John Boyle Shares Facts About The Mass With The Congregation Before Every Wednesday All-School Mass At St. Vincent De Paul In Brooklyn Park.

John Boyle shares facts about the Mass with the congregation before every Wednesday all-school Mass at St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park. He’s been at it for the last two school years and he’s still going strong.

Energetic and accessible, he got straight to the point at this year’s first all-school Mass Sept. 4.

“Mass is said every single day here at St. Vincent de Paul, and most churches in the world. That shows that the Mass is incredibly important,” said the junior high theology teacher and youth minister. “But what is the point?”

“First and foremost, the Mass is about God and us glorifying God, and secondly, it is for our good,” Boyle said. “The Mass is about loving God in the way that he wants us to love him.”

“And so today, at this Mass, I encourage you guys to pray and say thank you throughout the Mass,” said Boyle, 28. “Say, God, thank you for this music. Thank you for this Gospel. Thank you for your sacrifice and sacrificing your life for me. Thank you for this Eucharist.”

Other topics Boyle has addressed include Why is Mass so boring? Why do we genuflect? Why do we sing? Why do we have candles around the altar?

Students love it.

“It focuses us to use our eyes, ears and all of our senses,” said eighth grader Matthew Langerman. Classmate Luciana Schmidt said, “I really like how it prepares us for Mass,” while another classmate, Evalyn Gorgos, said, “It’s a way for us learn how to pray more. The way he explains things helps us understand what God does for us every day.”

Boyle said his efforts came out of a desire to teach students younger than his seventh graders about the Mass. Some fellow teachers smilingly call the five-minute lessons “Boyle’s Babbles.”

“It probably doesn’t come close to what it actually does,” fifth-grade teacher Matt Robinson said of the affectionate title. “His catechesis in the morning, it focuses us, first. Second, in little, tiny, 40 different (lessons), it tells us about the Mass.”

Boyle said his efforts dovetail nicely with — but were not directly inspired by — the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Eucharistic Revival and Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s emphasis on the Mass and the Eucharist, which is the focus of year two of implementing his 2022 pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses, Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room.”

“Clearly, the Holy Spirit is at work in this whole revival. It’s happening in this archdiocese as well,” Boyle said, citing in part the 7,000 people who walked along Summit Avenue in St. Paul May 27 as one of four routes of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage came through the archdiocese. “The Holy Spirit is at work.”

SOURCE: The Catholic Spirit