Liturgy News Winter 2020

15 Winter 2020 LITURGY NEWS the choir members spread among the congregation: It was stunning, and I think it even surprised some of those sitting with me in the back rows how powerful they all sounded together. …the invitation to sing wasn’t ‘join us’ (that is, the professionals) in this song we’re going to sing for you. Rather it was ‘together, let’s sing’. There were no experts and there was no audience listening to the experts. There was only us, singing together songs we knew and loved (p. 30). That is how we should do initiation as well: At whatever level of ability each had, all of us were giving what we could to those songs because now the task of singing them was ours (p. 31). 0 This book is practical – advice about the roles of sponsors, co-ordinators, clergy, catechists, ministers of hospitality (including a ‘dinner’ ministry!), liturgists, pray-ers, and all the others mentioned on your bulletin sheets. Macalintal’s genius is in urging us to begin with what we already have, and with the real needs of the enquirers – needs which are unique to each individual. The RCIA was and is revolutionary. Promulgated in 1972, it is mature fruit of the Vatican II liturgical reform. It is the document that takes seriously the roles of everyone in the liturgy. It shatters forever the ‘jug-mug’ paradigm of forming new Christians; it envisions head, heart and behaviour as three inseparable dimensions of conversion. I highly recommend this lively book. It is both a relief and an inspiration to learn that the first and most vital job of those who run the RCIA is to help our fellow parishioners recognise that everything they are already doing, in the parish and in their daily lives as Christians, affects what the catechumens and candidates are learning about the Christian way of life (p. 33).  James Cronin, our faithful reviewer for the last 30 years, has a masters degree in liturgy and is parish priest at Dalby in the Diocese of Toowoomba. Thank you, James! 2. 5 6 8 10 11 14 16 IN THIS ISSUE ... Editor: Discussing Eucharist Corona (news) Sacramental Signs + Symbols Preparing Sunday Eucharist Liturgical Music: What’s in a name? News Books: Macalintal on RCIA Our Cover: Peter ToRot PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY Volume 50 Number 2 WINTER  June 2020 Imprimatur:  Mark Coleridge DD DSS Archbishop of Brisbane © Liturgy Brisbane. All rights reserved ISSN 1039-0464 EDITORIAL BOARD Rev Dr Tom Elich (editor) Sr Maree Byron OSU Mr Gerry Crooks Rev John Fitz-Herbert Mrs Elizabeth Harrington Sr Ursula O’Rourke SGS Mrs Clare Schwantes Articles for publication are welcome. We reserve the right to edit material in consultation with the author. CONTACT Liturgy News GPO Box 282, Brisbane Australia 4001 Telephone (07) 3324 3314 Facsimile (07) 3324 3313 orders@liturgybrisbane.net.au www.liturgybrisbane.net.au PRICE PER CALENDAR YEAR ORDER ONLINE www.liturgybrisbane.net.au Magazine by Mail $30 (o/s $40) Magazine by Email $25 per year 14 LITURGY NEWS Winter 2020 Diana Macalintal, The Parish IS the Curriculum. RCIA in the Midst of the Community (Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 2018) 133 pages. by James Cronin All your patient sees is the half- finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. …Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous . These words from C.S.Lewis’s 1942 masterpiece, The Screwtape Letters , form part of the advice the old devil gives to his apprentice devil on how to get his human prey – his ‘patient’ – thinking when he goes to church! Diana Macalintal bluntly rebuts this scenario as follows: There isn’t some ideal Body of Christ’s community you can go and visit with your catechumens and candidates. The Holy Spirit led them to you and to your parish. You can’t give them back, and you can’t ask for an extension until your parish improves (p. 38). Of course, every parish consists of a ragtag bunch of barely involved Catholics (p. 37). But our author proves (by mining the content of bulletins from several parishes, small and great) that there is much more going on in every parish than one might think. And her thesis is that it is precisely into this plethora of already existing activities, ranging from deep Bible study to church cleaning, that adult candidates for baptism are meant to be immersed. The main lesson to be learned is that the parish itself in its myriad manifestations is the syllabus. This idea is a kind of a relief, isn’t it? The school for making missionary disciples already exists and does not have to be reinvented. It reminds me of the old image of the laity as the ‘sleeping giant’; all that’s needed is for everyone to wake up. And yet we still want to ask: but what is or should be the content of the course we offer newcomers and enquirers and catechumens? In an intriguing section entitled ‘RCIA Upside Down’, Macalintal once again insists that the basic curriculum is whatever is on the parish bulletin – daily Masses, opportunities for confession, prayer requests for the sick, Bible study groups, youth conferences, Vinnies meetings, diocesan women’s retreats, church renovation committees, parish pastoral council and finance council meetings, visits to retirement homes and hospitals, reader and choir training, etc, etc. You get the idea! Look at the things your parish is doing that are responding to basic human longing and healing people’s wounds. These would be the things like the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It is these activities – not pre-theology classes, Catholic info nights, or mini-courses on the church – that will spark the beginnings of faith… (p. 114). Of course, there still has to be an RCIA team, and an even wider support group that assesses the candidates’ readiness. In our country parish, I currently have only one interested candidate, a young woman baptised Anglican, with very little church contact and engaged to a Catholic. I learned from this book that her foremost needs are for exposure to kindness, hospitality, welcome. As far as ritual goes, a baptised person is immediately welcome to stay for the whole of Sunday Mass; in due time, she will celebrate confirmation and first communion, though preferably not at the Easter Vigil which is geared to those who are being baptised on that night. Of course, when she is deemed ready she might learn to contemplate the teachings of Christ by a process akin to Lectio Divina (see pp. 75-77). You probably know this process: the Gospel is read several times aloud with a progressive sharing on what might be the message – and ultimately, the action – suggested by the Spirit for me, my community, and the world. Our author hints strongly that this kind of wrestling with Scripture should be regular and mandatory for all in the Church. So the RCIA challenges us not to do more, but to evaluate and utilise what we are already doing. In our evaluation we need to ask: are we missionary disciples? Macalintal says: the way Jesus trained his disciples was not in a classroom but on the road, in people’s homes at the dinner table, near the sickbed, in the temple, at a wedding, by the graveside, and on the sea where his followers worked for a living. [All very nice, but then] after a while, he sent them out two by two on their own and told them to heal the sick and preach the kingdom. They returned…and he broke open their experience for them, helping them understand its meaning for their lives (pp. 69-70). I was excited to read this book because I met the author and heard her presentations at the Australian Pastoral Musicians Network conference in Melbourne last year. In the book, Macalintal parallels music ministry with the RCIA by relating how one day at Mass the choir’s microphones were switched off and