Third Sunday of Lent
by Paul O'Reilly, SJ

“Zeal for your house will devour me.”

I think I told you one time that when I was a deacon, there was a brief period during which I was in charge of the altar servers. It was not a success, so they took the job away from me and gave it to a lay-man called Adrian. It was the right decision. Adrian is one of those people who is just naturally very good with young people. He was naturally outgoing, cheerful, down-to-earth and easy to get along with. He liked them and they liked and respected him. Within a few weeks of his taking over, our altar servers’ numbers had doubled, they had started turning up on time for practices and ­ most importantly ­ their work on the altar was much improved. And everybody ­ even me ­ was very pleased that Adrian had taken over the job and was making a great success of it.

Then one day I happened to be in the church when Adrian caught two of the altar servers chewing gum in church. And he went absolutely berserk. He shouted, he screamed, he yelled at them for ­ it must have been ­ ten minutes. And in all that time, he just kept saying over and over again, one thing ­ “You are altar servers. You are here to reverence God in the Church. You do not chew gum in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.”

Well, I thought this was going to be the end. The altar servers would rebel. There would be fuss and bother. The parish priest would get involved. And ­ worst of all ­ the result would be that they would give the job back to me. But, in fact, none of those things happened. Next day came and it became clear that the altar servers respected and followed Adrian more than ever. And that really made me stop and think. And I realised that what the servers respected in him was that he was angry ­ for the right reasons. He was not angry for anything personal to himself. He was angry for the Lord ­ for the reverence that is due to God’s house. Zeal for God’s house had consumed him.

The whole point of being an altar server is to add reverence to the Mass. Because the Mass is the way in which we as Catholics fulfil the first three commandments.

1. You shall serve the Lord your God
2. You shall have no other Gods before me.
3. You shall keep holy the Sabbath day.

And the reason that we come to Mass is not to hear a wonderful homily ­ though of course you do, don’t you! Nor is it to tick-off the God box for the week. Nor is it to have a warm feeling from worshipping in a supportive nurturing Christian community. Nor is it even to receive the Eucharist. All of those are good and important and I say not one word against any of them. But the reason that Catholics come to Mass is to give praise and worship to God. And if we too have enough love for God, then zeal for His House will consume us too.

­ But please try not to take it out on the altar servers!

Let us stand and profess our Faith in God and our love for all His Creation.

Mount Street Jesuit Centre,
114 Mount Street,
London SW1K 3AH.
ENGLAND.
fatbaldnproud@yahoo.co.uk