Nostra Fides

Our Faith
A Publication of SMU Fides Catholic Community
For Internal Ciruclation Only
Vol 2 2008
In communion with the Catholic Church headed by the Pope and in conformity with the teachings handed down to us from the Apostles, Nostra Fides aims to cover Catholic
events on campus as well as other events that members of the community are involved in. Recent developments within the Church will also be covered.

SMU Fides “Yet not my

will but Thine
Mid-Term be done”
Retreat (Luke xxii.42)

26-28 Feb ‘08

2008 Easter Vigil Homily of Pope Benedict XVI

Excerpt

In the early Church there was a custom whereby

the Bishop or the priest, after the homily, would cry out to
the faithful: “Conversi ad Dominum” – turn now towards
the Lord. This meant in the first place that they would turn
towards the East, towards the rising sun, the sign of Christ
returning, whom we go to meet when we celebrate the Eucha-
rist. Where this was not possible, for some reason, they would
at least turn towards the image of Christ in the apse, or to-
wards the Cross, so as to orient themselves inwardly towards
the Lord. Fundamentally, this involved an interior event;
conversion, the turning of our soul towards Jesus Christ and
thus towards the living God, towards the true light. Linked
with this, then, was the other exclamation that still today, be-
fore the Eucharistic Prayer, is addressed to the community
of the faithful: “Sursum corda” – “Lift up your hearts”, high
above the tangled web of our concerns, desires, anxieties and
thoughtlessness – “Lift up your hearts, your inner selves!” In
both exclamations we are summoned, as it were, to a renewal
of our Baptism: Conversi ad Dominum – we must distance
ourselves ever anew from taking false paths, onto which we
stray so often in our thoughts and actions. We must turn ever
anew towards him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
We must be converted ever anew, turning with our whole life
towards the Lord. And ever anew we must allow our hearts
to be withdrawn from the force of gravity, which pulls them
down, and inwardly we must raise them high: in truth and
love. At this hour, let us thank the Lord, because through the
power of his word and of the holy Sacraments, he points us in
the right direction and draws our heart upwards. Let us pray
to him in these words: Yes, Lord, make us Easter people, men
and women of light, filled with the fire of your love. Amen.
Enriched with a new found courage and strength
Hearts on Fire Rally Report
by Adeline Heng
As the CJC auditorium slowly started to fill up, I admittedly
felt a little apprehensive. What was I to expect? What did
I hope to achieve by coming here today? Basically WHY
was I even there was the question that kept coming to mind.
I left the auditorium that night feeling enriched with
the Holy Spirit in my heart. It was a feeling of peace that can-
not be aptly described but can only be felt. Though I knew
that really nothing had changed, school and the realities of
deadlines and exams remain as I walked out of that audi-
torium. Yet I was enriched with a new found courage and
strength, safe in the knowledge that my God is an awesome
God and that He would give me the strength to see me through.
“For this reason we never become discouraged.
Even though our physical being is gradually decaying, yet
our spiritual being is renewed day after day. And this small
and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous
and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble. For we
fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things
that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but
what cannot be seen lasts forever.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
2008 Address by Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops
of Guatemala on their Ad Limina Visit (Extract)
God has blessed the Guatemalan People with deep
religious feeling, rich in popular expressions, which must de-
velop in solid Christian communities that joyfully celebrate
their faith as living members of the Body of Christ (cf. I Cor
12: 27), faithful to the foundation of the Apostles. You know
very well that firmness of faith and participation in the sacra-
ments strengthen your faithful against the risk of the sects
or of groups that claim to be charismatic but that create a
sense of confusion and can endanger ecclesial communion.
Reception of Holy Communion - Historical Liturgi-
cal Notes on the Right of the Eucharist (Extract)
by Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kara-
ganda, Kazakhstan
Translated Father by Peter M. J. Stravinskas
The Fathers of the Church demonstrate a lively concern
that no one lose the smallest particle of Eucharistic Bread, as
exhorted St. Cyril of Jerusalem in this very impressive manner:
Be careful that you do not lose anything of the Body of the Lord. If you let
fall anything, you must think of it as though you cut off one of the members
of your own body. Tell me, I beg you, if someone gave you kernels of gold,
would you not guard them with the greatest care and diligence, intent on not
losing anything? Should you not exercise even greater care and vigilance,
so that not even a crumb of the Lord’s Body could fall to the ground, for It
is far more precious than gold or jewels? (Mystagogical Catecheses, 5, 2)
Already Tertullian gave witness to the Church’s anxi-
ety and sorrow, should even a fragment be lost: “We suffer
anxiety lest anything from the Chalice or the Bread fall to
the ground” (De Corona, 3). St. Ephrem, in the fourth cen-
tury, taught thus: “Jesus filled up the Bread with Himself
and the Spirit and called It His living Body. That which I
have now given you, says Jesus, do not consider bread, do
not trample underfoot even the fragments. The smallest
fragment of this Bread can sanctify millions of men and is
enough to give life to all who eat It” (Sermones in Hebdo-
mada Sancta, 4, 4). In the liturgical tradition of the Coptic
Church is found the following warning: “There is no dif-
ference between the smaller and larger particles of the Eu-
charist, even those smallest ones which cannot be perceived
with the naked eye; they deserve the same veneration and
possess the same dignity as the whole Bread” (Heinrich Den-
ziger, Ritus Orientalium, 1863, I, p. 405). In some Eastern
Liturgies, the consecrated Bread is designated by the name
“pearl.” Thus in the Collectiones Canonum Copticae, it says:
“God does not will that any of the pearls or consecrated frag-
ments should adhere to the fingers or fall to the ground!” The
extreme vigilance and care of the Church of the first centu-
ries lest any fragment of the Eucharistic Bread be lost was
a universally diffused phenomenon: Rome; North Africa;
Gaul; Egypt; Antioch and Constantinople; Palestine; Syria.
In the Early Church, before receiving the consecrated
Bread, people had to wash the palms of their hands. More-
over, the faithful bowed profoundly in receiving the Body
of the Lord with the mouth directly from the right hand and
not from the left. The palm of the hand served as a kind of
paten or corporal, especially for women. Thus one reads in
a sermon of St. Caesarius of Arles (470-542): “All the men
who desire to communicate, must wash their hands. And
all the women must carry a linen cloth, on which they re-
ceive the Body of Christ” (Sermo, 227, 5). Customarily, the
palm of the hand was purified or washed after the recep-
tion of the Eucharistic Bread as is up to now the norm in the
Communion of clerics in the Byzantine Rite. In the ancient
canons of the Chaldean Church, even the celebrating priest
was forbidden to place the Eucharistic Bread into his own
mouth with his fingers. Instead, he had to take the Body of
the Lord in the palm of his hand; the reason for this was to
signify that he was dealing here not with ordinary food but
with heavenly food: “To the priest,” we read in the Canon
of John Bar-Abgari, “it is directed that he receive the par-
ticle of consecrated Bread directly from the palm of his hand.
He may not place It with the hand into the mouth, but must
take It with his mouth, for this concerns heavenly food.”
In the ancient Syriac Church, the rite of Com-
munion distribution was compared to the scene of the pu-
rification of the Prophet Isaiah by the seraph. In one of
his sermons, St. Ephrem puts these words on Christ’s lips:
The coal carried (by the seraph) cleansed the lips of Isaiah. It is I Who,
carried now to you by means of bread, have sanctified you. The tongs which
the Prophet saw and with which the coal was taken from the altar, were the
figure of Me in the great Sacrament. Isaiah saw Me, as you see Me now
extending My right hand and carrying to your mouths the living Bread.
The tongs are My right hand. I take the place of the seraph. The coal is
My Body. All of you are Isaiah. (Sermones in Hebdomada Sancta, 4, 5)
In the Liturgy of St. James, before distributing Holy
Communion to the faithful, the priest recites this prayer: “May
the Lord bless us and make us worthy to take with pure hands
the burning coal, placing it into the mouths of the faithful.”
Alamak, Lent
by James Chia
When I was asked to write this article on Lent, the first
thought that came to my mind was ‘Alamak, what to write’.
I have always seen myself as someone who is in-
volved in church, practices the faith but not really living
it. Every year, important liturgical seasons like Lent and
Advent have come and gone, without me making much
adjustment to my daily life just because of the season.
On the occasions where I’ve tried offering a lentern
sacrifice, I always gave up on it immediately after Easter or
even halfway through Lent. Admittedly, it may be because I
don’t have the determination of faith to stay the course of my
intention to sacrifice, but I personally feel the better way to
reconcile ourselves with God, is by striving to be better peo-
ple all year round. So then, what is the season of lent to me?
Personally, I think Lent is a time of self reflection
and a time where we renew our faith in God. Our lives are
so hectic nowadays that we don’t have the time to sit back
and think what we are doing in our lives and how that af-
fects the faith we profess to believe in. I am an altar server
in my parish and while I don’t go out of my way to adjust
my life because of lent, I am affected by what goes on in the
parish and even the Catholic community here in SMU. The
activities and prayers make me think about how faithful I
am and how faithful I should be. It makes me come to the
realization of how often I’ve been an unfaithful son of God.
This realization is like a wake up call to me
and Lent offers the perfect opportunity to re-focus my
mind on trying to lead a better and more faithful life,
something that strays from my mind as time goes by.
I liken our faith journey in life to a balloon. One that
is inflated as we grow up, but when we do grow up, slowly
as time passes us by, this balloon of faith gradually starts
to deflate as we start to live in the secular world, a world
where God isn’t a priority. To me, lent comes along ev-
ery year, offering us a chance to re-inflate our balloon and
prevent it from going flat. In a sense, renewing our faith.
All we need to do is to take up the opportunity God
gives us, do a bit of self reflection and soul searching, to redi-
rect our efforts once again into living according to His word.
Just as we need a point where we can start reorganizing a
mess, we also need a point in time where we can start trying
to reorganize the mess that sometimes is our own personal
faith and lives. To me, lent is just that time for us to do it.
 Interview with Msgr Guido Marini, Master of Pon-
tifical Liturgical Celebrations
by Paolo Rodari of Il Riformista

“The liturgy of the Church,” explains Msgr Guido

Marini, “with its words, gestures, silences, chants and music
causes us to live with singular efficacy the different moments
of the history of Salvation in such a way that we become real-
ly participant in them and transform ourselves ever more into
authentic disciples of the Lord, walking again in our lives
along the traces of Him who has died and risen for our salva-
tion. The liturgical celebration, if it is truly participated in, in-
duces to this transformation which is the history of holiness.”

And a help in this “transformation” can be that “re-

positioning” of the Cross in the centre of the altar, which
has been carried out in the papal liturgies, as a residue of
the old “orientation towards orient” of churches: towards the
rising Sun, Him who is coming. “The position of the Cross
at the centre of the altar,” says Msgr Marini, “indicates the
Prayer and Silence centrality of the Crucified in the eucharistic celebration
Extract from “The Power of the Name” by Bishop Kal- and the precise interior orientation which the entire congre-
listos of Diokleia gation is called to have during the eucharistic liturgy: one
does not look at each other, but one looks to Him who has
been born, has died and is risen for us, the Saviour. From the
In an effort to describe the true reality of inner prayer,
Lord comes the salvation, He is the Orient, the Sun which
after loading one epithet after another, St Gregory of Sinai
rises to whom we all must turn our gaze, from Whom we
ends with unexpected simplicity, “Why speal at length? Prayer
all must receive the gift of grace. The question of liturgical
is God, who works all things in all men.” Prayer is God – its
orientation, and also the practical manner in which it takes
not something that I initiate but something in which I share; it
shape, is of great importance, because through it is conveyed
is not primarily something that I do but something that God is
a fundamental fact, at once theological and anthropological,
doing in me: in Saint Paul’s phrase, “not I, but Christ in me”
ecclesiological and relevant for the personal spirituality.”
(Galatians 2:20). The path of inner prayer is exactly as indi-
cated in St John the Baptist’s words about the Messiah, “He
must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). It is in this
sense that prayer is to be silent. “You yourself must be silent;
let the prayer speak” – more precisely, let God speak. True in-
ner prayer is to stop talking and to listen to the wordless voice
of God within our heart; it is to cease doing things on our own,
and to enter the action of God. At the beginning of Byzantine
Liturgy, when the preliminary preparations are completed
and all is now ready for the start of the Eucharist itself, the
A “repositioning”, that of the Cross, which exposes
deacon approaches the priest and says, “It is time for the Lord
how the liturgical practices of the past must also live today.
to act”. Such exactly is the attitude of the worshipper not only
“The liturgy of the Church,” says Marini, “as incidentally
at the Eucharistic Liturgy but in all prayer, public or private.
all her life, is made of continuity: I would speak of devel-
opment in continuity. This means that the Church proceeds
on her way through history without losing sight of her own
roots and her own living tradition: this can require, in some
cases, also the recovering of precious and important elements
which have been lost, forgotten along the way and which the
For any submissions to Nostra Fides please contact the passing of time has rendered less shining in their authentic
Publications Secretary at fides@smu.edu.sg significance. When that happens it is not a return to the past,
but a true and enlightened progress in the liturgical field.”