Sacristan - A Prayerful Ministry

Sacristan – A Prayerful Ministry

Marcelles Amiatu

When Jesus sat down to share the last supper with his disciples, someone would have had to set the table, put bowls out, bake the bread, ensure there were enough cups, pour the wine and then of course clear up at the end of the meal.

In every parish and chaplaincy there are a small number of ministers who carry out this prayerful ministry behind the scenes. It is a ministry that very few sign up for yet it is a ministry that can offer the minister the opportunity to pray and reflect while preparing the sanctuary for the celebration of the church’s liturgies. The word Sacristan comes from the word sacristy which means ‘a place for sacred things ‘. Sacristies came about roughly around the 10th century after churches realized that a cupboard was needed to store all the vestments, chalices, patens and books that were used for Mass. Unlike other ministries of the church such as Ministers of the Word, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and Music Ministers; who all minister in full public view, the ministry of the sacristan is carried out prayerfully, reflecting on each part of the preparation behind the scenes and hours before parishioners start to arrive.

By the 15th century, the church became so obsessed with ordinations and clergy that the council of Trent decided that the ministry of the Sacristan should only be for priests in minor orders. Of course that didn’t last long as priests already had so much on their plates to deal with.

As the years went by the role and responsibilities of the sacristan grew and was no longer for the priests. Parishes instead selected from among themselves one person that was trustworthy and well respected in the community to be the sacristan or ‘porter’ as they came to be known. By this time it was the Sacristan who opened and closed the church doors each day, mopped the floors, maintained the church gardens, decorated the church for weddings, dug graves for funerals as well as preparing everything for the celebration of daily and Sunday Masses.

Fortunately today, the Sacristan does not have to do everything mentioned above as parishes are well looked after by volunteers who faithfully give up their time to mop the floors, clean the gardens and decorate etc... 

Can I be a sacristan? What skills do I need? Anyone who loves to serve and has a deep interest in the Church’s liturgy can be a sacristan.

A sacristan:

• Is moved by beauty to recognize the abiding presence of God.

• Is able to work well with others and dedicated to serving them.

• Is familiar with the liturgical calendar, its seasons and feasts;

• Is well organized and able to maintain good order, often in limited space.

• Is willing to learn all the liturgical books, vessels, vesture, and everything that is used in liturgies.

• Is able to spend time at the church caring for and preparing the material things for liturgy.

The Liturgy Centre has a variety of resources available for both purchase and study to assist parish sacristans in their ministry and spiritual growth. We also have workshops available to parishes and chaplaincies on request. For more information on these workshops contact the staff at the Liturgy Centre.

Gospel Reflection | Third Sunday of Lent

Third Sunday of Lent (B)

4^th March 2018

Marcelles Amiatu

Have you ever wondered what Trade Me would look like if instead of being an online company it was transformed into a warehouse? Or what it would look like if we operated it from the church foyer?

In today’s gospel we read that Jesus was angry with the way that the temple was being run. Instead of the temple being a place of prayer and preaching, Jesus turns up and finds that the leaders were in the foyer with tables exchanging money and selling animals for sacrifices.

This of course angered Jesus that instead of the temple being a place of prayer and worship where the people could come to meet God, they instead turned it into a marketplace where people would come and buy, sell and trade. Instead of being a holy place it was transformed into the equivalent of trade me – just in the temple.

 And so after seeing how angry Jesus was after he stormed in and over turned the tables and threw the money on to the ground –the people stood there and asked “So what are you going to do about it?”

Jesus responds to them and says “Well I’m going to destroy this place and then rebuild it in three days”

Imagine – the shock, surprise and amusement the people must have felt when they heard him say that he was going to rebuild a place that took sixty years to build in three days.

They of course missed what he meant...  

Jesus wasn’t talking about rebuilding the physical temple in three days after destroying it. What Jesus was actually talking about was his Life – Death and Resurrection and what it would mean for us after all that took place.

Jesus himself will become the temple….

After his resurrection people will no longer need to go to the temple just to meet God as they did in Jesus’ time. For Jesus himself will be the temple, a place where we will be able to meet the presence of God and experience the Love and Grace the God has for each and every one of us.

As we continue on this Lenten journey let us be mindful of the invitation to grow more deeply in faith and what we do. So that by accepting the invitation we may draw closer to Christ through our Prayer – Fasting and Charity.  

Gospel Reading | Monday 19th February 2018

+ A reading from the holy gospel according to Matthew.

Jesus said to his disciples:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him,
he will sit upon his glorious throne,
and all the nations will be assembled before him.
And he will separate them one from another,
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right,
'Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me,
ill and you cared for me,
in prison and you visited me.'
Then the righteous will answer him and say,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or naked and clothe you?
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'
And the king will say to them in reply,
'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Then he will say to those on his left,
'Depart from me, you accursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
a stranger and you gave me no welcome,
naked and you gave me no clothing,
ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'
Then they will answer and say,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty
or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison,
and not minister to your needs?'
He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you,
what you did not do for one of these least ones,
you did not do for me.'
And these will go off to eternal punishment,
but the righteous to eternal life."

The gospel of the Lord.

Gospel Reading | Thursday 3rd August 2017

+ A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mathew.

Jesus said to the disciples:
"The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind.
When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets.
What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age.
The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."

"Do you understand all these things?"
They answered, "Yes."
And he replied,
"Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom
both the new and the old."
When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.

+ The Gospel of the Lord.

Gospel Reflection | 5th Sunday of Lent

As we approach Holy Week, we see Jesus come closer to the climax of his life and mission.  As he comes near to Jerusalem, the setting for the final drama of his life, the threats of his enemies increase by the day.  They are rallying their forces to get rid of him once for all.

The disciples are quite aware of the situation and not very keen on going anywhere near Jerusalem.  They are quite alarmed, then, when Jesus says, “Let us go to Judea.”  (Jerusalem is in Judea.)  They remind him that the last time he was there the Jews wanted to stone him.  “Are you going back there again?”

Jesus lets them know that fear and danger cannot be the deciding factors in his life and mission.
“A man can walk in the daytime without stumbling, because he has the light of this world to see by…”  There are times for things to be done, tasks to be accomplished, missions to be carried out.
Whatever the risks involved, they have to be done and done now.

‘Lazarus is dead’
Jesus then gives his reason for wanting to go south.  “Our friend Lazarus is ‘asleep’ and I am going to wake him.”  You can almost hear the reaction of the disciples: “You are putting yourself – and us – in great danger just to wake someone up?!  Why disturb him?  Sleep is good for him.”
Then they are told bluntly, “Lazarus is dead.”  For the believer, death is but a sleep from which one wakes to a new and unending life.  And Jesus says he is glad, not because a close friend has died, but because it will be an opportunity for his disciples to know Jesus better, to increase their faith in who he is.
Thomas, the outspoken one, then says with bravado: “Let us go, too, and die with him.”  It could be understood in a cynical sense but it also expressed the Christian calling to be with Jesus all the way, even into his suffering and death.

The house at Bethany
Jesus now approaches the home of Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary, at Bethany, just outside Jerusalem.  Mary, the contemplative one, stays grieving in the house; Martha, the active one, comes out to greet Jesus.  (It is interesting how their characters here conform to the image we have of them in Luke’s gospel.)
“If you had been here, my brother would not have died,” says Martha.  Jesus is already recognised as a source of life and healing.  “Your brother will rise again,” assures Jesus.  Martha understands the words in the conventional sense of a final resurrection.

But Jesus goes on: “I AM the resurrection.  If anyone believes in me, even though he dies, he will live and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”  To which Martha replies magnificently, recognising in Jesus the Messiah: “Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.”  The profession of faith reserved in the Synoptic gospels for Peter are here heard on the lips of a woman.  (We remember, too, that it was a woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, to whom Jesus first revealed his identity as the Christ.)

The words of Jesus say two things:

a. While physical death is the experience of all, Christians included, faith in Jesus brings promise of a life that never ends;

b. One who is totally united with Christ begins to enjoy right now true and never-ending life.  It is not just something for the future.

The Master calls
Jesus is still outside the village as Martha goes to call her sister.  “The Master is here and is calling you.”  The Greek word for ‘is here’ is parestin, which corresponds to the noun parousia , the definitive appearance of Jesus in our lives.  When Jesus comes – and he comes every day – he calls us and expects us to respond to his presence with the same eagerness that Mary did.

Grief at a friend’s death
In spite of the deeply symbolical and spiritual language that this passage contains, we come to the very human experience of people faced with death.  Jesus himself is overcome with grief at the death of a close friend.  The words indicate the intensity of his feelings: “in great distress”; “a sigh that came straight from the heart”; “Jesus wept”; and “still sighing”.
Just before giving life back to Lazarus, Jesus prays to his Father.  Jesus is no mere wonder-worker.  He is simply doing the work of God his Father, the Creator, Source and Giver of all life.
The “sign” about to take place is to lead people through Jesus to the Father who sent him. Union with our God is the one and only meaning of our living.

Many questions
The actual raising of Lazarus seems almost an anti-climax.  It is expressed in the briefest language and there are many questions we might have (e.g. what did he look like? how did he walk?  what did he say?…) which are simply not answered. 

The story wants to focus on the central ‘sign’ which only confirms what Jesus had said of himself: “I AM the resurrection and the life”.
It is the fulfilment of the prophecy from Ezekiel in the First Reading.  This reading is part of the famous parable of the valley full of dead bones which are brought to life, a parable about Israel, dead in sin and idolatry, being brought back to life in God.  In today’s gospel, Lazarus represents all those who are being brought back to life, life in God.  He represents especially all those who are brought into new life by baptism, sharing the very life of God.

Like the gospels of the last two Sundays (the Samaritan Woman and the Man Born Blind), this reading is directed at those preparing for Baptism at Easter.  Baptism, as Paul tells us, is both a dying to one’s past and an entry into new life.  The newly baptised person is “a new person” with a new life.

For us already baptised, we can do well to reflect on how much we have continued to see that life growing in us.  That is the theme of Paul in the Second Reading.  Those whose lives are embedded in the “flesh”, that is, those whose lives are given over to their instincts of greed and self-indulgence, can never be close to God.

Those who are in the Spirit will want to give their whole selves to the higher instincts of truth, love, compassion, sharing and justice.  When we are full of that Spirit then we have truly risen with Christ for his life is truly active in us.  We are both alive and life-giving.  “I live, no, it is not I, but Christ who lives in me.”

Gospel Reading | Friday 20th January

+ A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark

Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted
and they came to him.
He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles,
that they might be with him
and he might send them forth to preach
and to have authority to drive out demons:
He appointed the Twelve:
Simon, whom he named Peter;
James, son of Zebedee,
and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges,
that is, sons of thunder;
Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus;
Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean,
and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

+ The Gospel of the Lord

Gospel Reading | Thursday 19th January

+ A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark

Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples.
A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea.
Hearing what he was doing,
a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem,
from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan,
and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon.
He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd,
so that they would not crush him.
He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases
were pressing upon him to touch him.
And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him
and shout, "You are the Son of God."
He warned them sternly not to make him known.

+ The Gospel of the Lord