Thomas Aquinas. So we make acts of faith. We can’t lose faith and when we’re worshiping God we are entering into acts of faith in our time right now.

And as, as we’re you know really, so I’m going to give a little agronomic analogy: the weeds and the wheat of course have to live together. We don’t know who are the wheat, who represents wheat and who represents uh weeds, but that doesn’t matter. As an agronomist, we have to do as much as we can to nourish the wheat so that the wheat proliferates and grows all the more.

Worship Begins with an Openness to Faith

Recently in our community had a retreat with the wonderful Dominican priest Father Kaja Chin Kuli and he brought these questions as part of our retreat and I think they’re pretty important for us to ask ourselves how we can teach and how we can use these ourselves.

He gave the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her response to the angel Gabriel when he came and appeared to her and said that she would be the mother of God. She didn’t say no I won’t. She didn’t say uh how is that going to be? She said how will this be with an openness to Faith.

In contrast, he made the response of Zachariah to the same Angel and he said how will I know?
He could be living in our times, you know, how will I know? Will I get something in the mail? Will I get this? How am I going to know that Elizabeth is going to bear a child?

So as we’re going about our lives and really bearing witness to our faith, putting forward the missionary year of the Eucharistic Revival, thanking God for the many Graces, we can do our own examine and we can also offer this to others to think about how are they responding to God in the questions that he asks.

We have a quotation from Pope Benedict from Deus Caritas:

“Worship itself that is Eucharistic communion includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented.”

I remember the first time I read that I was a little bit stunned because it’s so true. But we’re so prone to division. We’re so prone to the serpent saying did God really tell you that you need to wear a white vestment or etc. etc.

The Spirituality of Communion

So we divide and we’re susceptible to division and so we need to be able to say our Eucharist could be intrinsically physically fragmented but yet we need a spirituality of communion.

And so this spirituality of communion that Pope John Paul II gave us in Novo Millennio Ineunte was quite a surprise at the time. I remember those of us who were living in Rome at the time were thinking uh we’re just about finish with this Jubilee year and we’re going to take a little break you know no more people in the streets this is all going away.

And our Holy Father father said if we’ve really lived the Jubilee year we’ve only strengthened our legs for the journey ahead.

So then he gave us this directive, this mandate for a spirituality of communion:

“A spirituality of communion indicates above all the heart’s contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of our brothers and sisters around us. This makes us able to share their joys and sufferings, to sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine friendship.”

Discovering Grace in Worship

We need to follow the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, spouse of the Holy Spirit, and with her ask how shall this be as we make our acts of faith and trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us.

Let us set aside any temptation to ask how will I know or succumb to the question of doubt, did God really say?

In this way we will discover the visible manifestation of grace from the invisible reality of Jesus the bridegroom and his bride the church as together we worship and celebrate the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Thank you very much.