Christian Unity Week 2011

Hello again, time for another post,

This has been an interesting week here at the seminary. The first interesting thing since my last post was last Wednesday we had the “Reader Mass”. During this Mass the men in first year theology studies are installed as “Lectors”. This doesn’t mean as much now as it did in the past. Throughout much of Church history it was only the Ordained who could proclaim the readings from Scripture. Over time and I am not sure exactly when, it was seen that this could also be done by a man in training for the ordained ministry. So along the way they had what are termed “minor orders” or steps in what you are allowed to do in the Mass. The two most visible ones that we still talk about at all are “lector” or reader, and “acolyte” or server.

The Church no longer limits the reading of Scripture during Mass to men who have received this minor order (it isn’t really an ordination, but an installation)… but we still have a special Mass for these men in the seminary and try to follow the use of only those installed as much as we can here. It was nice, and is a nice pick-me-up for the guys that received this installation since it is another step in the process.

For the past week (ending today) the Catholic Church has celebrated “Christian Unity Week”. This is the week when we make extra prayers for understanding and commonality amongst all Christians (interreligious week is at another time). To emphasize this point we even has Mass on Sunday celebrated in the Byzantine Rite. A Rite is more than just another way of going about the process of Mass. A Rite is another tradition, but in communion with the Pope in Rome. This is different from other denominations that don’t recognize when Christ appointed St. Peter as the leader of the Church and his successors. There are 5 main rite that are accepted within the Catholic Church and Byzantine is the second largest (after the Latin Rite, which is what most people in the US are familiar with). One of the priests on campus is “bi-ritual” meaning that he is authorized to celebrate Mass in either the Latin Rite or the Byzantine Rite. He set up to have a Byzantine choir come to lead us, as well as giving us a worship guide and setting up the sanctuary. It was a great experience. I hope to pray in this form again some time, as I felt that I did miss out on some of the prayerfulness due to the novelty of it.

Sunday afternoon was of course the important Packers-Bears game. Living in the Chicago Archdiocese I was a minority rooting for the Packers, but they are of course heading to the superbowl.

Also over the weekend into today a large group of guys was gone to the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. This is the event to commemorate the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court which made abortion legal throughout the US. This sad decision has cost the lives of at least 38 million babies, and some estimates put that number as high as 55 million in the last 38 years. I went to the March last year, so I decided not to go this year. Hopefully it won’t be needed next year, but if it is I may go then… we’ll see what my class schedule is looking like.

Peace,
Adam