The Preparation of the Altar

Rev. Charles Strebler • September 23, 2025

After the Universal Prayer, either while the collection is being taken or after it has been collected, the preparation of the altar takes place. The corporal, a square linen cloth used to catch the particles of the host, is unfolded and placed on the altar as are the chalice; the Roman Missal; the cups with wine to be consecrated, and the purificator(s), the rectangular cloth used to wipe the chalice and the cups. The preparation of the altar is properly done by the deacon, or in his absence, the celebrant.


The collection and the gifts for the celebration are brought forward in the Offertory. The bread and the wine used at Mass are brought by some of the congregation to the presider. This is an ancient practice, as is seen in the description of the offertory from the Mass in Justin’s First Apology,

Then bread and a cup of water and mixed wine are brought to the president of the brethren and he, taking them, sends up praise and glory to the Father of the universe through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and offers thanksgiving at some length that we have been deemed worthy to receive these things from him. When he has finished the prayers and the thanksgiving,816 the whole congregation present817 assents, saying, "Amen." "Amen" in the Hebrew language means, "So be it."


Though now, the mixing of the water and wine takes place just a little later in the Mass.


The wine must be natural from the fruit of the vine and not spoiled (canon 924 §3)--because then it is not wine, but vinegar. It must be wine from grapes, it cannot be, for example, cherry wine. Fortified wines such as port, which have other things like brandy, which is from grapes but is distilled and not fermented as wine is, cannot be used. As long as it is grape wine, it doesn’t matter if it is white, red, or rosé, sweet or dry. I have found for Communion wine, generally a sweeter wine is more acceptable to most palates, especially those of children.


The bread is to be “only wheat and recently made so that there is no danger of spoiling” (canon 924 §2). This means that you can not use bread made, for example, with rye, or to which has been added honey, or anything else.  [There is a story that has been verified of one priest at Mass holding up a loaf of bread and announcing, “This is My Body—except for the raisins and cinnamon.” {Heavy sigh}]


I have heard it said that it takes a greater act of faith to believe that the host is bread, than to believe it is the Body of Christ. Still, it is the practice of the Latin Church to use the host for consecration.  Canon 926 instructs:

According to the ancient tradition of the Latin Church, the priest is to use unleavened bread in the Eucharistic celebration whenever he offers it.


It is interesting to note that it does not say that leavened bread is forbidden; to say so would be problematic because the Eastern Churches have the tradition of using leavened bread for the Eucharist at their liturgies. If the Church said that leavened bread can never be used, then the Eastern Churches would not have Eucharist. However, since it is the ancient tradition of the Latin Church that unleavened bread be used, that is the norm and only under most extraordinary circumstances should leavened bread be used for the Mass. One such case would be when Bishop (later Cardinal) Nguyễn Văn Thuận was imprisoned for the Faith in Viet Nam, he would take what crumbs of bread he could get and consecrate them in his hand so that he could celebrate and receive the Eucharist.


These details of what can be used for the bread and wine are important. They affect the validity of the Eucharist, which means: Is it the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus, or not? It must be wheat bread and grape wine. If it is not, it is invalid matter. I like Coke and Cool Ranch Doritos, but I cannot use them for Mass.  Even if the words of consecration are said, they do not become the Body and Blood of Jesus; only if it is grape wine and wheat bread.


When the gifts have been received, the priest, deacon, and servers take the gifts to the altar. The deacon hands the bread to the priest, who prays (either inaudibly when there is a song being sung or aloud when there is not; most of our Sunday Masses would have a song, so the prayers are usually inaudible):

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through Your goodness we have received the bread we offer You: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.


If this is done audibly, the people respond:

Blessed be God for ever.


The Deacon, or in his absence the Priest, pours wine and a little water into the chalice, saying quietly:

By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.


This is another example (but not the last) of the practical at the Mass becoming symbolic. In ancient times wine was made very strong and had to be diluted with water. It has now come to symbolize the Incarnation where the divinity and humanity of Jesus are joined in such a way as that they cannot be separated any more than wine and water once mixed can be separated back into their original forms.


The deacon hands the chalice to the priest who prays (either inaudibly or aloud as with the bread as above):

Blessed are You, Lord God of all creation, for through Your goodness we have received the wine we offer You: fruit of the vine and work of human hands it will become our spiritual drink.

If prayed aloud, the people respond:

Blessed be God for ever.


These prayers echo the Jewish Berakah, a prayer that acknowledges God as the source of all blessings and transforms everyday actions and occurrences into religious experiences designed to increase awareness of God at all times. They usually begin:

Blessed are You, Lord our God, or

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe.


We praise the God of all Creation Who gives us the stuff of creation—bread, water, wine—that is taken, blessed, broken and given to us for our re-creation. It recognizes the sacramental principle in the Church that the “common” can be and often is the way that God reveals and shares Himself with His people.


After the gifts have been presented, the priest, bowing profoundly, says quietly:

With humble spirit and contrite heart may we be accepted by You, O Lord, and may our sacrifice in Your sight this day 
be pleasing to You, Lord God.

The Gift of Contrition: Returning to God with Honesty and Hope

By Rev. Charles Strebler • November 29, 2025
“Have mercy on me, God, in accord with your merciful love;/in your abundant compassion blot out my transgressions./Thoroughly wash away my guilt;/and from my sin cleanse me./For I know my transgressions;/my sin is always before me./Against you, you alone have I sinned;/I have done what is evil in your eyes/So that you are just in your word,/and without reproach in your judgment./Behold, I was born in guilt/in sin my mother conceived me./Behold, you desire true sincerity;/and secretly you teach me wisdom/Cleanse me with hyssop,/that I may be pure;/wash me, and I will be whiter than snow./You will let me hear gladness and joy;/the bones you have crushed will rejoice/Turn away your face from my sins;/blot out all my iniquities./A clean heart create for me, God/renew within me a steadfast spirit./Do not drive me from before your face/nor take from me your holy spirit./Restore to me the gladness of your salvation;/uphold me with a willing spirit./I will teach the wicked your ways,/that sinners may return to you./Rescue me from violent bloodshed, God, my saving God,/and my tongue will sing joyfully of your justice./Lord, you will open my lips;/and my mouth will proclaim your praise./For you do not desire sacrifice or I would give it;/a burnt offering you would not accept/My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;/a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn./Treat Zion kindly according to your good will;/build up the walls of Jerusalem./Then you will desire the sacrifices of the just,/burnt offering and whole offerings;/then they will offer up young bulls on your altar.”—Psalm 51 Dear Parishioners: ACTS. C is for Contrition , prayer of sorrow for our sins and asking for God’s forgiveness. The classic Catholic prayer for this is the Act of Contrition. One of the popular versions of this prayer proclaims, O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love. This says something about our sorrow. It is not a sorrow that comes from a fear of punishment, but it is a sorrow that comes from offending the God who has created us, redeemed us, and sustains us. We admit, God is good (all the time) and we are not (at least sometimes.) Prayer of contrition requires us to be honest enough to admit we have failed God and also acknowledges God deserves to receive our sorrow and contrition. In the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church’s prayer, at Night Prayer, an examination of conscience and a prayer of contrition begins the prayer. I encourage everyone to follow this laudable practice to end each day with a prayer of contrition. Sincerely, Rev. Charles F. Strebler Pastor 

Beyond Asking and Thanking

By Rev. Charles Strebler • November 23, 2025
“Hallelujah!/Praise God in his holy sanctuary;/give praise in the mighty dome of heaven./Give praise for his mighty deeds,/praise him for his great majesty./Give praise with blasts upon the horn,/praise him with harp and lyre./Give praise with tambourines and dance,/praise him with strings and pipes./Give praise with crashing cymbals,/praise him with sounding cymbals./Let everything that has breath/give praise to the LORD!/Hallelujah!”—Psalm 150 Dear Parishioners: ACTS. We begin with A, for Adoration. This is the prayer where we praise God not for what He does, but for whom He is. This is probably the form of prayer with which more people are least familiar. We are used to coming to God with requests for something to be granted—even forgiveness. We might come back to God to say thanks. We have to be honest that all those forms of prayer are about us getting something, be it asking or thanking for what we want granted. Adoration is just praising God for being God, Holy, Mighty, Eternal, Ineffable, and all the other attributes of God. This kind of prayer is focused on God with less reference to us. I admit my prejudices, what I find lacking in much “praise music” is that it is often still about what we do for God, “I praise you, God, for you are wonderful.” I admit this kind of music works at adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and festivals of praise but is not good Mass music. Adoration prayer seems less natural to us as human beings, but God deserves this kind of prayer. That is one of the great things about spending time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: We can just sit in awe and wonder. It can be pure adoration of God for being God. This type of prayer doesn’t even require us to say something or anything. We can just be with Him in the Eucharist. Just giving our time and attention to God is a form of prayer; giving God our time says that He is more important than the busyness or idleness of our lives. That is true praise given to God—not for what He does but for whom He is. Sincerely, Rev. Charles F. Strebler Pastor 

When Your Pray, Start Here: The ACTS Method

By Rev. Charles Strebler • November 15, 2025
“Pray as you can, not as you can't.”—Dom Chapman Dear Parishioners: Last week I answered a question about prayer. I thought this would be a topic worth unpacking, since we are all called to be people of prayer. When talking about prayer we can remember ACTS. This isn’t the book of the Bible, it is an acronym to remember the basic types of prayer. ACTS is: Adoration: Praising God not for what He does, but for whom He is. Contrition: Telling God that we are sorry for our sins. Thanksgiving: Thanking God for what he has done for us and in us in our lives. Supplication: Seeking God’s assistance for ourselves or others. Whether we are doing the public prayer of the Church or our own private prayer, these are the ways or the how we usually pray. ACTS is what we pray. Some commentators hold that all the ACTS should be present each time we pray. I don’t necessarily agree. There are going to be some times that we include all, some times we include only two or three, and some times that we just pray with one type of prayer. It may be that at a particular time in life one or more of the types of prayer seem more appropriate or fitting. Go with what works or is working for you. What is important is that you pray! In future Pastor’s Columns, I will explore each of these types in greater detail. Sincerely, Rev. Charles F. Strebler Pastor 

Prayer in Real Life: Learning to Talk with God

By Rev. Charles Strebler • November 9, 2025
“The best bit of advice I ever received about how to pray was this: keep it simple, keep it real, keep it up.”―Pete Greig, How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People Dear Parishioners: When I asked for questions to be answered in the Pastor’s Column , I received the following: How do we pray? As an altar boy in my youth, I would accompany the priest when he served mass at the house for the Carmelite nuns. I wondered to myself “do they spend the day saying the Our Father, Hail Mary etc. over and over?” Surely they do more than that. As an adult now I pray daily but sometimes have a hard time on what to say and what I’m praying for or about and usually end up saying an Our Father instead. Am I being selfish to pray “especially” for someone/thing as they are no more deserving as anyone else? There is quite a bit here. Nuns, especially cloistered nuns do spend their days in prayer. The anchor of their prayer is Liturgy of the Hours , which is available to everyone. (The app iBreviary is an easy access to these prayers.) Admittedly, that’s not all they do, they have daily tasks to do, just like everyone else. They have the ability—I would say luxury—to spend more time than the average person in prayer. They also do private prayer, often praying for requested intentions. I imagine other than prescribed prayers, each nun prays as she finds meaningful. We do our best in prayer. Their life is theirs, unless you’re one of them, it is not your life. Most of us have more time on tasks (work, family, school, home) and less time for prayer. A parent with a couple of young children or a person with a full-time job may not have the ability to pray in the way the nuns do, and that’s ok. Still, we all have the ability to find some time for prayer each day, no one is that busy, When you have trouble knowing what to say in prayer, just say what you can and know that God knows what we need and for what we should ask, even if we don’t. As St. Paul writes to the Romans: In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. (8:26) It is not selfish to pray especially for some people, it is not that they are more deserving of God’s help, but they are more important to us. The “especially” prayer is asking for something for everyone but remembering the intentions important to us. I often say that sometimes we need to pray not so that God hears us, but that we hear ourselves. We need to know we are praying for those close to us because it expresses our relationship with them. Again, even if we pray wrongly, which is hard to do, (unless asking for evil on someone or asking God that my team wins—the outcome of a sporting event has little to do with the salvation of ourselves or others), God knows what we truly need. The bottom line is: pray and let God sort it out! Sincerely, Rev. Charles F. Strebler Pastor 

So Many Feasts, So Few Sundays!

By Rev. Charles Strebler • October 30, 2025
“ Hence the Lord's day is the original feast day, and it should be proposed to the piety of the faithful and taught to them so that it may become in fact a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations, unless they be truly of greatest importance, shall not have precedence over the Sunday which is the foundation and kernel of the whole liturgical year.” – Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Dear Parishioners: It is hard to believe that we are in the last weeks of the Liturgical Year. There are thirty-four Sundays in Ordinary Time, and this week is the thirty-first (wasn’t the 16th Sunday two weeks ago?!)…well, it would have been the thirty-first if The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed , aka “ All Souls’ Day ” did not happen on a Sunday this year. This celebration is important enough in the Church calendar, that when it falls on a Sunday, it is celebrated in place of the Sunday of Ordinary Time. We only have to wait a week for this to happen again; next week The Dedication of the Cathedral of St. John the Lateran in Rome, which is celebrated on November 9 th , and it supplants the Sunday of Ordinary Time. 2025 had a number of feasts and solemnities that were celebrated on Sunday: The Presentation of the Lord (February 2 nd ), Saints Peter and Paul (June 29 th ), The Exultation of the Cross (September 14 th ), The C ommemoration of the Faithful Departed (November 2 nd ), The Dedication of the St. John the Lateran (November 6 th ); and the Church year always closes with The Feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe taking the place of the 34 th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Church Calendar of 2025 had what I believe is the most possible celebrations of other feasts and solemnities on Sundays. It is good that not just the daily Mass goers get to experience these celebrations; these show the depth and variety of celebrations in our Church year. Speaking of replacements, with Julia Rutkowski departing this week, I am looking for someone or some ones—it can be a group of people—to take the lead on coordinating the kitchen hall when there are events like luncheons after a funeral. The task includes keeping track of the paper and plastic items that are used, alerting the staff to cleaning and other issues that need to be addressed. This is an important, but not greatly time-consuming, probably averaging a few hours a month. If you have an interest in helping in this way, please contact the parish office. Sincerely, Rev. Charles F. Strebler Pastor

Thank You, Julia

By Rev. Charles Strebler • October 26, 2025
“ Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”—Semisonic Dear Parishioners:  Julia Rutkowski , our Business and Operations Manager, has taken a position at another parish. Julia will still be with us into the first week of November. Since Julia came to Holy Spirit in April of 2022, she has done a great deal of good work in updating the parish facilities and shoring up the parish finances. She leaves the parish grounds and buildings and books in a much better condition than she found them. She has also found some cost-cutting opportunities for the parish. We are thankful for the work she has done for Holy Spirit. Finding a new business manager is now a priority for me. I have discussed the position with the Holy Spirit Finance Council and published it on the Diocese of Cleveland jobs available website. Some of Julia’s previous tasks for the care of property are the role of Tony Smith, the Holy Spirit’s and St. Joseph's Multi-Campus Facilities Director. Still, our upcoming renovations and the diocese’s capital campaign, it makes sense that the job is a full-time position. We look forward to having someone in our finance office soon. But now, we say thank you, God bless, and Godspeed to Julia as her service to Holy Spirit comes to an end and she begins new service to the Church elsewhere. Any notes or other expressions of appreciations for Julia can be dropped off at the office. Sincerely, Rev. Charles F. Strebler Pastor

Celebrating Priesthood Sunday and Our Seminarians

By Rev. Charles Strebler • October 21, 2025
“ The priest is not and must not be a civil servant of the Church. Above all the priest is a man who lives for the spirit for God. This being the case the Seminary is the place where he learns 'to be with Him.’”—Pope St. John Paul II Dear Parishioners: Next Sunday, we celebrate Priesthood Sunday. As has been the custom here at Holy Spirit, we will be inviting a seminarian to speak at our Masses. We welcome Brent Feorene . Brent is a student at Borromeo Seminary, the college-level seminary of the Diocese of Cleveland with St. Mary Seminary being the graduate-level seminary. Brent is from our neighboring parish, St. Ladislas in Westlake. Last year he was one of the first seminarians to experience the propaedeutic year, a year of prayer that includes a casual walk though Spain as the Propadudes (as they have come to be known) walked the Camino de Santiago, a 550-mile pilgrimage. As challenging as that is, the road to the priesthood is no less challenging. The seminary is not just about education like most college and universities. What makes it different is the seminary is about formation. Pope St. John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis identified four “pillars” of seminary formation: Intellectual Formation : Coming to know the mysteries of the Faith so as the be effective in ministry, especially in preaching. Spiritual Formation : Preparing a man for a deeper relationship with Jesus and to enter into the life of the Trinity as to live a life of sacrificial love. Human Formation : Growing in integrity, maturity, empathy, and other human virtues. Pastoral Formation : Forming men to be ordained leaders in the Church. This is ultimately the integration of all the pillars of formation. The process can take almost a decade of formation. (I, myself, spent nine years in the seminary from starting as a Borromeo freshman forty years ago [1985] to ordination thirty-one years ago [1994]. Please pray for our seminarians as they travel the long, at times not easy, but at other times joyful and fun, path to the priesthood. You can see this school year’s Cleveland Seminarians on the boards in the narthex. We also have some smaller versions of the posters and holy cards that you can take to remind to pray for these men. 

The Recession

By Rev. Charles Strebler • September 23, 2025
As they leave, the priest and the deacon venerate the altar with a kiss. The ministers reverence the tabernacle with a genuflection. The ministers leave in the order they entered with the cross, and the candle-bearers going before the deacon and priest. The custom has become that there is a Closing Song. This is not required by the Roman Missal or the GIRM. There can be a closing hymn, an instrumental piece, or even silence. I fully support that the people have been told: “The Mass is ended,” and not “The Mass is ended…but first sing this song.” Still if there is a closing hymn, please stay and sing. If you must leave right after the dismissal, so be it.  Here at Holy Spirit, I have no choice but to rush (almost sprint) if I want to be able to greet people leaving Mass. With our church building, a leisurely procession would have me finding half the people gone by the time I got to the doors. Please stay around until the end of the song-- I’d love to greet you on your way out into the fields of the Lord.

The Dismissal

By Rev. Charles Strebler • September 23, 2025
After Final Blessing, the deacon (or priest if no deacon is present) gives the Dismissal. The current forms for the Dismissal are: Go forth, the Mass is ended. Or: Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord. Or: Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. Or: Go in peace. The people reply: Thanks be to God. On Easter, during the Octave, including the Second Sunday of Easter and on Pentecost, there is the Dismissal with Alleluias with the priest’s/deacon’s adding the Alleluia to his part and people adding it to theirs. “Thanks Be to God” is not said because we are thankful that the Mass has (finally) ended. We are thankful that we are sent out.  In the Latin Mass from the Missal of Pope Pius V, the Mass concluded, rather famously, with the words: “Ite, Missa est”. This literally translates as: “Go, it has been sent”, the “it” being the assembly. From these words the common name of the liturgical action we celebrate “Mass” is derived. This is significant. What we have done in church, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are meant to be taken out into the world. The congregation having been fed on the Scriptures and the Eucharist take the Jesus they have received in Word and Sacrament into a world longing for Him. We take Him to our homes, work places, schools; to our family, friends, coworkers, classmates; to the poor, the needy, the hurting, and the mourning. This is the point of the action of the Liturgy: we are transformed by Christ so that we can transform the world in Christ. What we do on Sunday should impact on what we do the rest of the week, how we treat others; how we do business; how we drive, everything! We have been sent! THANKS BE TO GOD!

The Closing Rites

By Rev. Charles Strebler • September 23, 2025
After the peoples’ Amen, the Communion Rite concludes and we move into the Concluding Rites. The Roman Missal allows that if announcements are to be made, they are made at this point. The way we do announcements at Holy Spirit is according to the mind of the Church and her liturgy. My intention for the announcements is that they are to be used for: opportunities for worship, charity, or social gathering. There are some events that come up after the bulletin goes to press on Tuesday, so they need to be announced on Sunday. The announcements at Mass are not intended for alerting of regularly-scheduled meetings. I discovered the real need for the Mass announcements a few years back when we were in the middle of the church window replacement process. I had several active parishioners, when seeing boarded-up windows, ask, “Was there a storm or vandalism?” though the project had been announced regularly in the bulletin. So, I saw that the bulletin was not widely read.  Though the goal is to have the announcements be brief and few, that we don’t always achieve that is a sign of the good things happening at Holy Spirit!