PASTOR'S PONDERINGS

Dear Family,

We all know the expression, “time flies” and how true it is! I remember as a child how summer break seemed so long and now summer has come and gone. This week alone, twice I dated something for September, and it was only Wednesday of this week it dawned on me that we are halfway through October, entering November and not in September entering October. The passage of time is measured in so many ways: there is of course the normal calendar, then there is the liturgical calendar (I have to be honest; this is my greatest marker of time) and then there are the events of life that mark things as well. 

Twice a year I have the great privilege of celebrating Mass for a priest who was very dear to me, Fr Paschal. I doubt I would be a priest if it weren’t for him and his influence throughout most of my seminary career. Fr Paschal died a year and two months before I was ordained a transitional deacon, so I always reckon the years of his passing by that. Last week, on his birthday, I offered Mass for him once more. As I write this, I realize that it sounds macabre, if not sad. I remember him with great joy and happiness.  In a phone call, I told a seminarian about a wedding I did “a little more than a year ago” and that the happy couple are now expecting a baby.  

In the last few minutes before Midnight Mass, we chant the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day with the same ceremonies of the gospel at Mass; that is with candles and incense. The Roman Martyrology often gives us a list of saints for that day but on this day, it focuses solely on the birth of our Lord and its connection to events in history.  So long since creation, so long since the Flood of Noah, so many years since the Exodus, so many years since David was anointed king, so many years before the founding of the city of Rome. 

I would propose that on occasion we all mark time in that fashion, connecting the happenings of our daily lives to the greater happenings of life. I think it helps us remember others more, but more than that I think it helps us step out of the march of time and tip toe into the flow of eternity. I remember when Fr Paschal was teaching us Gregorian chant. He impressed upon us that Gregorian chant starts soft and ends soft. That it doesn’t march like soldiers but floats because in eternity there is no time. That’s why the Church gives it pride of place and every pope from Pius X until today affirms its place in our liturgy. 
I remember celebrating the Easter Vigil this year, it started later than ever, and I knew it would be late before we got out; it never felt like it lasted as long as it did. I joke about Midnight Mass every year, but it never seems like we are walking out of church at 1:00 am.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every Mass lost its sense of time? It should because when we attend Mass we step outside of time and space and enter into Heaven. Let us cultivate time with the Lord in silence and in adoration so that we can set ourselves free from the shackles of time.
 
Your Father in Christ
Fr. Estrella