A new font for St. Therese

Perhaps the “Anglican patrimony” might in some cases mean an appreciation for architecture. It helped to grow up in a church whose builders had an eye for beauty. Perhaps I just assumed that all churches ought to be beautiful. That does not mean that churches don’t need to be practical, efficient and serve the liturgy as well, and it certainly does not mean that all church buildings need to affect a “gothic” style of architecture. At St. Michael’s Episcopal in Independence we were able to build an attractive multi-purpose space as a step toward a future church. I was pleased to have played a role in its design.

When I walked into St. Therese Catholic Church for the first time, I was struck by its beauty, also. The acoustics are crisp and the windows are bright. It is a handsome building. Some renovations were done a couple of decades ago it seems that they stopped before they were completed. The font was removed from the old baptistery so that baptisms could be celebrated at Mass on Sundays, but a new baptistery was never provided. The confessionals were removed and never replaced. Perhaps it is because the parish was without a priest for a good many years, or perhaps it is simply because of my Anglican heritage, I miss them.

A couple of years ago a font appeared at The Ecclesiologist. It was apparently from the same vintage as St. Therese, even of the same marble. It was large, dignified, simple, and strong. It looked like it could have been made for St. Therese. I kept going back to look at it, but had so many irons in the fire I didn’t raise the issue. Finally another church bought it. Then, last month, it reappeared! I thought about it. Was this a gift from God? I prayed, and it seemed like God said, “Use your gifts.” So I inquired about it, and sent pictures to the worship committee, the pastoral council, the administration committee and ran the pictures in the bulletin. Some were enthusiastic right away. Some advised against it. But the donations started to come in. Then the owner told me, “If you want it, you better get it right away because two other churches are after it.” So I did. After less than a week, we now have more than half the needed money in hand.

Pilgrimage in Turkey

Jude Huntz is shring photos and reflections on our pilgrimage in Turkey on his blog. Follow this link.

http://humanrightskcsj.blogspot.com/2010/11/reflections-on-turkey-part-1.html

Our Lady of Hope/St. Therese Parish

We got into the Anglican Use ministry here at St. Therese, not because we planned it, but because an opportunity presented itself. After a couple of years of experience, it appears that it has advantages and disadvantages. For the Anglicans and Episcopalians who came to us, we have been able to offer the welcome, experience, and security of being members of a Catholic parish. Granted, St. Therese is not your typical parish with a thousand or more families, so there are programs and ministries that are not available here that could be found somewhere else. But St. Therese has been able to offer the experience of being part of a larger whole, and the experience of being in a much larger parish than most Episcopalians are used to, but much smaller, welcoming and personal than most Catholic parishes. St. Therese has been able of offer opportunities for ministry - and our Anglican Use community has jumped right in - serving on the Pastoral Council, joining Knights of Columbus, volunteering with the food pantry and Christmas basket programs, participating in our neighborhood needs assessment - and on and on.

Those who might want to replicate this as a model, if it can be replicated within the overlapping structures of Ordinariate and Diocese, should know there are disadvantages, too. As a parish and as Our Lady of Hope Society, we probably suffer most from cultural and identity conflicts. Having a clear identity is a big help in doing mission and being part of a parish with an established identity means that the Anglican Use community is part of a larger whole rather than having its own clear identity. In addition, converts are enthusiastic about being Catholic, and tend to identify Catholicism with a clear set of beliefs. Episcopalians and Anglicans also tend to identify Anglo-Catholicism with a way of doing liturgy correctly. Many of our Catholic members may identify more strongly with the parish than they do with the Catholic Church and with the Catholic faith in the Catechism. Many of our members have been wounded by the Church and have found a refuge here.

As a parish, we may tolerate and even may enjoy the diversity of liturgies within the parish. Some question why "they" do the things they do, but are willing to make room for it. But if we had to make to clear choices about what we believe in order to clarify the mission of the parish and our strategies for putting our mission into practice, I think we'd have difficulty.

St. Therese is an experience of Catholicism.

"And Mary Bore Sweet Jesus Christ"

I grew up in a family with a long tradition of making a living from the northeast Florida pine forests and my father still had access to the land his family had owned for generations. So it was perfectly natural, when it was time to put up a Christmas tree, to go out to the forest to an area my father had previously scouted as a likely spot to find a good one. We always had a freshly cut red cedar, and because they grew naturally, they had all the quirks and faults of real trees. They had bare spots, were never quite symmetrical, and sometimes sported an old bird's nest tucked back into the branches. I have to admit I always wished we could get a beautifully shaped if not quite fresh blue spruce shipped from somewhere up north.

One year, while riding down one of the forest roads looking for a red cedar, we drove through an area that had recently been clear-cut. All the mature pines had been hauled off to the paper mill and only the scraggly pines, black-jack oaks and palmettos were left. And standing off by itself was a holly tree. My father had a particular reverence for hollies. Perhaps it was a feeling that went all the way back to ancient British respect for holly, mistletoe and ivy. We were never allowed to cut down a holly tree. But this particular holly tree had the bad luck to be growing in an area that would soon be bulldozed prior to replanting new pines.

The holly tree had a beautiful shape and dark green color. But holly leaves, even though they are evergreen, do not lend themselves to being decorated. They have defensive spines around the outside, just like a cactus. Would it make a Christmas tree? We kids were consulted. Would our mother like it? Because it would be bulldozed anyway, could the rule against cutting down hollies be relaxed just this one time?

We never did get a blue spruce. But that one year, we did have a unique holly Christmas tree. If I remember right, it never did get decorated to the extent that we decorated our regular cedars. We probably got pricked enough times that we quit the decorating and just let the tree itself shine through with its own beauty. That was one of the best Christmas trees we ever had.

Sometimes things mean more than we realize at the time. It was only later that I heard this old Christmas Carol that finds parallels between the holly tree and Mary the Mother of Christ:

The holly and the ivy,

When they are both full grown

Of all the trees that are in the wood

The holly bears the crown

O the rising of the sun

And the running of the deer

The playing of the merry organ

Sweet singing of the choir

The holly bears a blossom

As white as lily flower

And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ

To be our sweet Saviour

Refrain

The holly bears a berry

As red as any blood

And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ

To do poor sinners good

Refrain

The holly bears a prickle

As sharp as any thorn;

And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ

On Christmas Day in the morn.

Refrain

The holly bears a bark

As bitter as any gall;

And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ

For to redeem us all.

Refrain

The holly and the ivy

Now both are full well grown,

Of all the trees that are in the wood,

The holly bears the crown.

Refrain

Pipe Organ Installation at St. Therese

The plans for the installation of our new-to-us pipe organ will be on display at St. Therese for the first time on Sunday. For a slide show of disassembling the Avila University organ click on this link which also includes slides of the renovations of the Avila Chapel from which the organ came. http://www.avila.edu/give/chapelphotos.asp The new organ will be linked with our existing Kilgen pipe organ and additional sections will be added as we are able to retrieve parts of abandoned organs from other Kansas City area churches. All work is being done by volunteers under the leadership of services contributed by Mid States Pipe Organ. Work will continue as funds become available.

Core Values

The National Catholic Reporter did a very short article about St. Therese because we are the one parish in the country that uses the Ordinary Form of the Mass as well as the Anglican Use. Even though our former Anglicans have been here a year and a half, they are relative newcomers in a parish that has a well-established identity. That means St. Therese is a microcosm of the rest of the Catholic Church as we deal with two cultures that have so much in common and also some differences that are very important to each. It would be naïve of me to pretend that these differences are not the source of actual and potential conflict. It is much easier to believe theoretically that diversity is a strength than it is to celebrate it when someone else's spiritual and liturgical expression causes discomfort or symbolizes what one is afraid of. Some Anglo-Catholic liturgical practices that defined the "Catholic" wing of the Episcopal Church not only seem like dinosaurs to some Catholics but remind them of the pre-Vatican II days they were glad to leave behind. And some contemporary Catholic practices remind former Episcopalians and Anglicans of what they were trying to get away from. I truly doubt that some of those deep-seated preferences and convictions will change. Last week I was reading about the experience of some Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism and then returned to the Anglican Church. Something like 250 priests converted in England, and about 10% went back. Apparently they missed a feeling that they belonged, that they were personally known and welcome. They found their Catholic parish to be cold and impersonal. It struck me that in spite of differences, St. Therese's core values are very Anglican. There is nothing cold and impersonal about St. Therese. "Father says" is not a good enough reason to get something done here - people expect to be included and respected. If this experiment can succeed anywhere, it can succeed at St. Therese. It really doesn't matter whether the person bagging the groceries for the food pantry goes to 9:15 or 11:15, and everybody loves to eat. Newcomers and old-timers, 9:15 and 11:15 folks all met together to begin work on converting our school into a community center. There was a nice review of our 11:15 Mass at Church of the Week. He says he will be visiting our 9:15 Mass soon. You might want to visit it at http://church-of-the-week.blogspot.com/

St. Therese and the Requiem Mass for Father de Feydeau

Preached this morning at his requiem by the Prior, Father Anderson - who on Saturday buried his own mother.

+ Requiem Mass

The Reverend Father Dom Francois de Feydeau de Saint-Christophe November 17, 2009

For unto thy faithful, O Lord, life is changed, not taken away: and the abode of this earthly sojourn being dissolved, an eternal dwelling is prepared in heaven (Preface of the Dead)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ;

My very dear Brother Monks,

The words just quoted from the Preface for the Requiem Mass express the Faith of the Church that shines in the face of the darkest trial that assails the human heart—that is to say the sad reality of death.

Rooted in the Most Precious Blood and water that poured forth from the side of the Savior on Calvary, the Faith comes to our aid in this moment of sorrow, reminding us of Christ’s eternal victory over sin, the world and the “enemy death that shall be destroyed last, until he hath put all his enemies under his feet”. (I Cor. 15:26)

Sharing in this same Faith and making it “earn interest” like the good servant of the parable, that great Theologian of the Little Way, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus of Lisieux gives us her particular insight into the reality of bodily death. As she neared her own end at the age of twenty-four this young Doctor of the Church made the boldest of

affirmations: “I die not; I enter into life.” When a man or a woman--in particular a religious--comes to that crucial moment of the great passage to the other side of things, the truth comes forth without pretention. Saint Therese affirms her belief in eternal life, not in order simply to comfort us, but rather because it is the truth.

Of course, the Saint of Lisieux did not mean to dismiss the possibility of Hell or Purgatory, but having made her great discovery concerning the Merciful Love of God, to which she consecrated herself as a victim of Divine Mercy, she simply was beyond doubting that the Judge of Heaven and Earth would forgive her every fault if she only remained small--very small--with the trust of a little child. And lest we be tempted to think that it was on her merits as a Carmelite nun that she felt so bold in presenting herself to the just Judge, she affirms categorically that she will appear before Him with “empty hands”, that is to say without the merits any good works to speak of--save her childlike confidence itself.

Saint Therese liked to quote the line from that other great doctor of Carmel, Saint John of the Cross, who said that “on the evening of this life it is on love that we will be judged”. Although she felt quite incapable of performing the feats of asceticism that we so admire in the great Saints, she knew for a fact that there was immense love in her heart—better yet, she knew that her vocation was to be the love in the heart of her mother the Church.

As we prepare to commit the mortal remains of a beloved monk to the earth, to that very earth from which the first man was taken, we do well not to forget the luminous path traced by so many saints—from Our Blessed Father Saint Benedict to Saint Therese of Lisieux--that have illumined the world and transfigured the experience of death. Above all we must not forget what Our Lord said about the need for the grain of wheat to die, in order that it not remain sterile but produce much fruit. If we cannot help feeling the bitter grief of seeing a father and brother stolen away from the visible plane of our existence, we must not act like the pagans of yesterday and today, who live without real love in this world and without hope for the next.

May Our Lady of a Happy Dying, Notre-Dame du Bien Mourir, so venerated at Fontgombault Abbey, our mother-house in France, who manifestly helped our brother through the narrow passage of his last days, obtain for us all to die so well. Thus having followed the path of our monastic spirituality, in imitation of the Ecce, Fiat of the Virgin of Nazareth, may we all come to take our places in the eternal liturgical celebrations of Heaven in the presence of God and of the Lamb. Amen.

The Real Shower of Roses

http://catholicrelics.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/homily-on-the-occasion-of-the-visit-of-the-relics-of-saint-theres-of-lisieux/

St. Therese and Archbishop of Canterbury

Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams referred to St. Therese of Lisieux while preaching at the All Saints Day Mass at All Saints Margaret Street. (All Saints is an Anglo-Catholic bastion in the Church of England.

"When we celebrate the Saints, we celebrate those who have given evidence, who have made God believable by how they have lived and how they have died. The saints are the people who recognise that arguments will finally not win the day. God does not make himself credible by argument. God does not respond to our doubts, our intellectual querying, our uncertainty, by delivering from Heaven a neatly annotated list of logical propositions with which we cannot disagree. (I'm afraid that Professor Dawkins can bang on the doors of Heaven as long as he likes if that is what he expects to happen.) God deals with us by our life and a death, by Jesus. And God continues to deal with us by lives and deaths that make him credible, that make Jesus tangible here and now. All those people who flocked into Westminster Cathedral a couple of weeks' ago to pay their respects to St Therese of Lisieux were recognizing that in her Christ became tangible for her generation and for ours and that is what the Saints do."

http://www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk/documents/BBC_Church_512k.wmv