Sometimes in life we get all caught up with presents, baking, parties, and decorating we forget what we're preparing to celebrate. So as a litle help to reflect, here's some neat videos to get your back to the reason for the season. It is very easy and with good intentions to get swept up and feel overwhelmed this season. I encourage you all as families to take a moment each day to be still and know the peace, hope, love and joy found in Christ, Emmanuel- God with us.
Just a follow up to those looking for some resources to learn more and share about the lifes of the saints. Lifeteen has a great new blog post summarizing a lot of their recent work and resources about the saints. Check it out!
Last night the Youth Ministry Office of the Diocese of Saskatoon hosted an event called Inception. There we challenged young people to start living and working for Christ everyday - to take up the challenge of what it means to be the hands and feet of Christ. In the spirit of Blessed John Paul II, to be not afraid to be change agents in the world through simple acts of love!
Translation can be a messy and sometimes imperfect science. You might say it is a tricky treat! (lame, I know).
A good example is our recent pilgrimage to Spain for World Youth Day. As some people may know, there was a huge storm that broke the evening of the Saturday Vigil with the Pope out at Quatro Vientros airfield with close to 2 million young people. Due to the severe weather some of the planned activities changed, along with closing of some side chapels and eventually availability to receive communion for every person at the Sunday closing mass (luckily we did after the closing mass due to the heroic work of our Bishop and Fr. Matthew Ramsey). This all lead to some very interesting announcements as we awoke in our sleeping bags the Sunday morning.
The MC's would make announcements in Spanish and English, then followed translated into many different languages. We first we're told that the missing kids from the night before we're found, but then they lost 22 others! Then we were informed in english that "due to the hurricane last night, the chapels we're damaged and we cannot give out communion to everyone." This had us frustrated, confused but ultimately laughing. It was quite funny to think the thunderstorm and wind we endured in this desert like climate was the equivalent to an hurricane. Obviously the MC's have never been through a hurricane, or something was lost in translation... a theme that would continue. Finally, Fr. Matthew turns to me getting word that how this all eventually translated into the German announcement was summarized quiet simply and directly. It was something to the effect of, "There will be no communion; the church is broken".
Obviously, there was a little more to the story then that, and it wasn't quite a "hurricane" either. The point of this story being, it is easy to miss the point and loose something in translation. This Advent, there will be changes coming to a mass near you as we implement the new General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM, an unfortunate acronym) and the revised translation we have for many parts and responses during mass.
This has lead some people to be really up in knots over the changes, even predicting people will leave the church over it. Some say no big deal, some say the sky is falling. The sky isn't falling. This is a change, but it isn't the vastness of Vatican II. The church is just revising the language we use during mass, by translating in a different way then we used before. They are using formal equivalence over dynamic... a buch of mumbo jumbo that essential means we're using words closer to the latin text we're translating from.
Mark Hart, aka the Bible Geek and Vice-President of Lifeteen (a great Catholic Youth Ministry) explains it easy enough in the linked video. Pass it around to those asking questions or worried the church will be broken come November 27th. Perhaps even sit down with your family for 4-5 minutes and watch it together.
Let us see this not as a burden or something to cope with - but an opportunity, a movement of the Holy Spirit. Let's do as Mark suggests, as has our Bishop and many church leaders in our own Diocese. Let us be patient, be loving, be obedient and see this as an opportunity to learn and renew our love and understanding of Sacred Scripture!
Just a note to check out some of the new great outreach ministry happening by Pure Witness Ministries headed up by Carmen and James Marcoux. The 3rd Saturday of the month sees two great gatherings for young people and families. Consider checking them out!
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