prayer, beauty, quiet service . . . talking to the MBMG

My task today is to explain to you, supposedly, the role and function of the MBMG in the liturgy.  My initial reaction was, what do I know about the function of the MBMG in the liturgy.  The person who formally handed me the letter for this request is I think a mind reader or just a quick-thinking lady because without me asking or even revealing my predicament, she said, Msgr. do you want the MBMG handbook.  Thank God for her, now I know where to get my talk.  Last Monday however as I sat down to gather my thoughts for this paper and write them down, it dawned on me – why am I being asked to answer the question what is the role of an MBMG in the liturgy, and worst, to answer that, why am I being made to read the MBMG handbook.  Frankly, if you ask me what is the role of a priest in the liturgy, I would answer you and probably write a treatise on the subject.  But to ask me what is the role of an MBMG, how would I know, I am not an MBMG.  You are the MBMG!  And imagine to make me read your manual just so I can tell you the answer you should have known in the first place, in a manual you yourself should have been reading.  Goodness!  

Anyway I already accepted this and so I better come up with something for this talk.  And so instead of simply answering the question directly allow me therefore to put spirituality in what you are doing in the liturgy.  So three points for today so that you won’t waste your time with me.

I have already resigned from the liturgy a long time ago (so next time don’t approach me for this kind of talk) I have resigned because I don’t want to grow old answering questions whether this bishop is wearing his miter correctly, whether this priest has raised the chalice properly.  I don’t want to grow old concelebrating in a pontifical mass and all I can remember afterward was what the master of ceremonies forgot to do.  No, I don’t want to do that anymore.  I just want to pray, to come out of the mass having prayed, inspired, touched and perhaps transformed and moved. 

So first, as an MBMG you are facilitators of prayer.  You are not a couture or a fashion designer.  You are not somebody’s slave who do their laundry and iron their clothes.  No.  Yes, you dress up bishops and priests and deacons.  Yes you provide them clean and beautiful vestments, you prepare the altar with clean and beautiful linens.  But all these you do because you facilitate prayer.  You desire that people could pray and pray well.  You are happy when people come out of the liturgy radiant and glowing in their faces because they have encountered God in prayer.  And this is the most important mission of MBMG.  You will do with whatever means at your disposal to facilitate prayer.  

And how is this specifically with an MBMG, how does an MBMG facilitate prayer?  By creating something beautiful.  Where did you first experience that there is a God, where did you experience the divine?  Our first contact, our initial encounter with the divine is through beauty.  Catechesis will come later, religion class will come later.  My first encounter with God was when I was made to recite the poem by Cecil Frances Alexander.  As I was reciting this when I was a small boy my teacher told me when you recite it imagine you’re on top of the mountain surrounded by the beauty of nature, butterflies flopping and birds chirping and bees buzzing, with flowers and trees and shrubs and the cool breeze blowing, then recite the poem -

All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
the Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
he made their glowing colors,
he made their tiny wings. 

He gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God Almighty,
who has made all things well. 

 

We encounter God in beauty.  With my parents and with my grandmother in particular, my first introduction to God was a beautiful church decorated with lovely and colorful flowers and candles lighted all over; my initial encounter with God was the beautiful smell of incense slowly wafting from the censer, filling the air with an otherworldly wonderful smell;  my initial encounter with God was when I saw that godly and pristine white sautana of a priest walking briskly yet quietly, the wind blowing it gently.  

And so when we make things well, when we create things of beauty, people encounter God.  

A charismatic once told me how she started her day with prayer.  She would go through her morning ritual of brushing her teeth and washing her face, and combing her hair and dressing up before she could face her God – her Father and God.  She had to make herself beautiful before God and so she has to prepare herself .  This is what I am also encouraging you to do - to make every effort to put into action the movement of the heart that yearns to do and be the best before its God, a heart that yearns to make the encounter well prepared, done well and beautiful.

And so this is the first point - You are facilitators of prayer and you do so through beauty.

Second, prayer is never an end in itself.  Our prayer has always been a means to make us love God and to make us more loving toward each other. It is not an end in itself in the sense that since we have already a beautiful liturgy we will all go to heaven and be counted among the exemplary parishes.  That is not enough.  

There is this community who after rearranging the altar and the sanctuary, and after providing for an offertory procession, realized in desperation that they still do not love one another.  Indeed no matter how rubrically correct is our liturgy if it does not lead to conversion, if it does not deepen our love for God and neighbor, if it does not empower us to build real communities in our midst, something is terribly missing in our liturgies, something is terribly missing in our prayer.  To be so immersed in church construction, to be so immersed in beautifying your church, to be so immersed in the beautiful vestments we create….

St. John Chrysostom has this to say:  Give Jesus the honor prescribed in his law by giving your riches to the poor. For God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts.  Now, in saying this I am not forbidding you to make such gifts; I am only demanding that along with such gifts and before them you give alms. He accepts the former, but he is much more pleased with the latter. In the former, only the giver profits; in the latter, the recipient does too. A gift to the church may be taken as a form of ostentation, but an alms is pure kindness.

There is an intrinsic link between our prayer and the work of justice.  One way or the other those who take seriously the liturgy, those who pray the liturgy cannot help but become social activist – probably in varying degrees but a social activist nevertheless. 

If you remember the gospel of the transfiguration, Jesus was transfigured before his disciple his face lighted up like the sun and his clothes became white as light.  Peter was so entranced, and he was described as being out of his mind when he suggested that they remain there on the mountain with eyes transfixed and hypnotized in such glorious sight. But Jesus had to wake them up from their reverie thereby showing to men and women in all ages that the encounter with God in the liturgy, the encounter with God in prayer, no matter how beautiful and hypnotizing necessarily leads us to come down the mountain, come down the mountain, transfigured, strengthened, renewed.  Our encounter with God must transfigure us to become loving persons, it should transform us to become caring communities.  And so this is our second point, prayer no matter how beautiful is not an end in itself but a means to make us love God and to make us more loving toward each other.

And so we go now to the third point.  As an MBMG your service, and therefore your path to holiness is in your anonymity, your hiddenness, remaining contently unseen in the background.  Your holiness lies in doing well your supporting role in the liturgy.  Like the masons who built the majestic cathedral or craftsmen and women who crafted perfectly the stained glass windows, yours too is a hidden life, a hidden service so that other people can pray.  When you go to church to pray, do you lovingly recall the architect who designed this building, or the carpenters who installed the altar?  No.  You pray unmindful of them and yet because of them you prayed well.  People often admire the priests who did well his homily and who said mass with great solemnity and reverence.  Most often people admire the choir, the wonderful singing that lifts hearts and minds to God.  Most often they admire the servers who executed every movement with perfunctory skill and finesse.  But who admires the MBMG, who remembers and takes notice of them?  If the vestments are admired people often say Father you have beautiful vestments, priests don’t usually say let us thank the MBMG for washing and ironing our vestments.  Probably you will only be acknowledged during occasions like this.  Or worst when you are no longer around.  Your hiddenness is your path to holiness.  

I would like to compare your work to that of the Blessed Virgin Mary when she was presented and interned for temple duties at the age of 3, according to the apocryphal gospel called the Protoevangelium of James.

In that particular writing it is said that Mary was born to Joachim and Anne after years of waiting and praying.  Because of such tremendous gift the couple decided to offer Mary to the service of God in the temple.  So when Mary was three years old, her parents brought her to the temple so that she can begin her service.  It is said that the high priest waited for them at the door of the temple, and to reach the door they have to climb fifteen steps.  The parents aided Mary as she struggled to climb the first step, but on the second step, she freed her hands from the grasp of her parents, stood straight and climbed the rest of the steps alone.  This was to show that she was willingly and wholeheartedly offering her life to God.  The high priest on seeing this knew immediately that Mary is called to something greater.

Women took temple duties, they clean, they wash, they sew, they iron, they arrange and put things in order.  This too was the work of Mary until she was 14 years old, when at that age she was given in marriage to Joseph.  These women were not seen and yet they dedicated their lives serving God, quietly, silently, far from the limelight, hidden from view or the accolades of people.  When Jesus said, “do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, do not babble like hypocrites who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them . . . do good in secret, for your Father who sees in secret will repay you,”  when Jesus said this, I would like to think that he had his mother in mind.

In the gospel according to Luke Jesus narrated to his disciples the attitude of servants saying,  “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’?  Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded?  So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’” (17:7-10)  This is the spirituality of servants.  Take this gospel to heart because this is the kind of service you’re giving to the church.  Do not run after accolades and praises and affirmations.  Be humble servants.  Be at home being ignored.

And so I end this short reflection on the spirituality that is needed to fulfill your roles and responsibilities in the liturgy so that they can be the means to your growth in Jesus, so that they can be a means to your growth in your service to the church and so that they can be a means for the growth of the church itself.