Behold the Church

"Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his home."     -John 19:25-27

Often when people think of the beginning of our Church, they look to Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came to Jesus' followers and emboldened them to go forth from the room they cowered in and preach to all the nations. The small nucleus of faithful that had followed Jesus received the inspiration to do something with the good news that filled them with joy. They shared it with the people, and many were constantly added to their number.

I have no problem with this wondrous event marking the beginning of our Church, but what if we look earlier? Let's consider a perspective of the history of our God and His action in our world.

The span of our salvation history is often considered in three "eras":

(1) the Law and the Prophets - the time of the Jews as God's Chosen People and revelation chiefly through prophets

(2) the life and ministry of Jesus - the time when God became man and was with us in human form, walking and living among us

(3) the Church - the time when we pray and worship and live together as a community founded on Christ and looking forward to the time of fullness when our Lord will perfect our work on building the Kingdom in His eternal glory and our life with Him

This is a nice way to think of the evolution and progression of how God has intervened in human history, active in our lives and our world. The thing that separates the time of the Church from the time of Jesus' life is not that Jesus is no longer with us; it's that Jesus is with us through the Eucharist and the Holy Spirit within us and guiding our Church rather than physically walking among us as in His human life.

So, what if we look to the foot of Jesus' cross for the beginning of our Church? There is a potential pitfall as well as an inspiration in going to this moment. The hang-up is that is comes within the life of Jesus, the era preceding the Church, so it blurs the line a bit. But maybe that's just right.

The last thing Jesus did in His life, during those last hours when He was tortured and beaten then affixed to a cross, was commend His mother and His best friend to one another. He made sure to express His love for two of the dearest people to Him by matching them to each other, by telling them to continue sharing the love they had come to know in Christ with one another. It is in this beautiful reality that we can see the beginning of our Church.

Christ left us with the Eucharist, with His Passion and Resurrection, and Peter (the first pope) and the apostles (first bishops) to give us the foundation for His Church, for the way that His love would be known and shared through communities of prayer and worship where people could know the love of Christ through communion with Him and with one another. Where did/does this love come from? Jesus Christ - from His life, ministry, Passion, death, and Resurrection.

He gave us the perfect example. And in His last interpersonal action, before He died on the cross to offer salvation to all people, He looked to His most dearly beloved and told them to share their love with one another. And John took her into His home. And there and then, that might have been when our Church was born.

So as we gather as the communities of Christ, together within His Body as one community, let us remember that crucial moment of love shared, when the love of Christ came from Jesus Himself but was first shared between two believers whose love would be the foundation for the Love that pervades our Church.

Gospel, Wednesday of Holy Week

Here is a reflection I've done on today's Gospel reading from Matthew around the betrayal of Judas:

We're lucky, or maybe blessed, that our betrayals of Jesus aren't as high profile that of Judas. We're also pretty lucky that the payout for our double-crossings isn't made in cash because some of us, me included, could get rich pretty easily.

Judas' transgression is maybe the best-known sin against Jesus, and we follow in his footsteps pretty seriously. We, like those gathered at the Last Supper, come to the table with Christ as His friends in the Mass and the Eucharist. We look right at Jesus, say Amen, and pray our prayers, and even if we haven't pre-arranged a deal, we turn and make new mistakes.

However, unlike Judas, we can know and have the forgiveness of Christ. We don't have to turn to the dark recourse that Judas takes in his hour of darkness; we can return to God with all our hearts. We can come in repentance to Christ in the Eucharist and in Reconciliation and make amends for our mistakes, for those times when we turn ourselves away from our God who never leaves us.

So maybe today's Gospel is an opportunity to realize that we sin and come short like Judas, but to also realize that we can diverge from Judas' dark path. We can emerge from our darkness and realize our shortcomings. We can come back to Christ and share in Him who is Life.

The Greatest Apology

Apology: "a regretful acknowledgement of offense or failure."

When we think of an apology, we typically will think of trying to make amends for some way we've done wrong by others. Apology is a crucial precursor to forgiveness. We must repent of our mistakes to God and the people who we have done wrongly.

But theologians are nerds. And we specialize in another kind of apology: "a reasoned argument or writing in justification of something." Theologians have been spinning defenses of Christianity throughout the tradition of our church, trying to explain in rational terms why their faith seems so coherent and cogent. Much ink has been spilled by wonderfully bright and gifted humans trying their best to use limited intelligibilities to defend and uphold a faith and truth that exists within our faith-informed reason but also transcends it.

There is great merit in their efforts, and I like to think that some of my musings here have qualified as faithful efforts toward Christian apology. However, I, and most of my predecessors and cohorts, would admit the inadequacy of our writings. We are gesturing at a God who can only be successfully described negatively. We are dancing around an infinite truth with finite means.

So where can we look for the greatest apology for our faith? Where are the greatest words and strongest arguments? They come from the One for whom we apologize, our Risen Lord who made the greatest apology.

In the deep reaches our tradition, the prolific theologian Origen provided us some amazing theology, including the quote that has bannered my blog since its inception. In the prologue to his book Contra Celsum, an apology written against Celsus, a critic of Christianity, Origen shares what he views is the greatest apology ever made for our faith. His opinion? The silence of Jesus Christ in His trial.

Here I share with you the profound first section of his prologue and link you in to the full six section introduction to his great work:

"When false witnesses testified
against our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
He remained silent;
and when unfounded charges were brought against Him,
He returned no answer,
believing that His whole life and conduct among the Jews
were a better refutation than any answer to the false testimony,
or than any formal defence against the accusations.
And I know not, my pious Ambrosius,
why you wished me to write a reply
to the false charges brought by Celsus against the Christians,
and to his accusations directed against the faith of the Churches in his treatise;
as if the facts themselves did not furnish a manifest refutation,
and the doctrine a better answer than any writing,
seeing it both disposes of the false statements,
and does not leave to the accusations any credibility or validity.
Now, with respect to our Lord's silence
when false witness was borne against Him,
it is sufficient at present to quote the words of Matthew,
for the testimony of Mark is to the same effect.
And the words of Matthew are as follow:
And the high priest and the council
sought false witness against Jesus to put Him to death,
but found none, although many false witnesses came forward.
At last two false witnesses came and said,
'This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God,
and after three days to build it up.'
And the high priest arose, and said to Him,
'Do you answer nothing to what these witness against you?'
But Jesus held His peace.
And that He returned no answer when falsely accused,
the following is the statement:
'And Jesus stood before the governor;
and he asked Him, saying,
"Are You the King of the Jews?"
And Jesus said to him, "You say."
And when He was accused of the chief priests and elders,
He answered nothing.
Then said Pilate unto Him,
"Do you not hear how many things they witness against You?"
And He answered him to never a word,
insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly."

May we remember the profound silence of our Lord, who chose to let His incredible love in action speak where words would fall short. May you have a blessed Holy Week and Triduum as you anticipate the resurrection of the Lord.

Fifth Sunday of Lent - Year B

Here is the notes I used for my radio program on Southeast Radio on the readings for this Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year B). The readings are New Jerusalem Version, which we use here in Ireland. Enjoy!

In today's readings, God tells us:

Then I shall be their God, and they will be my people,

and through Christ, who became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation,
I shall draw all people to myself.

First Reading

A reading from the prophet Jeremiah:
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares,
when I shall make a new covenant
with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah),
but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors
the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt,
a covenant which they broke,
even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares.
No, this is the covenant I shall make
with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares.
Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.
Then I shall be their God and they will be my people.
There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbour or brother, saying,
"Learn to know Yahweh!"
No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares,
since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'
Then I shall be their God and they will be my people.
God tells us that He will plant His Law among us, that He will write His Law on our hearts. We have the luxury - a luxury that the Jewish people didn’t have - of knowing the fulfillment of this and of all God’s promise. The Jews heard the prophets’ calls and sermons, but they never quite took the messages to heart. They couldn’t comprehend the layers of truth and warning and anticipation woven into the calls of their prophets. We, the Christian people who know the One who has fulfilled God’s promise, have the reality of Christ. We have the key to the puzzle. We know the story, the salvation-history, the narrative in which God became man and entered into our history in the most amazing way. We know that Christ lived, died, and rose again so that we might live and die and rise again in Him and know the forgiveness and salvation that He won for us.
The idea of a “people” in the Old Testament is ubiquitous, as much of the story revolves around the Israelites. The Jewish people come from the covenant God made with Abraham, promising him a vast amount of descendants, a promise that proceeded from Abraham's grandson, Jacob, who God re-named Israel and made the father of His Chosen People. God watched carefully over Jacob's 12 sons and the tribes that grew from each of them. He rescued them from Egyptian captivity, guided them through the desert, and helped them win their promised land. Their history is full of fidelity and lapses, piety and idolatry, obedience and waywardness.

They lived by The Law, and in time, Jesus came as the Law that God said he would plant among His people. Jesus told us that He came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. He did not seek to end the designation of God's chosen people. He sought to come to them in love as the Savior that God had promised to them. Christ came to fulfill the hopes of the Israelites as the One who would save them forever. He came not just for the Jews but for all people, offering the Good News and salvation through Himself to all who sought it. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the temple's sanctuary was torn in two; the barrier that separated the Holy of Holies, where only high priests could go, had been eliminated. Christ came so that we all could know God, so that all could receive Him and be numbered among His Chosen People. Christ came to us so that His Father could be our God and we could be His people.

Then I shall be their God, and they will be my people,

and through Christ, who became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation,
I shall draw all people to myself.

Second Reading

A reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Hebrews:
During his life on earth, he offered up prayer and entreaty,
with loud cries and with tears,
to the one who had the power to save him from death,
and, winning a hearing by his reverence,
he learnt obedience, Son though he was,
through his sufferings;
when he had been perfected,
he became for all who obey him
the source of eternal salvation.

He became for all who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.

Christ's ministry of preaching, healing, and presence was not a consolation to everyone. Some people tried to trap Jesus in order to make him blaspheme or contradict the letter of the Law. Others hatched plots to kill Him. Jesus Christ is the Savior of everyone, but for some reason, He isn't for everyone. Christ makes the offer of salvation to all who come to Him, but many people reject Him.

The new wording of part of the Eucharistic Prayer at our Mass changed the formula describing the blood of Christ from “shed for you and for all” to “poured out for you and for many.” This adjustment evoked criticism from some people. If Christ died on the cross for all people, shouldn't the words have stayed “for you and for all”? Isn't that a better reflection of universal salvation offered on the cross? These questions are difficult because they come back to this challenging reality that, though the redemption by Christ on the cross is available to all people through baptism and faith in Him, not everyone believes that to be true. We are left with a tension when we reflect on the conflicting sentiments – if salvation comes through Christ, are my non-Christian friends going to hell? Should I be doing something about that? What if they're not baptized but live and act in accordance with the Gospel values and Christ's example?

Only God has the answers to these questions. We believe that the Church is the best means we have to prepare ourselves and our hearts for eternal life with God. For those outside the Church, I just pray that they may remain open to Christ's truth and love and not go out of their way to condemn or disparage Christ or the Church. Ultimately, we believe that for all people, Christ became for all who obey Him the source of salvation.

Then I shall be their God, and they will be my people,

and through Christ, who became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation,
I shall draw all people to myself.

Gospel

A reading from the Gospel according to John:
Among those who went up to worship
at the festival were some Greeks.
These approached Philip, who came from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and put this request to him,
'Sir, we should like to see Jesus.'
Philip went to tell Andrew,
and Andrew and Philip together went to tell Jesus.
Jesus replied to them:
‘Now the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.
In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies,
it remains only a single grain;
but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.
Anyone who loves his life loses it;
anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me, must follow me,
and my servant will be with me wherever I am.
If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him.
Now my soul is troubled.
What shall I say:
Father, save me from this hour?
But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify your name!’
A voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will again glorify it.'
The crowd standing by, who heard this,
said it was a clap of thunder;
others said, 'It was an angel speaking to him.'
Jesus answered, 'It was not for my sake that this voice came, but for yours.
'Now sentence is being passed on this world;
now the prince of this world is to be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I shall draw all people to myself.'
By these words he indicated the kind of death he would die.

Here, Jesus gives us a direct insight into who He is and what He has come to do. He preaches to the people about the necessary role that death plays in giving new life, and in case there was any doubt in the hearts of the listeners, God speaks from heaven to affirm that Christ is doing His will. We will reflect more upon the Passion and death of Christ in our Lenten observances of the Stations of the Cross, Palm Sunday, and Good Friday. For now, I want to focus on a beautiful line that concludes this reading.

In one of our Eucharistic Prayers, the priest prays, “You never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting, a pure sacrifice may be offered in your name.” This line draws directly upon John's Gospel to invoke Christ's prophecy.

Taken on its own, Jesus' line is a beautiful reflection on His love: Christ gathers people to Himself. He does not simply sit on a throne and grant wishes to desperate people; Christ comes among us to show us God's Love and build relationships with us.

Looking at the larger context of the reading, Christ says he will draw all people to Himself when He is lifted up from the earth – a clear gesture toward the Resurrection, the final moment when Christ ascends to Heaven forever and brings us with Him to live in eternal life. But there's even more to it than that; the reading concludes, “by these words, He indicated the kind of death He would die.” This contextualizes Christ's message. This beautiful image of Christ drawing us to Him for His ultimate ascent into Heaven is inherent in His death. Christ's death fundamentally includes this reality. When we reflect upon His death, we must reflect also on His Resurrection. The death of Christ defeats death forever and makes it the door to Heaven. Christ tell us, “I shall draw all people to myself.”

Then I shall be their God, and they will be my people,

and through Christ, who became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation,
I shall draw all people to myself.

A Sacramental Life in Christ

A week ago, while I was on one of my many runs these days leading up to the Wexford Half Marathon, I was thinking of my sins in light of my Lenten pledge and the effort for solidarity with Christ in engaging temptation and trying to face it down with His courage. I thought about how I sometimes just lack the strength to overpower a protracted moment of weakness. I allow myself a deviation from what I know to be right. And I can feel, deep inside me - in the shallow, kiddie-pool parts of me too - that I have the capacity and ability to be stronger than that.

I thought about our belief in original sin. Humanity has fallen; humanity is fallen. Catholics point to the sin of Adam as the moment when our perfect nature was corrupted, when the perfect freedom - known only by Christ since the sin of Adam - was violated by man, who willed something different than what God willed. We live in this condition and pass it on from generation to generation, seeking to thrive despite our propensity to fall time after time.

It can seem so futile and defeatist. How do we rise above it? Well, it can all start with the sacraments, and unsurprisingly, it starts with baptism. And as I've discussed before and continue to reflect upon constantly, we don't have the slightest sense of the dignity of our baptism.

In baptism, we are initiated into the redemption of Jesus. We are baptized into His life, death, and resurrection. We are called to emulate the selfless, self-giving love of Christ's life; we are brought into unity with our Lord who died on the cross; and we joyfully join in His cross because, through it, we find the strength to carry our own crosses toward the salvation He won for us in His Passion, death, and rising from the dead. Jesus died, sinless in the sinners' stead. His innocence on the cross made satisfaction for the sins of those who come to believe in Him who is Love. By being baptized into Christ, we can know the purification of our original sin. We endure, living in a state of fallen humanity, but we do so in the salvation of Christ. Our baptism invited us into a life that triumphs over sin and death.

In our baptism, we were brought into Christ and His primacy over sin. Boom.

But we don't reserve baptism for our deathbeds like Constantine and old-school people used to; we go to the waters as babies in our parents' and godparents' care or otherwise as consenting adults in RCIA. So how do we rediscover the salvation into which we were initiated in baptism? Reconciliation. Eucharist. Boom.

I am the last person who should be soapbox-ing on reconciliation, but I'll give it the basic plug it deserves while I continue to warm up to it better in my heart. We are humans who need faith to work with reason; we can't understand the entirety of our faith, its mysteries, and God. So, we have sacraments and sacramentals - visible signs of invisible realities that utilize our senses to give our minds and hearts a better sense of the truth and reality of our faith. Reconciliation utilizes the priest - the man who has consecrated his life to God as his sacramental and spiritual servant and shepherd of God's people - as a sacramental. You come to confession to tell your sins to God, and God is there speaking back to you. The priest isn't God, but He manifests the love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness of God. You still tell your sins to God, and He offers you one of His ordained servants to physically manifest the grace and absolution of Christ. Woot.

But what about people like me who are reconciliation slackers and only really go during Holy Week and maybe Advent? EUCHARIST! It's not to say that reconciliation isn't important or that it shouldn't be incorporated into a well-rounded life of faith, but I just have more credibility to yak on about Eucharistic life. So, yak on I shall.

First off, receiving Christ in the Eucharist forgives us our venial sins. We have an opportunity to examine our consciences in the opening rites of the mass, and we can pray over them throughout mass. Christ brings forgiveness to us first-hand in the Eucharist. Beyond that simple practical thing (which is pretty awesome), the mass is an amazing vehicle for the Eucharist to ride to us in.

We gather to pray and sing together, share our struggles and triumphs (even if nonverbally), and hear the Word. The Body of Christ is enfleshed all around us in our brothers and sisters even before it is enfleshed in the Eucharistic prayer. Then, we share in the Eucharistic prayer, following Jesus' command to "do this in memory" of Him.

Have you ever thought about that phrase, too? What does "this" mean? I think it refers to more than just the act of memorializing His Passion and the Last Supper. I think the whole of all the implications of "The Body of Christ" are manifested when we do this. So much good stuff is going on there. The long and short of it is that we share our triumphs and struggles with each other and put them on the altar so that the priest's sacrifice and ours may be acceptable to God. And then we, as individual sons and daughters of Christ and as brothers and sisters to one another and as a communal Body of Christ, are taken, blessed, broken, and shared. We, like the bread, are gathered to Christ in the mass. We are blessed in our prayer. We are broken into individuals as we each have our moment of intimate encounter with Christ in our reception of the consecrated hosts. And we are shared as the priest sends us forth to - and this is my favorite closing rite - glorify God with our lives!

So what does all this have to do with original sin? Our sacraments give us a chance to live a sacramental life, a life in Christ - a Eucharistic life. We can enter into a Eucharistic rhythm of examining ourselves, sharing and repenting for our sins, and knowing peace in the forgiveness of Christ through the mass and the Eucharist. And for the times when we create thoroughly negative patterns of sin and need fuller, deeper healing, God comes to us with His forgiveness in Reconciliation. So really, our only sin - original sin, which proliferates through the shortfalls we experience - had its stain taken off of us in baptism by our Risen Lord. And we have the freedom to come to God to be washed clean in the sacraments.

Christ made us immaculately clean in our baptisms, and part of answering our call to strive toward His example in love, service, and praise of our God is to embrace the way God comes so close to us in love and mercy. We can realize the dignity of our baptisms by living Eucharistically.

Mystically and Mysteriously Close

During my time back in the States, I went to Sunday mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on campus at Notre Dame. In the shadow of the choir loft full of my favorite liturgical choir on earth, in the basilica where I had been to so many beautiful and nourishing liturgies (from weddings to memorial masses, Tenebrae to Ordinations), I went up to receive the Body of Christ with my brothers and sisters who, with me, are the Body of Christ. And as I moved forward to reach out and receive the Risen Lord, I thought to myself, "This is exactly how I can be so far away and so close."

It started as a question, a reflection growing out of a beautiful mysticality in our Eucharist that has been popularized and articulated in a nice phrase by sacred-musician Danielle Rose: she says, "See you in the Eucharist." I first heard it in earnest from friends I met and grew close with on Catholics on Call in summer 2010. After we went home on Friday and texted over the weekend, one friend reassured the rest of us with the consolation that we'd be together in the Eucharist.

This warm outreach in faithful friendship manifested the beautiful ties we can know as faithful Catholics in our Eucharist. Jesus comes to us, transforming the bread and wine on our altar tables into His Body and Blood. His outreach comes to us as the pure Love that is God. Our God is above time and reaches all parts of time and space and beyond. The bond we know in Him through His Son Jesus Christ diffuses through our lives when embrace a rhythm of Eucharist. When we work to come to God and prayer in the Eucharist, we learn in our hearts how we can be nourished by being taken, blessed, broken, and shared by Christ and in Christ. Living a Eucharistic life gives us thorough, holistic consolation that upholds the hours and days of our lives in great light.

So as I've navigated the waters of a year abroad, living and serving in Ireland, the challenges of being far away from my parents, brothers, girlfriend, and dear friends are mitigated - or even baptized - by the strength of a Eucharistic life. Going to daily mass almost every day and 2 or 3 or more masses each weekend can sometimes leave me a bit "massed out," but the way that the Mass is weaved into the fabric of my life has entrenched the consolation that the bonds of the Body of Christ provide. How can I be so far away yet, even if not feel exactly close to my near and dear ones, not feel not so far away? The mystical bond with my loved ones through our shared belief and being within the embrace of the Body of Christ.

Sacrificing in Solidarity

Lent is a great time for Catholics to wear their faith on their sleeves.

Ash Wednesday - which, surprisingly to some, is not a holy day of obligation - allows us the chance to wear the ashes, a sign of repentance and our beginning and end in God, as a badge of honor that celebrates our faith outwardly and visibly to those who see us. My friend tells a great story about life at Notre Dame and the social pressure of having ashes - long story, short, we recycle the line of a student who has to defend themself since it's mid-afternoon and they don't have ashes yet: "I'm going later!" Basically, you better have ashes on your forehead if you think you're a Catholic.

And from Ash Wednesday on - especially during the first week, when resolve and boldness are high - we love to talk about what we're giving up. The conversation trends almost toward being a late-winter New Year's Resolution at times, but it's at least a chance to come up with a change you can make in your life. I mean, ideally, we keep the sacrifice of Christ at the heart of our own sacrifices - it's meant to be a struggle throughout the Lenten season that helps us be in solidarity with Christ who became man and suffered on His way to the ultimate sacrifice.

That's the ideal; it's tough. The absolute expectation is that you back up the early-Lent talk and turn it into more than just the thing you say in order to be included in the conversation. It's that you see it through to Easter and in some way realize a fresh taste of the thing you sacrificed on the great day of victory. Another ideal - you let the lesson of that sacrifice take root in your post-Lent-life.

What's the point of this all, idealized or not? We have a faith that supplies us a baseline, a steady cycle to frame our days and years. Our lives of faith as baptized Christians in the Catholic Church have inherent rhythm. Sometimes the institutionalism and tradition of our Church is the object of great scorn and criticism, but I embrace it as a crucial part of what makes me Catholic. And the primacy and prevalence of Lent and its practices are a beautiful opportunity that we have every year without having to do anything conscious or adjust our schedules - just like the glory of three-day weekends for Columbus Day or Presidents' Day that get you a day away from school and a shortened week to come back to, Lent pops up each year, as winter turns to spring, to invite us to repentance.

At tons of points during our years, throughout our lives, we have a moment, make a mistake, have an epiphany, make a vow - we want to affect some kind of change and adjust something in our lives. But whether it pops up during some random days or at the cusp of a new year, these things often don't stick. Luckily, our faith tradition gives us the blessing of this season of repentance, a time when we can tap into the extra something - the transcendence - of our faith to provide the motivation that is missing in New Years' Resolutions and other unsuccessful vows.

We can have this movement in our hearts toward the opportunity of Lent, to put a concrete promise toward our faithful repentance and seize on this opportunity that our tradition gives us. But it's not just Tradition: it's our community, our Church.

Social pressure - and I don't mean the "everyone's jumping off the cliff" peer pressure - is a healthy and purely interpersonal way to encourage behavior. It's knowing that other friends have dropped pop or coffee for Lent and that you're not alone in your potentially bold struggle; it's knowing that you promised your two friends that you'd keep to a jogging regimen together, so you can't leave them hanging.

The solidarity with Christ in a Lenten sacrifice, or even in the taking on of a new practice, is solidarity with Him in His being driven to the desert and His passion, and it's also solidarity with all His people. We enter this season banding with one another in a spirit of penitence, joining our sacrifices together in the Eucharistic life we live as the Church. Our verbalized sharing of sacrifices gives a clue into just how we bring our struggles and challenges and sacrifices together in the Eucharist. We have so much in common if we only talk to each other and pray together a little. We can deepen the bonds within our Church by developing relationships that are open and welcoming to faith-sharing. That starts in the family and grows outward into our adult faith lives and their friendships.

Most importantly, we can realize this in an less directly-conversational yet transcendent way through our being taken, blessed, broken, and shared in the Eucharist. This is why we must keep the Mass at the center of our faith lives. The sharing of our Lenten sacrifices can start from a desire to belong and be involved in the conversations, but it takes deeper and more profound lasting roots in ourselves if we tie it to a dedicated Eucharistic life. We can build on the foundations of interconnectedness and shared pilgrimage by joining in the mystical Body of Christ, that community to which Christ has called us all, to pray together, around the Word and Sacrament, and go forth as His hands and feet.