The Current

September 27 - October 3, 2020

The need to move to social distancing and to a "hybrid" mode of learning this year can also be seen reflected in the School's spiritual life programs. Fr. Michael Brunner, taking up the role of the Director of Spiritual Life, is continuing many of the School's practices, though modified as needed. The practice of House Mass continues, though now each dorm will have a Mass in the church once per term. Lectio Divina begins anew this week, incorporating Zoom sessions into the practice. Confessions remain available upon request, though a school-wide penance service is not possible. The population of the School, despite its division into two weekend Masses for spacing, has unfortunately also necessitated the temporary exclusion of additional guests from attendance. For the Saturday evening Mass, a solo student cantor provides brief processional and recessional music, as well as the psalm and gospel acclamation, and a communion meditation hymn. The monastic Schola provides music for the Sunday School Mass - which remains the only Sunday service due to requirements to sanitize the church after each use. These modifications of liturgical life are not without their benefits, as the experience of the Mass is for some now more intimate and contemplative. All of the modifications, in spiritual life as elsewhere, in fact bring with them an opportunity to see our programs and activities with new eyes, and perhaps gain a newfound appreciation for them and what they have been all about. The teaching of Christian Doctrine also has had to fit into our present "hybrid" modes of education. Fr. Michael remains hopeful here as well: "...teaching Christian doctrine or theology is about planting seeds not about building castles; seeds can be just as effectively planted in distance learning as they can in the classroom." 

In offering an assessment of our present circumstances, Father Michael draws on Robert F. Kennedy, as well as Grandmaster Flash. The latter, for the uninitiated, wrote the 1982 hit song, "The Message," with its most famous line: "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge…" The first comment currently posted beneath a Youtube clip of the song (are footnotes needed for that citation?): "This song is SO the cut for RIGHT NOW!" Father Michael also offers some RFK hit quotations from the 1960's, which also address our present moment with unsettling clarity, calling for, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., "not division…, not hatred…; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another." You can read Father Michael's reflection here.

Recovering "Lumen Fidei." At the end of the week, Pope Francis will sign "Fratelli tutti" at the tomb of his papal patron, Francis of Assisi, on October 3. The Holy Father is thus scheduled to release the third encyclical of his pontificate. The title reflects the words of St. Francis: "Let us all, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd who to save his sheep bore the suffering of the Cross." The visit to Assisi will mark the pontiff's first trip outside Rome since the pandemic began. As we await the imminent release of this new document, in our monthly column on the Church we return to the first encyclical of this pontificate, Lumen Fidei, a letter co-authored by two popes, stemming from a work-in-progress by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. In particular, we highlight passages to re-read in light of our present context of global pandemic, which may enable us to find a way forward, in the "Light of Faith." (Excerpts available here).