Dear Friends 

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (January 19)

There is a new addition to the main body of the Church of the Assumption. When you enter the church, you’ll now see four major marble creations of tremendous significance. The first is the Baptismal font. You’ll see this immediately as you enter the front door because Baptism is the premier moment of our encounter with Christ. We literally die and are reborn in the waters of baptism, so it’s appropriate that the Baptismal font greet you when you enter any Catholic Church. And of course, it’s from this baptismal water that we make the sign of the cross as we enter this sacred space.

The second piece of marble is the ambo, more commonly called the pulpit. We believe that Christ is really present in the Word, and it is from the ambo that the Word (the very real presence of Jesus) is shared by the lector who in turn proclaims (notice I didn’t say, “reads”) the Sacred Scriptures. Because he is the very incarnate Word of God, Jesus is made really present through the agency of human words (both ancient – through the inspired Scriptural authors, and modern – through the homily proclaimed by a priest or deacon). The ambo is the physical space through which the words reveal Jesus, the Word.

The third marble edifice is the altar. OK, what is an altar? First, it is not a “dinner table” – I dare say that you do not go to the altar of Applebee’s or Olive Garden to have a nice meal, do you? Simply put, you offer something up on an altar. (In the ancient world, victims, like goats or sheep were sacrificed on altars). So, why are there altars in all Catholic (and Orthodox) churches? Because we believe that our worship of Jesus, the very Son of God is Eucharistic (a “thanksgiving experience”), and we believe that this Eucharistic experience is not just a Holy Communion (which is how the Reformers of the 16th century viewed Christian worship), rather we believe that this Eucharist is a holy sacrifice. Many other Christian churches have altars, but they’re used either as book/flower stands or sort of like dinner tables far removed from their original purpose. In Catholic (and Orthodox) churches, we do what Jesus did: He offered himself on the cross as a sacrifice and told us before he died at the Last Supper to do the same in memory of him.

Now let’s think a little more deeply about the nature of a sacrifice. Did you know that all (and I do mean all) sacrifices are transformative? Once a sacrifice is offered, there is no going back. A sacrifice changes the landscape of human reality. Once a lamb or goat was offered on an ancient altar, there was no more goat or lamb – but there was something much more powerfully transcendent. Consider parents who sacrifice thousands of dollars for their children’s education. That money is long gone--I’ve never known a parent to send their son or daughter a bill just before graduation. Or consider our wonderfully generous military men and women, or our courageous first responders who offer their very lives to protect and defend ours out of a selfless sense of sacrificial love. As part of their devotion to our community and our nation, their lives could literally be permanently transformed if something tragic should happen in the line of duty.

My point here is to illustrate what happens during our Eucharistic sacrifice. We offer God simple human gifts of bread and wine (as Jesus told us to do). And because this action is a sacrifice (and not just a meal of remembrance), the bread and wine are permanently and forever transformed by God’s gracious action into the Body and Blood of Jesus (which Jesus told us would happen when he had his Last Supper). It is because of this permanently transformative quality of the Eucharistic Sacrifice that we have the Fourth marble object at Assumption: the newly restored Tabernacle – a holy place to reserve the very Blessed Sacrament itself (not just a place to store left-over Holy Communion). Tabernacles are unique to Catholic (and Orthodox) churches because we believe in the sacrifice of the Mass. Unlike the Orthodox churches who place their tabernacles behind a screen, you’ll find tabernacles much more visible in the main sanctuary space within Catholic Churches – and this is the reason you’ll now see the restored Tabernacle immediately as you enter the Church of the Assumption. Let me thank the many private donors who made this move possible as well as the “tabernacle team” headed by Jim Robinson who guided the direction and placement of this wonderful new addition to the main body of our Church! “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!”