Fr John C Riccardo - Rerouting: Finding Our Way Back to God and His Church

Rerouting

Finding Our Way Back to God and His Church

Fr. John Riccardo

Copyright 2018 by Fr. John Riccardo

All rights reserved.

Published by The Word Among Us Press

7115 Guilford Drive, Suite 100

Frederick, Maryland 21704

www.wau.org

22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-59325-332-5

eISBN: 978-1-59325-507-7

Scripture texts used in this work are taken from The Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright 2006 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America Copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Cover design by Faceout

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.

Made and printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936434

This book is dedicated to the people of God at

Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth, Michigan.

More specifically, it is dedicated to

Fr. Prentice Tipton, Fr. John Simoneau, Fr. Pierre Ingram,

Deacon Dave Carignan, and Mary Delpup.

Rerouting, as it was originally conceived, was the fruit of

a tremendous amount of prayer, some wonderfully lively

discussions, more prayer, and hard work.

It is such a joy to serve the Lord with all of you!

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Where Are We Going?

Its time to face reality, which means its time to admit theres something missing in the religious experience of many Catholics these days. Its also time to admit that whats missing is not just important; its vital and needs to be recovered. I suspect many Catholics are aware of missing something, even if they cant quite identify what it is. I suspect that this awareness is probably most intense during Mass on Sunday.

Why? Because every Catholic knows that the Mass is supposed to be the heart of our spiritual lives. The Mass is the source and summit of the Christian life (Lumen Gentium, 11). Is it really, though? How many Catholics would actually say that the Mass is the highlight of the week for them?

I know it wasnt for me many years ago. I knew something was going on up there, but I didnt get it. And now, as a priest, I know that the pews are full of people who are just as I once was. They cant quite perceive the spiritual reality that is present in the Eucharist, and they dont understand what gives vibrant life to the faith they profess in the Creed.

Without such an awareness, what eventually happens? People become spectators at the liturgy, bored onlookers at a bewildering ritual, rather than participants in a profound sacramental reality. That becomes frustratinghow could it not? Sometimes the frustration becomes so great that people start asking themselves questions like these: What am I doing in church? Why did I even bother to come?

These are sad, almost desperate questions. And they often pave the way for a kind of tragedyin fact, for a triple tragedy. First, its a tragedy for the individual, who might turn his back on the Church and thus may never know a deep and lasting relationship with Jesus. Second, its a tragedy for the Church to lose a unique and valuable person with all his or her potential for holiness. And third, its a tragedy for the world at large, which longs to hear the good news of what God has done for us all in Jesus, even if they dont know it. These tragedies occuroften unnoticedevery day in our Church, as people give up searching for that mysterious something they are missing and have never been equipped to find.

Finding our way

And thats the real problem. Most of us have never been taught how to find our way into the heart of our great religion, how to progress from spectator to deeply involved participant. To be a Catholic requires faith. Theres no news there. But it also requires knowledge, and thats something we may not knowor at least may not have thought about very much. Heres an uncomfortable truth: although Catholic thought, from the Fathers of the Church to the most contemporary theologian, is too vast to be contained in the largest library this world has to offer, many Catholics are unaware of any of it. Thats another tragedy.

The teachings of the Church are beautiful and inspiring. They can and will sustain us throughout our lives, just as they have sustained innumerable people before us. But they will not be able to do that if we dont understand them, at least in a basic way.

All the Churchs teachings flow from the same source. One teaching builds on another, until they form a vast and consistent structure, a framework that is incredibly solid yet still very alive. Its like a huge tree with many branches, countless leaves, and roots that dig deep into the soil.

We need to understand something of that living structure and grasp the essence of that framework if we are to lead truly Catholic lives. Otherwise we risk seeing the Churchs teachings as mere man-made rules that have no relationship to our lives or our contemporary world. And if thats what you believe, I ask you, how long will it be before you discard those rules?

I know its a clich to say that life is a journey, but its still true. In fact, our earthly life from beginning to end is the only journey that matters, because its the one that can take us to the Father and the eternal life Christ won for us. But dont think this is a journey in which were carried along like a leaf in a stream of water. Its one in which we have to participate, plot a course, make sure were on the right road and headed in the right direction. Each of us is in the drivers seat as we make our personal journey, and frankly, many of us are lost on the highway without the slightest clue as to which way to go.

And thats yet another tragedy, because the journey to God is unlike any other journey. Its the journey to that ultimate reality that gives meaning and value to everything that has meaning and value. If we are lost on our journey to God, we are lost, period.

How often do we hear people say things like: Is this all there is? Whats it really all about? Why am I here? Where am I going? How do I find lasting happiness? Those are the questions that our God answers, but we cant hear the answers until we understand what our faith is.

Telling the story

Some time ago, when discussing this problem with my archbishop, I expressed a desire to do something a bit different during Mass in our parish. People repeatedly tell me that they just dont know the Bible very well. Without an understanding of the storywhat we might call the narrative arcit can be difficult to get anything out of the readings in the Liturgy of the Word. At most, people hope that the homily will help them make sense of what might seem unintelligible, include a joke, be relatable, and of course, not be too long. People may not even get what is happening on the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Is this what Mass is supposed to be?

With this in mind, I asked my archbishop, Archbishop Allen Vigneron, if I could try to create something we could do during Mass that would help people understand the story, the narrative arc. My hope was that if we could get the basics, the essentials, right, people could better understand the various excerpts from the Bible that we hear on any given Sunday as well as the sacrifice taking place at the altar. That proposal became what we called