You Are Invited!

You are Invited to attend one of the

Saint Leonard/Saint Frances of Rome Parish Worship Listening Sessions:

• Saturday, May 20th, 2:30 – 3:30PM in the St. Leonard Cafeteria

OR

• Sunday, May 21st, 1:00 – 2:00PM in the Clifton Center Reception Hall

Worship is the core of our community and our individual lives.  We spent the 40 days of Lent growing closer to our Lord through prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  Holy Week we journeyed together through the Lord’s Passion, Death and into his Resurrection at Easter.  Our Easter joy is still fresh and alive in our minds and hearts throughout this Easter season.

You are invited during these days to prepare for our Worship Listening Sessions.  The SFR/SL Worship Committee will be offering articles and videos related to worship each week.  We encourage you to take a few minutes to review and reflect on the information shared and pray for the success of our Worship Listening Sessions.

When you see and hear the word Worship, what does it mean to you?  Close your eyes for a few minutes and think about a profound faith-filled experience.  When did this experience take place?  What was happening around you?  How did it make you feel?

This week, we are going to hear from two community members.

John Wilcox, Saint Leonard

Worship to me means to give expression to the awesomeness of God.  God, the eternal creator of all that exists, is great beyond all human comprehension, and there can be nothing greater.  But if God is as great as this, how can any human action give expression to this greatness?  This question is especially puzzling when we consider how ordinary and mundane our lives are day-to-day.  What could I possibly do to express how wonderful God is?  Should I try to do something utterly outrageous, like climbing a mountain and shouting?  Or, might I instead hope to find some way to express God’s majesty in a routine way that integrates God into my daily life?  It seems to me that the first option, to attempt to perform some magnificent act, misses the point, because it would necessarily fall short.  But how could a daily routine give expression to how great God is?  I imagine the daily routine of monks as trying to express a sense of the eternal by living every day the same.  Though I do not claim to have the discipline of a monk, I have adopted a daily prayer routine through which I acknowledge my weakness and my dependence on God; I remember also to give thanks, and to ask for help getting through another ordinary day without foisting my petty troubles onto other people.  I am grateful for the prayers that have been handed down to us by the Church, including the Rosary and the Memorare prayer to Mary, the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, and prayers to St. Joseph.  I also include every day a prayer to St. Dymphna, the patroness for mental disorders, to ask God to help all the people I know who struggle with anxiety and depression.  After these prayers, I turn to usccb.org for the daily scripture readings of the Church and short video reflections by rotating speakers.  Through this daily practice, I hope to remind myself every day that at the end of days, God is what matters.

Karen Brian, Saint Frances of Rome

One experience that was very meaningful for me was a Tenebrae service that I attended years ago late at night on Good Friday.  Tenebrae means “darkness” or “shadows” and upon entry, the church was dark except for 15 lighted candles behind the altar.  Each participant also had a small candle.  There were no distractions and no noise, only small candles scattered throughout the darkness and the silence.

The service was a combination of alternating psalms and antiphons in which an altar candle was extinguished after each reading of the psalms.  As my visual senses were lessened by the darkness, I was more attentive to the words of the psalms, more receptive to the ethereal singing coming from the choir loft, and had the sense I was experiencing some spiritual connection, yet it was happening communally as well.   At the end of the service, the final candle, symbolizing Jesus, was extinguished.   A gong sounded and we all departed in silence.

As I think back to that night, I lack the words to describe that experience but felt that I was definitely a part of the whole.  I was taking part in something much bigger than myself.