Bits of Bread

So I'm here in Ireland, having just completed the verification process to assure the Googles that I am not a hacker but rather the same poster who has managed this blog for almost two years, just signing in from a new locale. I won't be keeping a blog specific to Ireland because I'll be posting every fourth post on our community website's blog and trying to keep this blog up, which will surely be contextualized if not influenced supremely by my experiences here.

We went to mass yesterday together, attending the 7pm Vigil mass that our Vigil Choir will usually provide the music for. However, yesterday, we had no responsibility. We just went and joined the community for the weekly Eucharist.

I definitely did not walk away with Eucharistic revelations based upon the awe and wonder of going to mass at my new parish where I will work and love for a year. Actually, it was just the opposite. The music and choirs are still on break, and Fr. Sean is the only priest on hand for the weekend. This resulted in a 35-minute musicless mass, catalyzed by Fr. Sean's deliberate way of rolling through things and the Irish people's love of responding with their parts of the mass before the priest has really finished his part. All part of the learning curve.

Yesterday capped a process of deepening Eucharistic understanding that should really always be happening, and for me, it happens anew as the seas of the faith journey rise and fall throughout the days, weeks, and months.

Through mass on last Saturday alongside my friend Becky (my last Basilica mass for a while) and our Send-off Mass on Monday, I was really embracing the idea that only in being broken apart does the Body of Christ become whole. Only by going through the fraction rite does the bread and wine go into the pieces and bowls and cups for us to each come up and take the Body and Blood of our Lord. And only by leaving the mass as Christians freshly filled up by Christ can we be Christ's hands and feet in the world.

Only by leaving the Lady Chapel and Notre Dame and the US can Teach Bhride Season III get its members and be God's in this mission. Only by going back to our families and homes and returning to school or the year's new challenges and tasks can each summer of Vision mentors and participants let their refreshed outlooks and hearts take root in their whole person and be God's in their worlds. Only by sending seniors and graduates out into their world and receiving new newbies can the Folk Choir continue to proliferate, cycle, and share its love at Notre Dame and throughout the universal Church. Only by commencing and going forth can the Class of 2011 and all its predecessors change the world; we leave our places to new people for new opportunities and bring our Notre Dame to the world.

Only by leaving the mass, by taking the piece of Christ's Body and Blood given to us in our Eucharist -- a piece that is quantifiable by physical standards but mysteriously transcends all that to be full of the same joy and renewal that all of Christ's reaching out to us brings -- can we do Christ justice and freely give the love that he has offered us.

Christ says, "Do this in memory of me," but he doesn't just mean the action of the Eucharist. I think he is referring to the whole thing. I realized at our very basic celebration of the mass yesterday that it is all there. I try to steer clear of evaluating masses and rather center myself upon the One God present in every Eucharist celebrated, regardless of the priest's charisma or vigor. And there in our mass was the whole thing. The Body of Christ in the Eucharist, in how Jesus comes to be with us, and the people assembled to receive Him and go forth. In the announcements, the bulletin, the greetings and exchanges.

We do this all in memory of Him. Not just the blessing and breaking. The coming and going. The loving. The giving and receiving. We are the Body of Christ, and our lives must be reflections of that in more than just the second half of the mass. Man, this sounds real good on paper...

How We Are His

We have all heard the song You Are Mine.

Do not be afraid; I am with you. I have called you each by name. Come and follow me; I will bring you home. I love you, and you are mine.

This is sometimes overused, but the power of it is still not lost on me or a lot of other people. It comes from Isaiah 43, where God tells us not to fear, for He has redeemed us and we are His.

One of our speakers at Vision used it as a cornerstone of her speech on self-love, telling us if she could read it to us hundreds of times she would. My spiritual director harped on it to me to try to connect me straight to God. David Haas put it to music for us to use throughout our worship.

The power of this passage is deep. And I want to take it in what was for me a newer direction.

I have noticed as my opportunities for leadership, especially in ministry, have multiplied that learning people's names and calling them exactly by name in conversation is huge. People respond more brightly and openly when you gently and lovingly call them by name, saying "Hey, Tim" instead of just "Hey" or sticking their name into conversation rather than using you's and he's and she's.

Your name is a beautiful thing. Your parents thought long and hard (hopefully) about what to name you, often with a friend or saint in mind.

And not only is our name on our birth certificate and in birth announcements, it is on our baptismal certificate. When our parents and godparents brought us before the Church to be baptized into it and the death and resurrection of Christ, we were baptized with the Christian name our parents gave us.

Our first name is not just a identifying item for attendance lists and driver's licenses. It is the way that we were first brought into the embrace of Jesus and His Church. It is the name that our parents offered to God as the way for Him to look with love upon the child of His that they were bringing into His embrace.

When Adam first came to know the creatures God had created around Him, he named them. God gave us dominion over the earth, and Adam exercised that by naming the animals. He named them to show his loving care over them, to show his lordship yet his love. The Jews abstained from saying God's name so as to not act as if they controlled or lorded over The Lord.

In this baptism by Christian name, our parents offer a gesture of loving care. But it is not just a power trip by them to lord over us. Nor does it stop with their love and care. They bring the child they have made with love to God, share the name with God, and promise, along with the godparents, to love the child and to make it part of the Church.

Parents name their child to show their care, but they embrace the support of the Church, especially the godparents, in raising the child and more importantly entrust the child to God. Our parents believe that by sharing the child with God by name, they have sacramentally celebrated that God has redeemed this child, as a Christian baptized into Christ's death and resurrection, that God loves the child, and that the child is God's.

Sometimes, our temptation is to be indifferent towards our names or prefer a nickname, and there isn't anything inherently wrong with that. But let's not underestimate the beauty of this mystery enfleshed in our baptism.

Our parents and godparents entrust us to God who knows us by name, by our Christian name. God looks upon me and says, "Dan, I love you. And you are mine."