| Blessing
of Expectant Mothers
|
| The Lord be with you, And also with you. Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, on this First Sunday of Advent, your daughters kneel before you, full of joy and promise of tomorrow. They are a sign of hope for us and all the world. In this waiting time, may your gracious blessing come upon them. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. |
| (The leader lays hands on each one, saying:) name we bless you and the child within you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
As we approached that first Sunday of Advent in 1979, I thought that our celebration would be heightened if we had expectant mothers to share in the blessing and to highlight the Advent expectation of the season. Having heard that Theresa was expecting, I invited her to come. After the gospel of that Sunday's mass, she came into the sanctuary. I read a blessing over her and the child and gave her a candle lit from the paschal candle. As she turned around and faced the people, Barbara Dever, our singer, sang the magnificat to her. Many people wept.
Two months later, on the Sunday nearest February 2, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, we used the Candlemas readings. The congregation stood with lighted candles and listened to the gospel story of Jesus being presented in the temple; perhaps they envisioned Simeon with the young child on his old chest. When I looked up from my reading, I saw Theresa McDyer coming up the isle with husband John and the baby Christopher. He had been born on the 31st of January; and Theresa, on being released from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, had said to John on the spur of the moment, "Let's go to Sacred Heart and thank God." And so they had come without announcement. At the end of the gospel, I asked them to come forward and presented them to the people. Here was the mother and child we had blessed on the First Sunday of Advent.
That event confirmed for us that we were doing something right at Sacred Heart, so we pushed ahead to make the Sunday liturgy bright and beautiful and close to the people, and we have enjoyed it ever since. This year (1985), on the First Sunday of Advent, fourteen expectant mother stood in a row as Barbara sang the magnificat to them. "I never hear the magnificat without tears in my eyes," Theresa McDyer says, "because I remember."
We begin our church year with Advent and this magnificent celebration of expectation. And when Christmas comes, we celebrate it from December 25 to February 2nd (40 days). We mark the New Year with a mass for peace that begins at 11 PM on New Year's Eve, and we mark the great Christmas Sundays, the Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord and the Second Sunday of the Year (with its gospel, the changing of water into wine), as manifestations of the immanence of light in the darkness of the world. The sense of God's presence is ever deepening.
At the end of mass on the Epiphany, the three kings come with boxes filled with treasure. They give a silver dollar to everyone in the church, after incensing the money and praying that each person will have enough to live on until this day next year. It is wisdom to bring the world to God; it is also great fun.
On the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we emphasize God's penetration into our world of difficulty and death, and celebrate that great presence of hope. We bless water, using a great blessing, and everyone takes some of it to a creek, river or ocean to be sent to the ends of the earth. On the water-into-wine Sunday we celebrate the transformation of matter by God's presence. Instead of coffee after mass, we have a glass of wine. Finally, on the great Sunday of Candlemas, the people stand with lighted candles and rejoice over the passing of the light into their hands. No longer are they coming to the light; they have become the light. As Celtic spring begins, we realize that winter will pass, and we celebrate what a young baby does to an old man's heart and what the bright coming of Jesus does to our old world.