Liturgy & Eucharist

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart (…)

in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;

I will worship at your holy temple

and give thanks to your name.

The beautiful Psalm we have just recited, is a very good summary of our attitude toward the liturgy of the Church and its elements…

in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;

I will worship at your holy temple

and give thanks to your name.

For sure you notice here at SVDP we try to take care of the liturgy as much as possible BECAUSE the liturgy is like the bridge that helps us to communicate with God. The priest, the deacon, the Ladies of the Altar Society and the staff make a very good effort so that when the weekend arrives the parish is clean, the altar is ready, , the sound system to works well, you have a missalettes to follow the readings, etcetera.

An important part of the liturgy is music. Is very important actually. Sometimes I perceive little interest on the assembly, little enthusiasm when we are singing. St. Augustine my great patron saint used to say that “he (or she) who sings prays twice”… Anyway this is not the point of the homily. The point is that for sure you notice the terrible state of our hymnals, I mean, the book we use to follow the lyrics are in very good shape, and we are in need new ones….

 “Oh my Gosh! Here comes the priest asking for money. Again!”

No. For your peace of mind, this time I will not ask for money, on the contrary, first of all, I want to thank you the generosity with which YOU have always responded to my requests.

You know, I do not ask money for me, for my vacation or for a new luxury car, I beg your help ONLY to keep the house of God in good shape!

Once a month I ask your money for our Friendship House which helps so many people. Once a month I ask you for money to help our seminarians that help us with the liturgy on Sundays…in short: we use your money for the house of the Lord…

Very soon we will have some new hymnals, and the new hymnals are a gift from the parish to the parish. Yeah! It’s correct! You have already paid for the new hymnals!

Now I will ask Marisela, who works very hard with another five persons, to explain you a little bit where the money has come to pay for these books.

These new hymnals will help us in the celebration of the Eucharist, BECAUSE the Eucharist is and should be always the center and heart of our parish life.

Our parish will be good ONLY if we deeply value the Eucharist, ONLY if we have the Eucharist as the center of everything.

In other words: “Unless we believe and see Jesus in the appearance of bread on the altar, we will not be able to see him in our brothers and sister around us” ■ Fr. Agustin