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...