Memorial of Andrew Dung-Lac, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs
Today our response to the first reading from Daniel is a canticle also from Daniel:
Blessed are you who look into the depths
from your throne upon the cherubim,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever!
Blessed are you in the firmament of heaven,
praiseworthy and glorious forever!
This beautiful canticle is of service to the People of God throughout the liturgical year. We sing it as a responsorial on Trinity Sunday, the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, the Feast of the Guardian Angels, and the Feast of the Archangels. And very fittingly we praise our God with this canticle throughout the Liturgy of the Hours.
It is an example of how the treasure trove that is the liturgical year shapes and forms and enriches us. It is a canticle we can pray when needed as a preparation for the beauty and stillness of Advent.
Advent. Isn’t it already Christmas in the world around us? It is sad that Catholics so readily get caught up in this. The only acknowledgement of this preparation time in many Catholic schools is lighting an Advent wreath. This is unfortunate.
When I was liturgy director at a Catholic high school we moved towards an all-school Advent prayer service instead of a Christmas prayer service on the last day of school before the winter break. Many teachers were up in arms! (The students generally rolled with it…they just wanted time out of class.) I was called a Scrooge and a Grinch. Several faculty, including one in administration, told me that I personally ruined their Christmas (the school essentially was their parish). Some members of my own Religion department asked me why I hated Christmas. One had an adult Grinch costume from Halloween that he offered me to wear at the Advent Prayer Service because, “Everybody knows who is responsible for this!”
Maybe I was just naive but we in campus ministry never saw it coming. What struck me more than anything was the vehemence of people who saw nothing wrong with “letting me have it.” In my decade and a half serving as liturgy coordinator there, I kept up the good fight. When I’d ask my detractors if the Catholic school should keep the same calendar as the Catholic Church I was met with, “That’s your opinion.” One was even the Jesuit rector.
If I heard it once I heard it a dozen times, a 50 year old joke about liturgists: “Know the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? You can negotiate with the terrorist…yuk yuk yuk…”
Not only was I a Grinch and a Scrooge but now I was a terrorist, too.
The liturgical year, about to end in five days and start all over again, is a goldmine if we’ll allow it to form, shape, and hold us — a wonderful underpinning to our faith. Fairly good advice, even if I say so myself, being as I am a Scrooge, a Grinch, and a terrorist.
—Timothy J. Cronin