A Treasure To Be Shared

(CNS photo/Vatican Media) Lights, smoke, an elevated platform, guitars, drums, keyboards, and a large crowd facing the performers. A religious service or a rock concert? Candles, incense (... maybe), an elevated platform, guitars, drums, keyboards, and a large congregation facing the clergy. Same question. 'Praise and worship' is a label borrowed from evangelical and charismatic Protestant lexicons. The Catholic understands that God desires to be worshipped and praised in the Divine Liturgy. In the Mass, the Catholic can say, "I was gathered into the offering of the Son to the Father. I participated in the self-offering of God today." God has revealed to us how He wants to be worshipped. Jesus established the model for Catholic worship (St. Matthew 26:17-30). The Latin Rite liturgy has expanded or contracted over the centuries. Universal adjustments were modest until the Bugnini Concilium (1964 - 1969) instituted considerable revisions. A later council of ten faithful...

Holy Communion by Candlelight Rorate Caeli is Latin for “Drop down, ye heavens” and are the opening words of the Introit (which is an opening psalm or antiphon), the text from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah 45:8. Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant justum, aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem. Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior. – Isaiah 45:8 "A Rorate Caeli Mass" - also known since the 8th Century as the Missa Aurea (Golden Mass) or the Missa Angelica , "is traditionally celebrated just before dawn in Advent as a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Mass is only lit by candles, representing Mary’s role in bringing the Light of the World into the darkness of the world." - National Shrine in Champion Photos by D. Duchesne Saint John Henry's in Victoria, a quasi-parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter hosted at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish, is...