We gather
in Omaha, amid transitions and challenges. Our thanks to Region 9,
our host region, and to Brother William Woeger, our local chair.
Thank you in a special way to Archbishop Elden Curtis, Archbishop of
Omaha, for his kind invitation. We are glad to be here.
During
this year, two Board members offered their resignations from the
Board: Sister Marilu Covani, Region 11 and Sister Jeremy Gallet,
Region12. The Board of Directions and the Federation are grateful
for their generous service. You will indeed be missed. At the same
time, I am happy to welcome Lesa Truxaw, Diocese of Orange, Region
11, to the Board of Directors. Region 12 is still conducting its
election.
Many of
you know Joan Workmaster, Regional Representative from Region 2 and
Chair of the Eucharist and Liturgical Year Committee. In mid May,
Joan was hospitalized with a serious illness. After a very long
summer, she is now recovering, thank God, she returned home about
two weeks ago. I spoke with Joan last week. I let her know of our
prayers for her and our love. Joan wanted you to know of her
gratitude for your prayers and for the many cards and phone calls
she has received. She also wanted you to know that your kindness
and thoughtful concern have played a key part in her recovery.
Despite
all the transitions, your Board of Directors has met the challenges
at full tilt. This was a year to balance the budget. The January
2006 Board meeting lasted for much of the month. We met, not in
person, but on line. We conferenced by phone. We did the work and
got the job done.
During
this year, some committees even met at their own expense. We are
grateful to all of our committees for their tireless dedication to
the work of he Federation. You have in your meeting packets a
listing of the Standing and Ad hoc Committees and their
current work. Please take the time this week to read these
summaries in preparation for the hearing sessions on Thursday from
4:45 until 5:15. Should you have any questions or comments, be sure
to bring them to the hearing sessions on Thursday afternoon.
We are
also grateful for the donations of computer equipment to the
National Office through the kindness of Diocesan Publications, Inc.
and a second anonymous donor.
I am
happy to report that the budget for 2007 is presented as a balanced
budget. In order to balance the budget, however, we will also
conduct the January Board Meeting on line and by phone.
None of
this work could have been done or done as well were it not for the
incredible efforts and support of our national Office Staff. Joe
Skeffington, our Associate Director, moves mountains now that our
publications are back in the office. Joe also manages the day to
day affairs of the office with calm and gentle good humor. We are
grateful to you, Joe, and for you.
Dianne
Jimmink, our faithful bookkeeper keeps us afloat in these times of
tight budgets and discouraging bottom lines.
I am
sorry to have to say farewell to Massimo Scano, our Staff
Assistant. Massimo began his graduate internship in September,
moving on from his work with FDLC. We wish him well in his
endeavors and we ask God’s finest blessing on him.
We are
happy to welcome to our staff Barbara Conley Waldmiller. Some of
you may know Barbara from her work at the Georgetown Center for
Liturgy in the 1990’s. Barbara brings a strong liturgy background
and strong leadership skills to her new job.
Any
reference to the National Office cannot be complete without mention
of Lisa Tarker, our Executive Director. Lately, our weekly Tuesday
afternoon phone calls had to be rescheduled to another time,
sometimes shifted to other days. Sometimes these calls were moved
to the morning, sometimes, they happened near dinner time. Always
they were received with patience and a full update of the
extraordinary amount of work going on at the National Office. I am
personally grateful for that patience, Lisa. All of us are grateful
for your stellar leadership and your selfless service to the
National Office and to the Board of Directors. You do everything
with competence, professionalism and grace. Thank you, Lisa.
Our
collaborators at the USCCB and co sponsors of this National Meeting,
the members of the Secretariat of the Bishops’ Committee on the
Liturgy, are also to be thanked. Monsignor James Moroney, Monsignor
Tony Sherman, and Sister Doris Turek. We are happy to be able to
work with you in these challenging times. I am grateful for the
quick and effective communication that continues to develop between
our offices. Thanks you for your leadership on the national level
and for the service you give to the Church in the United States.
And
Bishop Trautman, Chair of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy,
thank you for the time you share with us, Especially for the time
you shared with the Board this morning. Please know of the loyalty
and support of this Federation, and of the deep affection and the
high respect we have for you. You serve with the heart of the Good
Shepherd: always concerned for the people and always faithful to the
highest ideals of pastoral practice and thorough scholarship.
The work
of the Federation continues in the Position Statements you bring to
this National Meeting. This year, there are eight. Three have to
do with formation of liturgical ministers, a topic not new to this
Federation by any means, but an especially timely topic now as we
continue to learn the implications of Co Workers in the Vineyard
of the Lord, and as we prepare to receive new liturgical books
in the not too distant future.
As soon
as we receive word about the publications of Sunday Celebrations
in the Absence of a Priest, dates will be set for the workshops
we have planned to present throughout the country.
As Bishop
Trautman just reported, the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops has accepted an amended translated text of the Order of Mass
at its spring meeting last June. The text now awaits confirmation
in Rome. This is the first of several segments which will give us a
new missal within a few years. How it will be received remains to
be seen. How it will be implemented will in many ways depend on
those of us who work in diocesan offices of worship and who sit on
diocesan liturgical commissions. As we await these new books, it is
urgent that we begin a comprehensive process of formation.
We must
work with our bishops. We must give them our best advice, drawn
from careful study and wise pastoral insights, so that the texts
approved by the Conference of Bishops will move the church to prayer
with no other agenda but grateful love of God and awe and wonder in
his presence.
Clergy
will be key in this process. In the celebration itself, Theory
comes to life in practice. Clergy must be thoroughly comfortable
with these new texts. There will be little margin for error,
especially with a national rate of weekly participation little more
than 30% of baptized Catholics.
Though it
may sound like reinventing the wheel, clergy will need the time and
support of worship offices and commissions to embrace the meaning
and the spirituality of these texts so that they will be prayed and
not merely said. The entire assembly, lay ministers of the liturgy
and the entire lay faithful, must also be brought to a new and
deeper level of understanding of text and rite. We need to be there
to assist our local churches making effective resources available to
them so that our liturgy may be what it is meant to be: the prayer
of the Church, the prayer of Christ its head.
Liturgy
is much more than text, it is text sung and spoken from the heart.
Our task will be to enable the Church to take the texts to heart so
that the prayer of the Church will become our prayer, and our prayer
will become the prayer of the Church.
