It is Sunday morning (or Saturday evening), what do you need to do to get ready for Mass? If you are parents with young children, it probably involves coraling them together, making sure that they are properly dressed, getting them to the bathroom, depending on how old the children are there might be some debating as to “why do we have to go to Church.” Having witnessed this several times while visiting my sisters, all I can say is “God Bless you parents, and thank you for doing your best to pass on the Faith to your children.” For those of us without children, getting ready for Mass might be less hectic, but it is still important.
What is clear is that Mass doesn’t just happen all by itself. Like any celebration it takes planning, preparation, and people to get things done. Now the Church has already done most of the planning. The priest does not have a lot of options as to which Mass he is going to celebrate. Today is the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. The readings for this Mass have been already selected by the Church -- occasionally we might have to decide to do the long form of the reading or the short. Further, the what we do during the Mass has already been planned out by the Church. There might be a few choices as to which greeting the priest uses, which Preface and Eucharistic Prayer is said, but most of the actions during the Mass has already been determined (the priest and deacons should “do the red and say the black” as I was taught in the seminary).
However, there is still a lot that needs to be done to make Mass happen each week. Usually the maintenance staff and some volunteers have gone through to make sure that the church is clean, that the hymnals are out and available. In the office, Mariana has prepared the Prayers of the Faithful and any announcements. The musicians have rehearsed the music for the weekend so that they can lead us in song. Immediately before Mass, the deacons and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion (EMHCs) have gotten the chalices ready with wine, and made sure that we have enough hosts out for Holy Communion. The ushers should be greeting people as they come in, assisting our guests who might ask where the restrooms are, and making sure that the bulletins are ready to be handed out after Mass. The readers have gone over the readings for the week, learned how to pronounce some of the Biblical names. The priest and/or deacon has prepared a homily.
I mention all this because as part of our Rebuilding project, we need to be aware of our needs. The most important thing that we do as a parish community is the weekend Mass, so we need to make sure we do all we can to be prepared for it. I recently did a count of how many liturgical ministers we need each month to cover the weekend Masses. It is about 250, perhaps less. Ideally I would like to have 2 altar servers, 2 readers, 3-4 EMHCS, 4 ushers, a cantor and a musician at each Mass, and ideally I would like to have enough so that people would only have to serve once a month.
We only have less than half the number we would ideally like to have. Now, many that we do have are very happy to serve more than once a month, but still, I think we need to make a push to recruit more. Please pray about this. When I used to train altar servers I would tell them that they were not like waiters in a restaurant. Waiters are not part of the celebration, they just assist the celebration by bringing the food. Altar servers might assist the celebration by helping set the altar, but they are also part of the celebration. Well that is true for all of us. We should not just “attend” Mass, we should participate -- “full, active, participation” as they said during Vatican II -- in the Mass.
While we certainly can do that from the pews, I would ask you to please consider volunteering for one of the liturgical ministries. I am sure some of you play a musical instrument or sing. Both the folk group and the adult choir are looking for members. I am guessing that most of you can read, maybe you could volunteer to proclaim the Word of God once a month. Children in 5th grade and above are encouraged to becoming Altar Servers; I am even open to the idea of adult Altar Servers. For those who have a particular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, talk with me and we can discern if God is calling you to be an EMHC. And if you are just a friendly person, talk with me or Deacon Dan about becoming an usher.