Bulletins

November 8, 2015

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My mother’s Funeral Mass may have been beautiful and may have moved hearts closer to Jesus, but the purpose of the Sacred Liturgy is not evangelization. Sacrosanctum Concilium clarifies that people need to be evangelized first.

9. The sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church. Before men can come to the liturgy they must be called to faith and to conversion: "How then are they to call upon him in whom they have not yet believed? But how are they to believe him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear if no one preaches? And how are men to preach unless they be sent?" (Rom. 10:14-15).

The words we speak and the lives we live should help others to come to believe in Jesus and to want to amend their lives.

Therefore the Church announces the good tidings of salvation to those who do not believe, so that all men may know the true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, and may be converted from their ways, doing penance (Cf. John 17:3; Luke 24:27; Acts 2:38 ). To believers also the Church must ever preach faith and penance, she must prepare them for the sacraments, teach them to observe all that Christ has commanded (Cf. Matt. 28:20 ), and invite them to all the works of charity, piety, and the apostolate. For all these works make it clear that Christ's faithful, though not of this world, are to be the light of the world and to glorify the Father before men.

When we invite friends to come to Mass with us, we should be ready to explain some things ahead of time and to answer questions afterwards. The Sacred Liturgy did not fail if someone visiting did not understand it.

There is a pamphlet I developed years ago called “The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: A Biblical Prayer”. We will try to keep copies of it available in the vestibule. That and other guides can help newcomers and life-long believers to appreciate the divine authorship of our worship, the angelic origin of some many of our prayers and chants, and the saintly company in which we find ourselves.

That should result in all of us realizing that the need for deeper faith and more perfect contrition is constant.

All you angels and saints, pray for us!

God bless you.

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard