Like most people reading this blog, I can recall those moments in childhood when my mother would announce, “it’s time to go to Mass!” and would be met with a chorus of groans from the family. It wasn’t so long ago that I found myself dreading the early morning wake ups that characterized my Sundays.
But today, after three months of not having attended Mass in person due to the coronavirus pandemic, I settled into the Church with some anticipation.
Mass for the past couple weeks was different. In some ways, it was quite similar. I actually appreciated the lack of distractions, especially when it came to listening to the Word. I found it easier to hone-in on the homily and enjoyed the flexibility of being able to choose when I attended the Mass.
But when it came to the Liturgy of the Eucharist, everything changed. Sure – the same transformative event, the Great Sacrifice of the Lamb of God was occurring before me, but instead of participating in the moment, I was merely watching the moment.
It’s the difference between watching a football game being played, and actually playing the game. Rather than merely viewing something, you enter into something, a remarkable difference.
As was how I felt this morning. The sequence of events I partook in – the same sequence occurring for thousands of years in the Church – was played out before me. I said the same prayers, recited the same words, yet there was something altogether different about the reception of the Eucharist. It wasn’t quite like the first time I took Holy Communion – that awesome, yet strange sensation of receiving God in that manner for the first time – but it was certainly quite different from the past decade of my life.
And how fitting it occurred on the Feast of Corpus Christi. What appears to an outsider as a ceremonial breaking of bread ritual revealed itself to a crowd of only about twenty as the True, Universal, and Definitive Body of Christ. The Mass only took a half hour. The homily wasn’t anything to change one’s life and the congregation slipped on some of the responses. But the source and summit of the Christian life – the Eucharist – remained constant.
I understand and accept that I have failed to appreciate the Eucharist as others have throughout history. I know that I do not always treat the Mass with the reverence it deserves and ought to find more times during the week to experience it. But in my deficiency of the Sacred Mysteries this season, I experienced a Eucharistic Renaissance of sorts in my interior life.
If it remains dangerous or unwise for you to attend Mass due to your personal situation, please do not put yourself in harm’s way. As a universal Church, we ought to maintain a close relationship with God while remaining physically distant from others.
Catholicism Rekindled 