Articles by Archbishop George Lucas
Eucharist reflects the importance of always giving thanks to God
Nov 24, 2011 / 00:00 amWhen we gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, we will be just a few days away from the introduction of the new Roman Missal. I am thankful for all who have been preparing with such care for this moment of grace. In our prayer, study and reflection on the new translation of the prayers of the Mass, I encourage us all to give thanks for the gift of the Mass, for the privilege of participating right here where we live in the Lord's holy and living sacrifice."Eucharist" means "Thanksgiving." In the holy Eucharist we receive the sacrament of our salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross. We also participate in His sacrifice of praise of the Father, in thanksgiving for the work of creation. In the eucharistic sacrifice, the whole of creation, loved by God, is presented to the Father through the death and resurrection of Christ. Through Christ, the Church is able to offer this sacrifice of praise in thanksgiving for what God has made good and beautiful both in humanity and in all of creation (See "Catechism of the Catholic Church" # 1359-61).The new translation of the Roman Missal will affect priests most directly because the greatest number of changes are found in the prayers spoken by the priest, on behalf of the whole church. I appreciate the preparation of our priests, who will have to navigate prayerfully at the altar the layout of a new book, as well as a new translation. I have a copy of the new missal in my own chapel, and I have been using some of the prayers for spiritual reading and meditation. The Church's beliefs are expressed in her prayers, so I expect that these prayers will be a good source of meditation for the rest of my life.The Eucharistic Prayer is at the heart of the Mass. We might say the unique role of the priest at Mass is most apparent at this time. He stands at the head of the assembled faithful in the person of Jesus Christ. In that privileged sacramental role, he speaks to our heavenly Father and offers the paschal sacrifice. Even though the congregation is silent, it is a time of intense participation for everyone. We listen to the prayers offered by the priest and we make a wholehearted spiritual sacrifice of our lives in union with the risen Christ.As we listen to this central prayer of the Mass, we become more aware of who we are and what we believe. Perhaps it's the time of the year, but as I meditate on the various Eucharistic Prayers in the Roman Missal, I am struck by the importance of giving thanks that is expressed repeatedly. In the dialogue before the Preface, the priest exhorts the congregation; "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God." Most of the Prefaces express a theme that is particular to the liturgical season or to the feast being celebrated. More often than not, the Preface begins with an expression like this: "It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere, to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord."In the second Eucharistic Prayer, after the consecration, the priest prays, "...we offer you, Lord, the Bread of life and the Chalice of salvation, giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you." The third Eucharistic Prayer expresses the same thought in these words: "....we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice." And at the time of the consecration, we recall in prayer that Jesus gave thanks at the Last Supper, as he took the bread and the chalice and blessed them.One of the primary blessings that comes with the gift of faith is to be able to grasp the truth that we are utterly dependent on God. Everything we have and are is God's gift. The more we know about God, the more we come to realize that God does not need us or depend on us for anything. Still God is pleased with our worship, pleased when we offer something to Him. But what can we offer, except what we have already received? The Scriptures and the ancient prayers of the Church help us see that God is pleased to receive our thanks.This beautiful exchange, God's gift and our thanks, reaches a climax each time we celebrate the eucharistic liturgy. God gives us His Son. Jesus offers Himself to the Father for our salvation. As members of the body of Christ, we join His gift of praise and thanks by offering ourselves. Never to be outdone, God gives us the risen Christ as our spiritual food and drink. Now it is our turn to give thanks with lives of service to God and neighbor all week long.We have tried to prepare well to receive the new Roman Missal, because we want to be well prepared to participate in the Mass. The Mass is essential to our lives in Christ. Full participation establishes the pattern of receiving and giving that lasts all week long, all lifelong. We cannot live in Christ without this holy and living sacrifice. We cannot be fully human without this perfect expression of thanks. We should never try to live without it.Happy Thanksgiving to you all. You are in my thankful prayers.Reprinted with permission from the The Catholic Voice Online.
Confession is the best way to prepare for the grace of baptism at Easter
Apr 7, 2011 / 00:00 amThe Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving are not ends in themselves. The less we are full of ourselves, the more room there is to welcome Jesus into the circumstances of our lives. During these weeks, we imitate the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert. We think more clearly about God's purpose for our lives, and we face our temptations more honestly.Unlike Jesus, we find that we have fallen for temptations and substituted, at least in part, our own plans for God's life giving design. We have sinned. As we face our weakness and sin, we keep in mind the mystery of the Lord's cross and resurrection that we will soon celebrate. And we have hope we will not be left alone in the desert to die in our sins. Jesus Himself provides opportunities for refreshment on our Lenten journey to Easter. In particular, He invites us to experience healing and reconciliation in the sacrament of penance.Once we have recognized the fact of sin in our lives, we should take advantage of the sacrament of penance, where, in the person of the priest, we meet the Lord. He has already demonstrated His love for sinners by dying on the cross. He wants to apply the power of the cross to you and me in particular in this sacramental encounter.Why would we avoid this opportunity to meet the Lord who desires to communicate forgiveness and life? I think we avoid confessing our sins and receiving absolution by giving in to a temptation that comes in two parts. The first part of the temptation leads me to think that my sins don't matter, that they are really unimportant in the great scheme of things. Even after committing a serious or mortal sin, I can wake up the next day, go on with life and convince myself that nothing much has changed. A guilty conscience, which is a blessing that helps me judge the truth about myself, can be dulled by avoiding sincere prayer and sound teaching. I can convince myself that sin is simply a violation of another's standards, rather than a violation of God's will and my human dignity or the dignity of another.The second part of the temptation leads me to accept an exaggerated sense of the reality of sin. Having acknowledged a serious sin, or a pattern of sinful behavior that may have gone on for years, I can think of myself as defeated, hopeless. I doubt that a change of heart is possible. I doubt the power of God's grace and love. Perhaps God forgives others, but He couldn't possibly want life for me.I say these are really two parts of the same temptation. It is the temptation to keep Jesus out of our lives, or at least to keep Him on the fringe. That is always the work of the devil, isn't it, to get us to reason ourselves into a world without Jesus? His mission from the Father is to save us from sin, from ourselves, even at the cost of His own life. The prayer, fasting and almsgiving of Lent have only one purpose, to help us be more open to the presence and action of Jesus for our salvation.I encourage you to plan to celebrate the sacrament of penance and reconciliation before Easter. Your sins and mine have hurt us, they have hurt the Body of Christ, the Church, and they have offended God. That is the truth that cannot be reasoned away. We can face that truth because we know that what has been broken can be restored in and through Jesus Christ. There will be many opportunities in all of our parishes in the coming weeks for this sacramental encounter with Jesus, our Savior and brother.There are a number of published guides to help Catholics make a good confession. The priest is always ready to assist the penitent, especially one who has been away from the sacrament for a long time. Try to picture how Jesus always welcomed weak and sinful people. He is waiting to welcome you in just the same way.Our appreciation for this sacrament, as well as our desire for its benefits, can be deepened by a reflection on the elements that make up this meeting with the merciful Lord. It begins with our contrition, a heartfelt sorrow for sin and the intention of sinning no more. We will express this formally in a prayer of contrition during the sacrament, but it is really contrition that gets us in the door.The sacrament of penance includes the confession of particular sins and their frequency. They flow from knowledge of self before God and from contrition for our sins. We face this self knowledge and make a confession of sins always in the light of God's mercy. The penitent opens his or her heart to the priest, who acts in the person of Christ who gave the Church the authority to forgive sins.The priest gives a penance that helps us in two ways. We offer a prayer or a good act to God as a way of making up in some small way for the damage - the injustice - done by our sins. By performing the penance we also take a step away from sin and in the direction of Christ.Finally the priest speaks the words of absolution, the sign that God is granting pardon to the penitent. God wants us to hear these powerful words with our own ears. They refute the lie that sin is either trivial or unforgivable. This is the welcome home to our Father's house, the restoration of our inheritance of grace.The Rite of Penance states: "In the sacrament of penance the Father receives the repentant children who come back to Him, Christ places the lost sheep on His shoulders and brings them back to the sheepfold, and the Holy Spirit resanctifies those who are the temple of God or dwells more fully in them."There is no better way to prepare to be renewed in the grace of baptism at Easter.Reprinted with permission from the The Catholic Voice Online.
Beauty and simplicity of the rosary continues to attract people to this 'popular' devotion
Oct 21, 2010 / 00:00 amDuring the month of October, the Church invites all of us to take up the prayerful devotion of the rosary. The rosary is a good way to pray at any time of the year, in any circumstance. If you have never been used to praying the rosary, this is a good time to take it up and learn it - it is not burdensome or difficult. You may want to take it up again if you have put it aside for a while.In any case, I invite you to make use of this age-old Catholic prayer with a renewed consciousness and reflection on the mysteries of God's love for us in Jesus Christ.Mary, the mother of Jesus, is our spiritual guide through these mysteries. No one in the communion of saints is closer to Jesus than she is. We imagine Mary at prayer when, in the fullness of time, the angel announced to her God's plan for her participation in the salvation of the world.Although Mary had been prepared for her unique role in God's plan, she had the freedom to accept it or not. God had made her full of grace. She made her life a gift back to God, "Let it be done to me according to your word." The "Word" which shaped Mary's whole being from then on is Jesus, the Son of God.At the time that Mary put her life in God's hands, she could not have known everything that her gift would mean. She walked by faith through the mysteries of Jesus' birth, life teaching, suffering, death and resurrection. She learned at every step what it meant not only to be the mother of Jesus, but also to be his disciple. At Pentecost, she received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the infant Church. Her ongoing fidelity strengthened the apostles to carry out the mission, given to them by the Lord, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.Mary remains with us in the communion of saints. She is called "Mother of the Church," and that title describes not just an honor, but an active role she plays in the life of the Church in every age. She helps guide us today, as she guided the first followers of Jesus. With Mary, we learn and then live the various aspects of Jesus' saving mission. Having been claimed by Christ in baptism, we learn, as Mary did, how to give ourselves to Him more freely all the time, cooperating with the grace that is God's gift to us.All of that can seem very abstract. The rosary helps make our journey with Mary through the mysteries of faith more concrete. The rosary is called a "popular" devotion. This is not only because it is prayed by so many. It is a people's devotion. It can be learned and prayed by anyone. It is literally in the hands of the people. It came into wide use in some places when people looked for a way to follow the example of monks who prayed the Liturgy of the Hours at times throughout the day. Most of the faithful would not have had access to books containing, the 150 Psalms, and many would not have been able to read in any case. The rosary provided a means of prayer that was portable and accessible to all.The beauty and simplicity that attracted people to the rosary centuries ago still draw us to this devotion in our time. The format is a simple contrast to the complexity of modern culture. Whether we pray the rosary alone or in a group, it draws us out of the isolation that our world often encourages. We meet Mary in this prayer, which is clearly offered to God and not to her. She helps us face the particular challenge we may find at the moment in our journey of faith. As Mary learned, we also learn that our saying yes to God must be renewed each day.We can never know all there is to know about how God loves us in His Son, Jesus Christ. We are never finished, in this life, being conformed freely to Christ. This is a process that Mary herself experienced as she cooperated with grace. She is able and she desires to assist us by her own example and prayers. She is with us as we pray the rosary at home, in the car, while taking a walk, when praying before the Blessed Sacrament. We welcome her into our homes and our lives, as St. John welcomed her after the crucifixion of Jesus.Catholic bookstores and websites have available simple guides for praying the rosary. There are many helps for meditating on the glorious, joyful, sorrowful and luminous mysteries of our faith. Someone who prays the rosary regularly is always happy to teach it to another.Whenever anyone asks me to bless a new set of rosary beads, I am happy to do so. I always invite that person to pray a decade for me when they have the chance. I am asking you to do the same during this month of the rosary. I promise to pray for you, too. We know we can count on Mary's prayers as we learn to be more faithful disciples of her son, Jesus Christ.Reprinted with permission from Catholic Voice Online