Question for the Week: Whom do you consider a prophet today? How do you honor today’s prophets?
Mission: Gather some symbols that speak to you of God’s revelation present in your life and meditate on those symbols.
From the Pastor
For the Weekend of July 4 & 5
Dear Friends:
It is with great pleasure that I announce that our St. Lawrence School has hired Mrs. Barbara Portales as its Director of Development. Barbara joins the school staff following sixteen years experience in Catholic school fundraising. As Director of Development, Barbara will help build relationships with our school parents, alumni, parish, and community. She will direct programs which will enhance and promote the future growth and development of the parish and school. She will manage all aspects of the school’s fundraising efforts and organize and support the St. Lawrence Alumni Association. She will work closely with the STL Parents Club, the Principal, the Pastor, and serve on the Parish Stewardship Council. Please join me in welcoming Barbara to our St. Lawrence school staff.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Tom Morgan
Liturgical Catechesis - The Sound of Silence
It seemed like a typical Sunday Mass in a typical parish. The opening hymn was joyful, the Sprinkling Rite was effective, and the Glory to God was sung with vigor. Then the presider said, “Let us pray.” The server brought the book to him, but nothing happened. Ten seconds became fifteen, then twenty. People began to look around nervously and wondered: What’s Father waiting for? Did he fall asleep? Is he having a seizure?
In fact, he was simply doing what the liturgy intends. The missal says that, after the priest says “Let us pray,” the priest and people “pray silently for a while.” In some Masses that “while” lasts only a few seconds, but it is intended to be a brief yet significant pause for silent prayer. This is an appropriate time for each of us to recall our particular needs and hopes and present them to the Lord. Then the priest gathers our prayers into one opening prayer, sometimes called a “collect” because it collects our prayers together.
This is one of several places in the liturgy that silence is encouraged by the official books. The liturgy must always be a blend of sounds and silence. Since liturgy is communal worship, it is natural that most of the time we are together will be filled with vocal and musical prayer. Yet there is also a need for moments of silence to allow ourselves to enter more deeply into the worship we share.
The entrance rites contain two moments for silence: a brief one during the penitential rite and a bit longer one before the opening prayer. During the Liturgy of the Word, several other moments call for times of silence. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal encourages such silences before the Liturgy of the Word itself begins, (that is, before the first reading), after the first and second readings and after the homily. It calls for such silences so that “the word of God may be grasped by the heart and a response through prayer may be prepared” (#56).
Another extended time of silence in the liturgy comes after all have received communion. During the communion procession, everyone should be singing the communion song as a sign of our union in Christ. When all the movement of the procession is completed, we sit down together and spend some time in shared silent prayer.
These times of silence don’t work automatically, of course. It takes a deliberate effort from every member of the assembly even to allow silence to occur. The ministers up front may be quiet, but shared silence also requires the assembly to embrace it. Sometimes we seem a bit uncomfortable with silence, because we live in a world of almost constant noise. We need to learn how to be silent together.
And in the silence, each of us must decide whether to engage in sincere prayer or just to daydream. If we embrace these times of silent prayer, however, they can do much to enrich our experience of the liturgy, drawing us closer to Christ and to one another as we worship together.
To date 505 households have responded in participation of our Parish commitment to the
2009 Annual Pastoral Appeal
St. Lawrence's Goal:$303,722.
Amount Pledged:$107,587.18
Pledges Fulfilled to date: $82,416.63
Percentage of goal: 35.42%
Thank you to every parish family that has already made a pledge commitment to the 2009 Annual Pastoral Appeal. If you have not yet made a gift or pledge, please prayerfully consider doing so. Every gift makes a difference – every single gift. Thank you in advance for your generosity and support.
