Acolyte - Luceat lux vestra

Hello,

It has been an extremely busy October so while I have posts written, I didn't get around to getting them onto the interwebs and posting them...soon enough

Notre Dame has a couple of tough games ahead before USC...tough because they can turn into trap games. So foster your Marian devotions and pray for them. Our Lady of Victory, pray for us! Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for them!

Yesterday was All Souls Day!!!!!!! I just love that day... after Christmas and Triduum, it doesn't get much better than that in my book. Church praying for the Souls in Purgatory...just all makes such good sense.

Today is Mudbowl. Theology versus College here at the Josephinum...I am really looking forward to this.

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So tomorrow I will be instituted into the ministry of Acolyte. Out of the kindness of your hearts, I ask you to pray for me as I progress ever closer to ordination.

Acolyte, the 4 of the old orders, is retained as a ministry. The acolyte is appointed to aid the deacon (and sub-deacon) and to minister to the priest as one of the oh so privileged ministers who surround the Adorable Person of Our Lord by service at the altar; an honor that would befit angels far better than man.

This calls me, above all else, to further my relationship with the Lord and to participate in the Holy Eucharist with increasingly fervent piety and zeal. I should learn evermore to receive nourishment from the Eucharist and should deepen my knowledge of the mystery. I vow to hold the Most Blessed Sacrament as my richest treasure and strongest attraction, ever mindful of the great privilege it is to serve at his altar.

I hope to hold the holy Roman , Saint Tarcisius, as my patron so that I may so highly value and treasure Our Lord in the Eucharist that nothing, neither the allurements of the world, nor the false pleasure of sin, nor even death itself shall ever be able to separate me from Christ. Saint Tarcisius was a martyr of the early church from the 3rd century. All we have of him is a metrical inscription by Pope Damasus I who was pope a century later. The text reads:

Par meritum, quicumque legis cognosce duorum,
quis Damasus rector titulos post praemia reddit.
Iudaicus populus Stephanum meliora monentem
perculerat saxis, tulerat qui ex hoste tropaeum,
martyrium primus rapuit levita fidelis.
Tarsicium sanctum Christi sacramenta gerentem
cum male sana manus premeret vulgare profanis,
ipse animam potius voluit dimittere caesus
prodere quam canibus rabidis caelestia membra.
     Damasi Epigrammata, Maximilian Ihm, 1895, n. 14

He preferred death at the hands of a mob rather than deliver to them the Blessed Sacrament, which he was carrying. As Damasus compares him to Saint Stephen, who was stoned to death, this may have been the manner of his death.

As a function, the Acolyte above all carries the light. There is, however, a fundamental link between what is carried physically and spiritually. The pontifical reads "ut filii lucis ambulate." Christ, above all, is the Light. "Jesus spoke to them, saying: 'I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (John 8:12) Christ comes from the splendor of the Father, lumen de lumine, to dispel the darkness of error and sin (John 1:9). Before ascending into Heaven, he reflected His Divine Light into the souls of His Apostles and ordered them to carry it to the utmost confines of the earth: "Vos estis lux mundi"

This is the candle that is carried in procession and light to dispel the darkness of the night. The acolyte also serves at the altar, finds himself on that fist step as he approaches the altar of sacrifice as a priest.

The candle he carries in his hands must be a symbol of the spiritual light which he himself must be to others: "non enim Deo placere poteritis, si lucem Deo manibus praeferentes, operibus tenebrarum inserviatis, et per hoc aliis exempla perfidiae praebeatis." While the light of God's word is in the hand of the Priest and of the Deacon, the acolyte must make the light of his good example shine before men: "Luceat lux vestra coram hominibus, ut videant opera vestra bona, et glorificent Patrem vestrum qui in coelis est." As Saint Francis was won't to say, good example is more efficient that good words. Hence, as Saint Paul states, "ut sitis sine querela, et simplices filii Dei, sine reprehensione in medio nationis pravæ et perversæ : inter quos lucetis sicut luminaria in mundo" - "That you may be blameless and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation: among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:15). We are carried to carry the Light, simply put. "Vos estis lux mundi. Non potest civitas abscondi supra montem posita, neque accendunt lucernam, et ponunt eam sub modio, sed super candelabrum, ut luceat omnibus qui in domo sunt. Sic luceat lux vestra coram hominibus : ut videant opera vestra bona, et glorificent Patrem vestrum, qui in cælis est." - "You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." (Matt 5:16)

Hence, while to carry a light in the solemn services of the Sacred Litrugy is quite the honorable function, how important it is to shows Christ's Divine Light in my actions - hence the Bishop decrees "Ut filii lucis ambulate"

The Acolyte must center his person around the tabernacle and the Eucharist if he is to be even a remotely worth minister surrounding the Adorable Person of our Lord at the altar of Sacrifice.

Please pray for me that I may grow ever closer to the Lord present in the Eucharist and derive my being from that so Blessed a Sacrament.



AND GO IRISH!!!