In fact, no mention of the Gospel in the homily we heard. At all!<\/p>\n
We went to the traditionally German parish, a little gem of Gothic, complete with German-language stations and so on. The church was fuller than normal, and the priest wasn’t the pastor. A younger fellow, happy to be there.<\/p>\n
Turns out there was a big family reunion of a big German family, and this Mass was a part of the celebration. Not a terribly big deal and not worth making an issue about, but still, not really appropriate, no matter how important the family is to the parish. <\/p>\n
The priest was a son of the family, a religious order priest from out of town. His homily began with allusions to the first reading, and the importance of going to God for our needs. Then he proceeded with the theme he’d begun Mass with (we really need to come up with a name for the spiel that priests way to often give at the beginning of Mass -either before the Signo fo the Cross or right after – Homilette? I don’t know. I don’t like it, it’s not in the rite, it disrupts what should be prayer, gets everyone in the mode of being instructed rather than right in the flow of prayer – our prayer – and I wish every priest who indulges in it would step back and stop it right now.<\/p>\n
Oh, anyway – his homilette was on the wisdom of ancestors, so he picked that up again, and then, referring to a notebook, went through what several of the elderly relatives had responded in answer to his question of, "What is most important in life?" Or something. <\/p>\n
Okay, give them their family celebration, but it’s still not really right to do it during the Sunday liturgy – and, of course, any Sunday parish liturgy focused on a particular group or demographic is problematic, period. It draws attention to divisions and discrete parts rather than to what binds us in Christ, not just with each other, but with every single Catholic throughout the world.<\/p>\n