Last week I concluded Liturgy Links with the following:
Let us never forget that during the celebration of the Eucharist, Christ is present not only in the person of the priest, the proclaimed word and the eucharistic elements, but also in the liturgical assembly who gathers to celebrate the paschal mystery, the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The fully, consciously and actively participating liturgical assembly is one of the four ways Christ is made present during Mass. Within that liturgical assembly, a number of us take leadership and service roles in order to ensure that what is the source and summit of our Christian lives is celebrated with the upmost dignity and quality.
Recently we asked for more people to serve our community through liturgical ministry. In particular, we have some specific needs. For example, we need more Ministers of the Word at all Masses except 9:00 a.m. 10:30 a.m. Mass is desperately short of Communion and Music Ministers. Our entire parish, with 5 Masses every Sunday, has only 1 Altar Server. 6:00 p.m. Sunday Mass needs more ministers in almost every area. Clearly, even on these examples alone, something needs to be done.
So who is the “someone” to do it? Every parishioner has a responsibility to ensure we have a sufficient number of committed and well-trained liturgical ministers. Why? Because this is not Fr Denis’ parish, or my parish, or someone else’s parish, but our parish. If our Masses do not have the ministers they need, then perhaps we need to review how many Masses we can celebrate.
To those who have already volunteered in the past few weeks (some of who are existing ministers volunteering to take on extra), our sincere thanks. To those who haven’t, make sure you have a copy of Serving God’s People (they’re still available), and sign up for something. Alternatively, be a concerned parishioner – if you think someone would be good at a particular ministry, encourage them to sign up today.
Liturgy 