Here's the fifth of the Luminous (Light) Mysteries. Thanks to the Pope who gave them to us. Thanks to the Pope who has asked us to lean into this prayer, these days when the peace is disturbed. And thanks to you for joining the prayer.
Our Father...
Eucharist: A God who is not content to walk alongside us - before or behind us - but whose love is so permeating it wants to get inside us, where we need the most help.
Hail Mary...
Jesus did not say, "take and understand," nor "take and define," nor "take and preserve as your own property," but "Take and eat." Like a great Mother who still serves a Sunday supper.
Hail Mary...
When crusty bread is broken, crumbs fly round and about. Actually, bread-breaking can be kind of messy. Some priests obsess about keeping every crumb safe and contained, but they miss the bigger significance: Christ, desiring to be with us far and wide in the unpredictability, messiness and variability of human living.
Hail Mary...
Pope Francis cautions us about becoming so distracted by the rules that can be called upon to keep the Eucharist away from the unworthy - a kind of prize for the pure. We risk forgetting that the Eucharist is medicinal for strugglers.
Hail Mary...
At Mass, we are indeed at Calvary. But we are not re-enacting Calvary as simply a historical moment from two millennia ago. Somehow we give that impression to many. But Calvary is the love of God searching out the lost one. And that lost one is every one of us, everywhere and in every time. Mass effects this divine search. That means it makes it apparent and an experience for human kind.
Hail Mary...
"I once was lost, but now am found." Have I ever had a personal experience of this as I step along the Communion bread line, my hand's outstretched, my cup, empty. Lost in our contradictions, fears, planet threatening mistakes and folly. And in that condition, God is always looking for me, long before I had a thought of God. Like the father of the prodigal, who stands on tip-toe, scanning the horizon for us.
Hail Mary...
Ours is a religion that has food as its centerpiece. I can imagine myself beneath Calvary's cross: the blood of Christ. That would be life changing for me. I could never again be the same. Eating the Eucharist every Sunday should change me. Maybe they should say of us: "Catholics? Aren't they the ones who see to it that everyone on the planet is fed?"
Hail Mary...
Notice that at Mass everyone gets the same: the same little wafer, the same little sip. There are no distinctions. This is an important message for a world that fights to preserve distinctions. The very thought of sameness and in childish terror we start hurling words like socialist and communist at each other. Maybe for starters, there should be no title in the Church higher than brother and sister.
Hail Mary...
For Latin Rite Catholics, First Communion is generally received at age seven - the age of reason. This is supposed to be the age when we can think it out a bit. Really? In the East, the baby is given Holy Communion immediately after Baptism. The East puts the emphasis on the understandings of the heart over the figuring out of the mind. "The heart has its reasons, that reason knows not of."
Jesus washed the feet of the disciples at the supper. Maybe they couldn't afford a foot washer servant, or maybe the guy they hired just never showed up. Doesn't matter - Jesus took up the apron, basin and towel. Maybe "foot washing" should be a kind of 8th sacrament. That would really get the world's attention.
Hail Mary...
Jesus washed the feet of the disciples at the supper. Maybe they couldn't afford a foot washer servant, or maybe the guy they hired just never showed up. Doesn't matter - Jesus took up the apron, basin and towel. Maybe "foot washing" should be a kind of 8th sacrament. That would really get the world's attention.
Hail Mary...
Glory be to the Father...
