I’m not tired this morning. But then, I would challenge anyone who was at today’s 5 a.m. Mass to be tired.
Our celebrant was Father Joseph Bruce, the second deaf person to be ordained a priest in the United States. And when I say “celebrant,” I mean it in every sense of the word and Word. Father Joseph signed and spoke the Mass. When he looked heavenward during his parts of the liturgy, you knew from the expression and glow on his face that he was in conversation with the Lord… not merely reciting words he’d said thousands of times before, or mailing it in because he’d had to get up so early. By his example and his pithy homily on doing God’s will, he challenged us not to mail it in either.
Two other priests concelebrated, one from the Philippines, one from Ghana. The words that we sang and said were in a mix of Tagalog and English, with a little Spanish thrown in. The last names of the ill or deceased I read during the Prayers of the Faithful were a United Nations potpourri. Sample. Tumbaga. Dunne. De Los Santos. Villaneuva. Ching. I don’t remember when I started tearing up, whether it was when Father Bruce began Mass or when we started singing the song that ends “Teach me to serve you to give to those in need, who do not expect anything of you” or during the consecration. I just know there wasn’t a dry spot on my cheeks by the time we sang the sending-forth song.
And at the end of Mass, my raised-in-upstate New York friend and her Haitian-born husband turned around to speak with my raised-in-Louisiana African-American friend and me. We all looked at each other, eyes ablaze, and said almost as one, “This is why I’m Catholic.” Because while there are many paths to God, a path where a deaf man, a Filipino, and a Ghanaian can concelebrate and where two hundred people with names like Roa and Ignacio and Rigney and Audant and Johnson and Fitzgerald can sing in three different languages and everyone understands each other through our faith tradition is the right path for us.
Thanks, Holy Spirit.
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Melanie,
After all these years of reading your posts about this week, I finally understand Simbang Gabi and so wish I could be joining you in the mornings. Something about the “sacrifice” of the missed sleep in exchange for God’s presence seems to transform into grace everytime.
Thank you for sharing your spirit-filled moments. I think some of them landed in Illinois today.
Love, Tish
🙂 Thanks, Tish! God bless you and your family. Maybe sometime, you can come visit for one of the Masses (December 16 or 17 so you could get back to your family for Christmas!
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