As you prepare for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 31 & August 1, 2010)...

Read  Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17.  Read the text aloud several times, giving meaning to each word.  Notice how you speak it--to which words do you give the emphasis?  Whisper it and see what syllables are stressed.  Now chant this text on a single tone in natural speech rhythm--but not too fast--paying close attention to the emphases you just discovered!

Psalm 90, from which this week's responsorial psalm is taken, contrasts the stability and steadfastness of God with the uncertainty and transcience of human life.  The verses used in the lectionary express Israel's prayer that God teach them true assessment of their life and work.  As the first reading, Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23, indicates, they already realize hard work and physical possessions give no sure value.  What is worth possessing is the kind and gracious care of God.  In the gospel readng, Luke 12:13-21, Jesus affirms this stance when he challanges hearers to turn from evaluating their worth based on physical possessions to evaluating it based on being "rich in what matters to God."

It is significant that the psalm refrain is taken, not from Psalm 90, but from Psalm 95, a psalm that refers to the infidelity of Israel's ancestors during their desert exodus from salvery to the Promised Land.  No matter how much God gave them (water, manna), they constantly whined that they did not have enough.  The lectionary's choice of this refrain, Psalm 95:8, is acknowledgment that reckoning our days and assessing our worth in God's terms is always a challenge.  May this be the work God prospers in us.

Prayer:  Loving God, you offer us abundant life in you.  Teach us to treausre you and your will above all earthly possessions so that we may come to share in your eternal life.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

At the end of June, we will begin a Summer Choir—an intergenerational pick up group, so to speak, that will gather a half hour prior to mass to rehearse the preparation song (along with the cantor).  This opportunity is provided so that “regular” choir members do not get totally out of the habit and those “interested” in joining a choir may do so on a weekly basis, at their desired mass time.  The rotating schedule of Summer Choir offerings will be as follows: 

June 27 - 8:30 AM mass at IC  "The Love of the Lord"

July 4 - 10:15 AM mass at IC  "This Is My Song"

July 11 - 12 PM mass at IC  "Make Me a Channel of Your Peace"

July 18 - 9 AM mass at SJ  "Around You, O Lord Jesus"

July 24 - 5 PM mass at IC  "Seek Ye First"

August 1 - 8:30 AM mass at IC  "Only This I Want"

August 8 - 10:15 AM mass at IC  "I Danced in the Morning"

August 15 - 12 PM mass at IC  "Hail, Holy Queen"

August 22 - 9 AM mass at SJ  "We Gather in Worship"

August 28 - NO SUMMER CHOIR DUE TO DIACONATE ORDINATION IN A.M.

September 5 - NO SUMMER CHOIR DUE TO LABOR DAY WEEKEND

Our music ministry has been selected by the Diocese of Wilmington to provide the music for the Diaconate Ordination to be held on Saturday, August 28 at 11:00 a.m. at St. Margaret of Scotland Church in Glascow.  One of the transitional deacons is this parish's very own Joseph McQuaid.

You are invited to join the choir and provide instrumental music (high school proficiency or higher) for the event.  There will be two rehearsals, both on Thursdays from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m., on August 19 (at ICC) and 26 (hopefully at SMS).  Come make a joyful noise and support Joey as he prepares for his final year of seminary in Rome!

With our everyday lives and all the possessions we have it is easy to lose sight of the true focus; so it is with liturgy itself.  Without realizing it we can get so completely caught up in the doing of liturgy that subtly we put ourselves at the center.  For example, we can be so concerned about hospitality that we forget this isn't a simple gathering of folks but an assembly gathered to hear God's call to be in divine presence.  Or we can be so caught up in doing good music that we forget that music's purpose is to draw us into the ritual action to be transformed into being more perfect members of Christ's Body, the Church.  Or we can be so caught up in our own need for private prayer time that we can easily forget that at liturgy we surrender ourselves and our own needs in order to be an assembly called into God's presence.

Each Sunday it would be a good practice for each assembly member to examine why he or she comes to celebrate liturgy.  Ultimately we come to respond to God's call and to give praise and thanks for God's tremendous gifts of life and self to us.  At each liturgy committee meeting it would be good practice to ask what exactly is the parish's focus of liturgy?  What are the subtle ways we place ourselves and our own needs at the center?  How faithful are we to the church's practice of liturgy that draws us into God's presence for transformation?