When I was based at the U.S. Navy submarine base in Bangor, Washington, from time to time a sailor would come to my office at the chapel. “Father Barber, our boat is going out, and I need some Catholic materials.”
“Oh,” I’d say. “Where are you going?”
“Sorry, that’s classified.”
“Okay,” I’d reply. “How long will you be gone?”
“Sorry, I can’t tell you,” he’d say.
“What’s your mission?” I would push.
“Father, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” He smiled, like Tom Cruise in “Top Gun.”
Then I would give him a dozen rosaries, with leaflets on how to say the rosary. I would give him a supply of Sunday missalettes, St. Christopher medals and holy water. I also gave him a link to Father Robert Barron’s “Word on Fire” website, so he could download in advance sermons for the Sundays they would be underway. With these materials, the senior Catholic sailor or officer onboard would be authorized by the Commanding Officer to conduct an informal worship service for the Catholic crewmembers “in the absence of a priest.”
Something like that is possible now in our homes because of the COVID-19 lockdown. We just heard that Gov. Gavin Newsom has halted indoor worship services in 41 California counties, including Alameda and Contra Costa. This comes as a blow, as we were just getting used to going back to indoor Mass, while taking all the precautions. Now we have to move back outdoors, not easy in the coming winter months, or have livestream Mass, or both.
The Mormon Church has a laudable practice called “Family Home Evening,” where outside activities take second place to all the family staying home one night a week for prayer and discussion of family issues. Maybe it’s time we Catholics rediscover the “domestic church” of our own homes. Do you have a place in your home for the crucifix or the image of Our Lady is placed? Maybe you could pray together before or after participating in a livestream Mass? Maybe you could make a small home altar, with some statues of Christ, Our Lady or your favorite saints? You could write out and place your urgent prayer requests under the feet of the saints. Pope Francis does that with his “Sleeping St. Joseph” statue. I have so many prayer needs, I have two of those statues.
In this time of frustration, trials of patience, and even sickness and death, let’s not lose hope. Hope is the hallmark of the Christian. Bring the holiness of God from your parish church into your own home. Your home is a holy place. Worship the Lord there. The first Christians were not free to come together for Mass and worship openly, so they gathered in “home churches.” Maybe we can learn from our Catholic sailors in the submarines on months-long underwater deployments, and come together as best we can to recognize Christ in our midst.
Full story at The Catholic Voice.
Maybe we could just tell the powers that be that we will be celebrating public Mass, like it or not. Bishop Barber, is placing statues and gathering like Mormons really the best answer you have? C’mon Man.
Awesome POV Bishop Barber, thank you.
Yikes. Quoting Mormon practices?
And, we’re supposed to get what from this? pretend we’re all in submarines, too?
Outdoors in winter? sure. You’ll get more folks sick and dying from colds and flu than the covid. I wonder if some of these guys ever read what they wrote?
I think I’ll stay on my submarine.
So is the consecration to Mary from back in May working or not?
“Let’s not lose hope”? Um, Bishop… what are we to hope for or in when the Church is looking impotent and God is no help whatsoever. Does “Let’s not lose hope” just mean “let’s be patient and hunker down until things get better on their own because we really can’t be sure that God will do anything to get us out of this situation”? Then if it gets better and we are allowed back in Church we’ll praise and thank God even though we won’t be sure he had anything to do with it?
“Christ in our midst”? Please elaborate. Pious words and cliches don’t cut it when the Church is facing this crisis. Where is there any good effect of prayer here, today, concerning the Church and all she is facing?
Why should people hope based on an impotent Church’s ineffectual clergy’s hollow, pious words?
People with faith don’t speak words like you do, KT. Pray that your faith may be strengthened.we’re in a 2000-year war and you’re flagging, failing. Things would be far worse without the consecrations.
A consecration doesn’t “work”. It is not an incantation. When you marry, you are consecrated to your spouse, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, bad times and good times. When they give you what you want and when they don’t. Consecration is a special kind of belonging, a total belonging. We belong to Mary and her Immaculate Heart. Every thing we experience, good and bad, she uses for good and for God’s glory.
The Church is not impotent and God helps everyone. The Church is for salvation. There is no salvation outside the Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ but also the Mystical Body of Christ. I am sure that the bad thief thought God was impotent on the Cross. He wasn’t. He wanted God to remove his suffering. He did. The only way out is through.
Every person who recovers from Covid-19 recovers through the grace of God. All healing of everything is due to God’s grace. Obviously God has chosen not to let coronavirus kill you. Praise to Him. God has everything to do with everything except sin. His plan for that was to come and suffer. We are given a share in suffering because suffering is redemptive. Jesus Christ did not have broken bones, or bad parents or coronavirus. But he and Mary suffer whenever one of us gets them. No suffering enters your life without first piercing Their Hearts.
God bless you and give you faith.
This shows the shoddy theology of some of the most ardent believers. Christ cannot suffer anymore in his glorified, risen body. Neither does Mary suffer in her glorified, assumed body in heaven. Combinations of shoddy theology, ineffectual episcopal leadership, a worsening situation in the church and in the country… all are contributing to doubts. Like the guy said above: “Things would be far worse without the consecrations.” He has no way to demonstrate or know that. Instead of claiming without evidence that things would be worse, ask yourself why aren’t we seeing anything get better? Where is the reality and the power of God evident in the church or in the world? Look how much damage Pope Francis is doing. You mean to tell me God can’t do anything about that to stop it? Yet it continues and keeps getting worse.
You are not bound to believe private revelations. But you should understand the Mystical Body of Christ. And I am not worthy to be called a most ardent believer.
Kevin T. what crisis is the Church facing now that it has not faced before?
Whatever we might be thinking or doing about the situation, these are good suggestions.
This reminds me of the middle part of the Canticle of Daniel:
O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord; O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord.
O fire and heat, bless the Lord; O ye cold and heat, bless the Lord.
O ye dews and hoar frosts, bless ye the Lord; O ye frost and cold, bless ye the Lord.
O ye ice and snow, bless ye the Lord; O ye nights and days, bless the Lord.
O ye light and darkness, bless the Lord; O ye lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord.
O let the earth bless the Lord; let it praise and exalt Him above all for ever.
O Novel Coronavirus, bless the Lord. Is that what you mean?
Nice reminder Anne TE, thanks.
You are welcome.
We need to thank God for what we do have and not worry so much about what we do not have. I think St. Francis got his idea for the Canticle of the Sun from the book of Daniel, the Song of the Three Children who sang while in captivity themselves. It was the first litany I even learned and still one of my favorite.
thanks Anne TE
Thank you Anne
Debbie and E. Leven Thour, you are welcome. God bless.
Is he just now saying this? We’ve had a domestic Church since March. It’s Thanksgiving now. Planes, grocery stores and Costco are PACKED. Not a squeak from our spineless leaders.
Hit it, Ringo ! ♫ The bishops all live in A Yellow Submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine. . . .
I prefer “When Mother Mary comes to me, let it be. Let it be”, although Paul McCartney (spelling ?) was thinking of his own mother when he wrote that.
Poor leaders are a punishment for sin. An abundance of unrepentant sin produces extremely poor leaders in our government and in our Church.
What sense does that make? None. So, according to you, rather than help his people when they need his help most and when they need good leaders most, God causes evil leaders to rise through the ranks in the church so they’ll go further astray? That’s what your claim amounts to. See, it’s this kind of irrational thinking that gives Catholicism a bad name in addition to the problems with the clergy.
No sense to you?
God is waiting for new saints to raise themselves up to and for him. What are you waiting for, Kevin? Be a man for God, family and country, in that order.
I don’t believe that God causes evil leaders, but rather he allows evil leaders to emerge as a result of evil decisions that society makes as a whole. In a way, he allows us to deal with what we asked for, not as individuals, but as a society. In the end, God will bring good through it, but it is often beyond our human understanding.
How about putting it even more simply: We get the leaders we deserve because we’re the ones who elect them.
I would like to commend James and all the other commenters here who have performed the works of mercy of counseling the doubtful, admonishing the sinner, instructing the ignorant, bearing wrongs patiently and praying for the living and the dead.
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing
But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it.
But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind.
For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.
James 1:2-8