sense of the sacred: National Congress of the Clergy

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

National Congress of the Clergy

I have been attending the Second National Congress of the Clergy since Monday, 25 January, 2010. It is rather a very impressive assembly of 5, 500 priests from all over the Philippines. Rev. Fr. Raniero Cantalamesa, OFM Cap., Preacher to the Papal Household, gave the conferences. The conferences were meditations on the Pentecost event as, according to Fr. Cantalamesa, the first need of the Church is the Holy Spirit, so is He also the first need of the priesthood. "The priesthood needs a perennial Pentecost." The emphasis of the talks was the relationship of the Holy Spirit and the priests. This relationship is important because it was only when the Apostles received the Holy Spirit did they emerge from the cenacle as changed men. The same Holy Spirit is the one who transforms priests and configures them to Christ, the High Priest.

Pray for priests most especially during these days so that the National Congress may truly be a spiritual event, a venue for authentic renewal of the clergy!

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We ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties. The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-Holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the Alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers an interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the Totally Other, whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is transformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the Living God but the priest or the liturgical director. - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Chile, 1988)

Do we still need sacred space, sacred time, mediating symbols? Yes, we do need them, precisely so that, through the "image," through the sign, we learn to see the openness of heaven. We need them to give us the capacity to know the mystery of God in the pierced heart of the Crucified. - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Spirit of the Liturgy )