Catholic Liturgy Week Tag!

I thought I'd start Catholic Liturgy Week off with my tag so I can see how I'm torturing you how the whole thing will play out! I'm also planning on doing two more posts this week, so stay tuned!

Personal/Family

How did you get your name? Is there a special story?

My middle name is after St. Maria Goretti, whose feast day is on my parents' anniversary. My first name is just one that my parents liked. It's from the Old Testament. So, no really special stories. 

Who are your patron saint(s)?

St. Maria Goretti is my (middle) name saint, and St. Benedict and St. Therese are my confirmation saints. 

Does your family do any devotions together?
Umm...we try to renew our Marian Consecrations together, and gather for prayer in the morning and evening. 

Have you or anyone in your family dressed up as a saint? What was the best costume?
Yes! Our parish does All Saints Day Mass where all the kids dress up as saints. One year, I made Eomer a St. Denis costume with a fake torso that made it look like he was carrying his head...it was epic.

Have you been to the Easter Vigil? What is your favorite part? What about your favorite line of the Exultet? 

Yes! I LOVE the Easter Vigil! My favorite part is probably the fire, lighting of the Easter Candle, and procession into the church. And wow, I was mean--I love the whole Exultet, and I'm not sure I can pick one favorite line...my two favorite parts are 

"Therefore, dearest friends,

standing in the awesome glory of this holy light,
invoke with me, I ask you,
the mercy of God almighty,
that he, who has been pleased to number me,
though unworthy, among the Levites," 

and

"O wonder of your humble care for us!

O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!

O truly blessed night,
worthy alone to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from the underworld!

This is the night
of which it is written:
The night shall be as bright as day,
dazzling is the night for me,
and full of gladness."

How many sacraments have you received? Are there any good stories about them?

Five--Baptism, Anointing of the Sick, Confession, the Eucharist, and Confirmation. I'm not sure if there are any good stories about them, although I did receive Anointing of the Sick right after my First Communion, which was...memorable. 

What are your family traditions around... 

Advent and Christmas? We set up our tree the first Sunday of Advent--bare--and add things to it as Advent goes on, for instance, candy canes for St. Nicholas, and paper roses for Our Lady of Guadalupe. We don't put ornaments on until Christmas Eve. We also have an Advent wreath. We usually eat an early dinner, and then go to the 5:30 Christmas Vigil Mass (sometimes my siblings and I serve, but not very often) and then afterwards come home. We open one present on Christmas Eve, which is always matching pajamas. In the afternoon of Christmas Day, we go to Pippin's family's house for dinner, where we often have a birthday cake for Jesus. 😊

Lent, Holy Week and Easter? During Lent, we always go to our parish's Lenten Mass, Soup Supper, Stations of the Cross, and reflection on Fridays (except in the time of COVID, of course). Eomer, who is a Boy Scout, often helps set up, while the rest of us go to Vespers before Mass. For Holy Week, we always go to Tenebrae (a modified Morning Prayer) in the mornings of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. We often go to Holy Thursday Mass, Good Friday Service, and Tre Ore as well. After Tenebrae on Good Friday, we bring a couple of old friends home for hot cross scones (which count as our first small meal of the day). Holy Saturday usually finds us helping to decorate the church and/or cleaning our house. We then go to the Easter Vigil, and get up very late Easter morning! We usually go to Pippin's house on Easter, too. 

Godfamilies/confirmation sponsors? We often invite them over for dinner on our baptism/confirmation anniversaries (obviously not this year!) but that's the only big tradition, and even that doesn't happen all the time. We try to make sure, for those whose Godfamilies live farther away, that we visit them once or twice a year, depending. 

What is your...

Favorite hymn? 

"Oh God Beyond All Praising"

Favorite saint quote?

Hmm...probably either St. Patrick's Breastplate, or Saint Augustine's "Cor nostrum inquietem est donec requiescat in Te." 

Favorite Bible verse?

Oh man, there are so many good ones! Probably Psalm 46 and the "Though He was in the form of God, Christ did not see equality with God as something to be grasped" section from Philippians 2. Also, all of John 1. 

Favorite sacrament?

Probably the Eucharist? Although Confirmation is also awesome. 

Favorite work of Catholic Fiction? 

Can I say anything but LOTR? As a runner up, I Am Margaret by Corinna Turner

Favorite work of Catholic nonfiction? 

Fulton Sheen's book on St. Therese

Favorite feast day(s)?

Easter, St. Benedict, St. Therese, St. Maria Goretti, All Saint's Day

Favorite Marian Devotion?

Consecration to Mary in the way of St. Louis de Montfort

Favorite funny Catholic story?
Umm...why did I put this question in? I'm not sure what I meant...I suppose the story of how my dad met Galadriel's future godmother on an airplane because he was praying the rosary and she started to do so, too...and then they realized they went to the same parish is pretty funny, but I think I've just told it to you. XD

Parish

What order (or otherwise) runs your parish?

The Dominicans! 

What makes that order special?

They are a very intellectual order who are often teachers, and also often have advanced degrees in various things. They always give excellent homilies, and have done a lot in teaching me how to thing--whenever I start a paper, I heard Fr. TA saying "As Dominicans, we love to make distinctions!" It makes our whole parish very intellectual, which is funny especially when we interact with groups who focus on other charisms; there was one year our youth group went to a Franciscan youth convention which was very touchy-feely and we were all rather freaked out. 

Tell us about your priests!

Our parish has five active priests, one retired priest, and a brother for the parish and the Newman Center. 

Fr. DD, the pastor, is a quiet priest with an excellent sense of humor. He's a great teacher, and actually reminds me of my dad quite a bit. He's my spiritual director, too. 

 

Fr. TA is a hoot--he is simultaneously the person who knows most about obscure Catholic teaching and the person who is most up-to-date on the "hip-ness". It's quite funny. He always greets my friends and I with "'Sup, nerds?" and likes to greet me as "Sister--I mean, Samantha", since he's campaigning for me to join the Dominicans. 

Fr. A is the nicest person I have ever met in my entire life. 

Fr. M has a very dry sense of humor, which makes him a lot of fun to talk to.

Fr. J is an older priest who has been at the Newman Center as long as I can remember. 

Br. P has a Ph.D in astrophysics, and is staying at our parish while he studies for the priesthood. 

Fr. R is a retired priest who we don't see very often. 

What is your favorite funny priest story?

Umm...again, not sure what I was thinking with this question. Although we know one priest who is petrified of sharks, and one of his brother priests told us once that all you had to do to give him a miserable 48 hours was say "Sharks in the toilet". I don't know if that counts? 

Oooh, ooh, I know! There was one time a priest who was friends with my mom's family (Fr. E) was at his family's ranch in Texas for a vacation. He went outside (barefoot, I believe?) and was walking around when he got bit by a rattlesnake. He quickly killed the snake, then got in the car and drove himself all the way to the hospital. If memory serves (I'm sure Legolas will correct me in the comments if I'm wrong, haha), he held up the snake in the Emergency Room, said "This bit me," and then collapsed. He had to be in the hospital for a month or so, and my grandparents sent him a card that said "Sending Lots of Hugs" on the front, with two entwined snakes. He thought it was hysterical, as did they. 

Do you do any volunteering with your parish?

Yes, during non-COVID times--my siblings and I are altar servers, we help with holiday church decoration, and pitch in a lot of the time if there's any help needed. Since Frodo, my confirmation sponsor, works in the parish office, I (usually) spend a couple of hours there a week, and get drafted into random projects fairly often. I've also sung in the choir a few times, and helped out with our VBS-type thing, Equipped. 

What kind of music does your parish tend to do?

Mostly older music, and a whole lot of Gregorian chant!

What is the best homily you've ever heard at your parish?

It was actually a fair bit ago, when I was maybe eight or nine. One of the priests was talking about the meanings in Greek of the two different words Jesus uses for "love" when he's asking Peter "do you love me". It was an AMAZING homily. More recently, Fr. TA gave a homily on praising God, which was on fire. 

What makes your parish special?

We're the only Dominican Parish in our area? Does that count? Well, we're very vibrant, and yes, having Dominican priests does set us apart.

Does your parish have any special traditions?

Um...there are several events that happen every year, like the Parish Appreciation Dinner, and things like that. Not a lot of really special stuff. 

Does your parish or order have any "rites within rites" (i.e. Dominicans have the Dominican rite)? Well, as I so astutely observed, Dominican have the Dominican Rite, which I'll be writing a post about later this week! 

Diocese

Does your diocese have any quirks? 

Well, we had a bishop awhile back who was not super interesting in actually following the liturgical recommendations, so his successor, as a compromise to parishes that didn't have pews anymore (facepalm) allowed people to stand during the Ecce Agnus Dei, so whenever our family goes to another diocese, that always takes us by surprise. Our current bishop is hoping to get us back to kneeling at that point in the Mass, though. 

How many bishops have you had in your lifetime?

Not including auxiliary bishops (we've had a fair number of those), three. 

Have you ever met any of them?

Yes--I met our auxiliary bishop when he did my confirmation, and ended up meeting the archbishop in the church parking lot one day during Equipped. (Looooong story.) 

Rite

What rite are you a part of?

My family generally goes to the Novus Ordo, although our parish also has Dominican Rite Masses for special feasts (Dominican Rite is my favorite.) 

What makes that rite different/special?

Novus Ordo (aka New Rite) is the rite in general use, which came into being during Vatican II, I believe? Interesting fact: although the Tridentine rite is often known as "The Latin Mass", the official language of the Novus Ordo is actually Latin. 

What is your favorite part of that rite? 

I'm going to talk about the Dominican Rite on Friday, but my favorite part of the Novus Ordo is the fact that we kept the Roman Canon Eucharistic prayer. I mean, it's Mass. I love Mass, but there's not a ton that's especially special about Novus Ordo. 

Does your diocese have any auxiliary bishops? Have you ever hung out in your parish office? Are you planning on doing this tag? (You really should!) What are you looking forward to hearing about this week?