In my freshman year of college, two of my three roommates had been unto that point lifelong California residents, meaning they had never experienced a tornado warning. However, tornado watches and warnings were just as common in our new home of South Bend, Indiana as they had been in Indianapolis where I grew up, and we encountered one early in our “Notre Dame experience.” As a person who was familiar with what those sirens and clouds meant, it was amazing to watch these two enlivened by the experience of a tornado-engendering storm. They were torn between following this Midwestern girl's advice to head to the safety of the dorm basement, and sticking their heads out our 4th floor window to experience the strange, unknown weather.
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| Pictured: A man with similar instincts to Laura. |
It is the beginning of tornado season, and even as an older and supposedly wiser, adult, I too desire to stand outside as a storm approaches. A tornado – and the kind of storm which accompanies them – offers a blustering wind, then some ominous calm, but throughout there is generally a perpetual sense of clarifying danger. It’s electrifying, and I enjoy it.1 It’s standing before the whirlwind.
I know a few people who would think I’m foolish for putting myself a few steps further away from the safety of the basement in order to feel the power of the storm. I’m not on the level of storm chasers, mind you, but it is relatively foolish. It’s hardly true danger; I know that in 99.9999% of cases, I should still have plenty of time to take the few steps to safety should a tornado appear. But there’s always the thrill and the danger of the 0.0001%.
“If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”This passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where the children first hear of Aslan, the Great Lion2 explains what I think the mere act of standing during the liturgy - our default posture - should evoke. We have the privilege of standing before God because he lets us, because he has taken the step to call us not slaves but friends,3 a beneficent gesture only He could make. By all rights we should be not only on our knees, but prostrate on the ground before “the holiest object presented to [our] senses.”4 I understand why quiet reverence for the Eucharist wins out, but I also understand blogger Rick Becker’s perspective on the magnetic draw, the almost crazed joy that we should feel in approaching the Eucharist - similar to the awe we feel over the chance a tornado might sweep us away. Yet I fully acknowledge that like most, I am often not “there” spiritually or mentally.
As someone who forms families for children’s First Communions, it saddens me to see that mental distance from the miraculous often exists even that first, glorious time.
Last week, our parish held practices for the almost-Communicants prior to the First Communion Masses on the weekend. In my mind, we practice to alleviate worry about how to approach. We practice to let them more easily focus on Christ than on when they are supposed to leave the pew, or where exactly to bow, etc. (because on some level, a Mass where the Communion distribution is abnormal will require a little bit of those logistics). I also attempt to help them understand at each step of the way to Whom all the bowing is supposed to be towards, and why it makes sense to bow.
When we come to the reception of Communion itself, I use Cyril of Jerusalem’s line from his mystagogical catecheses: “Make of your hands a throne.” With this spiritual and physical direction, I hope to translate these eight-year-olds’ natural worry back into a recognition of Christ’s presence.
If they think of their hands as making a throne, hopefully they then make the leap to recalling Who the throne is for, and why he is deserving of a throne.
Then, if he is the King of Heaven and Earth (and Creator of the weather systems which reflect a little of his power), then I hope the children make the next leap to the love involved in approaching him in the Eucharist: We not only stand before this King as friends at his will and behest, but through his gift we become more intimately connected than we would have ever thought possible.
He’s not safe, but He is good.
But why does the stress over a First Holy Communion exist in the first place? With what am I contending? I understand natural concern over a momentous event, but unfortunately, I believe a fair amount of the anxiety is misplaced. Rather than being filled with the “fear of the Lord,” or “wonder and awe” as some listings of the gifts of the Spirit put it, they fear embarrassment. I fear that in much of their experience up to this point, orderliness in church and school is prized over true reverence, and so the children worry about “doing it right” in front of all the watching and waiting family and friends, and often lose the potency of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ into their own Body and Blood in the process.
So what is the real danger of standing before God, the hazard we often forget? What is the peril of the whirlwind? Is it to be swept into a call which takes all of us, body and soul?
Then [the apostles] prayed, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place.”5I love the way that the apostles describe Judas - not as a person irredeemably evil (which he wasn’t) or who made the one unforgivable choice (which he didn’t), but as someone who ultimately decided to “turn away and go to his own place.” He turned inward, as opposed to being drawn out from himself, towards Christ, towards others.
This is the way that I often describe our free will to my students, both young and old. It is a matter of whether you turn towards God, and turn outwards toward his children, or turn inwards to yourself and your own desires. Conversion is this turning outward, and it feels thrilling if we immerse ourselves into the experience of it. It feels dangerous. Put frivolously, Judas chose not to enter the Danger Zone, either to cast in his lot with Christ from the beginning when all looked bleak for His earthly realm, or to take the terrible, humbling, painful step to acknowledge his betrayal of God Incarnate and ask for forgiveness.
When we receive the Eucharist, we should understand that we are throwing in our lot with Christ - and that alignment with Him should feel dangerous, if only to our own self-involvement.
2 If you should somehow be unfamiliar with the Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan is a character serving as allegory for Christ in a fairly obvious way - more obvious than was to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien’s taste.
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4 Excerpted from a fantastic Lewis quote which is actually less about the Eucharist than about human dignity. The full quote, from the Weight of Glory, is “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” In another passage, he says, “...the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.” If we would be strongly tempted to worship our neighbor when we see him properly, we should definitely be worshiping the Eucharist Lewis places ahead of him.
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