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Dedication of the Cathedral
But a Vatican II cathedral it is. That’s because in the early 1990’s this parish community came together, prayed together, and studied together and decided to re-make this beautiful cathedral – to re-create it in the image of the Council’s teaching on the sacred liturgy. That meant making it a cathedral where the baptismal dignity of all God’s people -- their call to holiness -- would be honored. It meant making it a cathedral where the liturgy celebrated would truly be what the very word liturgy means: the people’s work. Not just the priest’s work, but the people’s work.
And so we placed the altar in the center and provided
for the people to be gathered around it so that they could fully and actively
and consciously participate in the Eucharist – not as bystanders but as
celebrants! And we built a great baptistery that would greet people when
they came into the Cathedral and remind them of who they are: ‘A chosen race, a
royal priesthood, God’s own people.” And we designed this beautiful ambo
or pulpit right in the midst of the people so that they would know that it is by
God’s all-powerful Word that they are formed and fed. And above the altar
we wrote an inscription to remind people that Christ is at the center of all our
gatherings and in the midst of all we do: not so much the glorious, triumphant
Christ but the humble servant Christ. We also spent a great amount of
money and effort to strip deadening acoustical tiles from the ceilings of the
Cathedral and acres of carpets from its floors so that the place would echo and
reverberate in the way a Cathedral should – echo and reverberate with the
people’s song, a song that is an earthly echo of the song of the angels in
heaven! But now we are at a strange moment in the Church when there seems to be an effort to turn back the clock on the Council, to silence or at least to stifle the Spirit that was unleashed in the Church at that watershed moment in the life of the modern Church. Instead of talking about the great and life-giving reforms of the Council, some are talking about reforming those very reforms! Some are even suggesting that the way we’ve learned to pray since the Council -- and even the language we use -- has become too informal, too mundane, too earthy, too human: not formal or sacred enough, and therefore unworthy of the great and transcendent God whom we worship. But to that I would say: what about the Incarnation? What about Jesus who embraced our flesh and took on our ways? What about Jesus who called fishermen, not academics, to be his first followers, who spent time with tax collectors and sinners, who completely avoided pompous and highfalutin language and always spoke in the language of the people, the language of parables? Something tells me that Jesus wouldn’t weigh in very heavily on behalf of stiff words and starchy language…! That’s not to say that he would want our worship to be careless or sloppy. He wouldn’t. Nor is it to say that there’s no room in liturgy for solemnity or splendor. There is, and we certainly know how to do it! But even our most solemn celebrations need to wear human clothing and they need to be warm and approachable and accessible to everyone, just as Jesus was. Dear friends, on this the feast of our dedication, I remind you that this incredibly beautiful cathedral we call our home is an important place –- a very important place where we meet Jesus, and it is the place more than any other where we celebrate who we are as the priestly People of God. It is the place where we hear our call, and the place where we are challenged and enabled to answer that call. But the building is only a building. The building, no matter how beautiful, only makes sense if it welcomes us warmly and then sends us forth to live out there what happens in here: to do out there what Jesus did as he brought glad tidings to the poor, proclaimed liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, healing and hope to all. That was his call and it is ours as well. On this feast of our dedication, may we renew our commitment to that call, and may the Eucharist we now celebrate with beauty, dignity, and grace strengthen us to live it! Father Michael G. Ryan
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You probably won’t be surprised if I tell you that I get a lot of compliments
about our cathedral. One of the nicest I can remember was from a priest
who told me that he thought St. James was the quintessential Vatican II
cathedral. I liked that because I happen to think that the Second Vatican
Council was the single most important event in modern Church history, but for
someone to call this a Vatican II cathedral is pretty remarkable when you
consider that it was built more than 50 years before the Second Vatican Council!