“Mass Moment” OneWith Session #12
At each OneWith session we highlight a moment during Mass to watch for… This week's Mass Moment is a little different because what I’d like to offer is not so much an explanation but a strategy to help you to get more out of this amazing encounter with God that we call Mass.
As many of you know, I’m a convert and one of the things that really - and I mean REALLY
confused me was the whole going to receive communion thing. It has to be the most
inefficient way to get this done, right? Come on, Catholics have been offering
communion for hundreds and hundreds of years, why haven’t they figured this thing out?
I had it solved after about my 3rd Mass experience...
“Hey y’all, look here – Body of Christ… Blood of Christ! Ushers, pass out the trays!"
Boom! I just knocked 10 minutes off of Mass… easy!
So why would the church ask every person (hundreds of people at a typical Mass) to get up... leave where they are sitting... walk up to the altar... where they are individually offered “The Body of Christ” and “The Blood of Christ”? I think if we only take the moment to ask that question, the answer becomes pretty obvious…
We each get up and leave the place where we had been, behind…
We journey to the altar, the table of the New Covenant. This becomes our physical amen to Christ’s invitation!
YOU are offered a personal invitation to encounter Christ; His Body, His Blood!
Your verbal “Amen” confirms your belief and relationship with Christ.
Not only that, but in that same moment you are not only OneWith God, but united in a common-union (communion) with all the Church – the Body of Christ!
Wow, that’s big stuff! And yet…
What’s the next thing that happens for most of us? We hurry back to our seat, talk with friends or family (not even singing)... Or, we oh-so-smoothly sneak a peek at our phones, right? It happens to all of us… In this modern world our minds are trained think ahead, to cue up our next task.
But what if… what if instead of planning the optimum route to the donuts in the social hall, chatting up the person next to us, or thinking ahead to our next task… what if we savored this moment of encounter with God and his people?
what if we savored this moment of encounter with God and his people?
What if we embraced this moment of intimacy with Christ and savored in the gifts, grace, forgiveness, mercy and love as we walk back to our seat… What if we prayed a prayer of thanksgiving (eukharistia) for God’s goodness, and for the strength to live what we have received in this celebration? So that when we are sent – we are still wrapped in grace of the One who sent us.
Embrace this moment, this mini-pilgrimage of faith…
Welcome to Mass!
~ Barry