June 4, 2023
Most Holy Trinity Sunday
by Fr. Boniface Endorf, O.P
Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,
This Tuesday we celebrate Confirmation for our religious education (CCD) students. Bishop Whalen will be here to celebrate the Mass and the sacrament of Confirmation. Please keep those about to receive Confirmation in your prayers.
This Monday, Fr. Jonah Teller OP arrives and will serve as our new vicar at St. Joseph’s. Fr. Clement Dickie OP will remain here but will be serving at the Catholic Center at NYU with Fr. Isaiah Beiter OP. You’ll see all of them at our Sunday Masses. Please welcome Fr. Jonah to St. Joseph’s!
This Friday our next Thomistic Institute lecture series continues. Fr. John Baptist Ku OP will speak about Virtue in Human Action. It should be a great talk so please join us this Friday at 6pm in McGuire Hall. You can register for the event through the QR code in the bulletin or on the webpage.
God Bless,
Fr. Boniface
Mass Tidbit:
During the Eucharistic Prayer the priest speaks to God the Father, praying and interceding on behalf of those present at the Mass and for the whole Church. During the consecration the priest speaks in the person of Christ: “This is my body,” meaning Christ’s body, not the priest’s. At all times God is the intended focal point of the liturgy.
Thus, for the vast majority of Church history, from the earliest days of Christianity until the 1970’s, the priest, when praying the Eucharistic Prayer, faced with the people toward the East. Churches, when geography allowed, faced East because the sun rises in the East, and so the East represents Christ’s return. Therefore, the priest and the people all faced East, joining their prayers together to pray toward God. In the 1970’s, priests started to face the people. This change makes it harder to understand what is happening at the Mass because the symbolism is thrown off—it can appear that the priest is speaking to the people, with God behind his back, but in reality he is speaking to God on behalf of the whole congregation. The effect of this change was to make the priest more central to the liturgy because he faces the people and thus becomes the center of attention, rather than God. Many liturgical abuses and silliness followed after priests starting facing the people during the Eucharistic Prayer, as priests often started to act as performers during the liturgy.
During the Eucharistic Prayer, try to join your interior prayer with the priest’s towards God. The center of the Mass is God, not the priest, who is only a middleman. We are all seeking from the God the fulfillment of Christ’s promises: our salvation, and so we should always have our attention turned toward God.
