EUCHARIST WITHOUT WALLS: Part II

The liturgical year begins with the first Sunday of Advent. Thus, we can say that the Jubilee Year starts with that Sunday. Since there is so much going on during the Jubilee Year, I am afraid that we could easily lose sight of the most important aspect of it, namely, our relationship with Jesus Christ, both personally and as a Church, and how Jesus Christ enters our history here and now. It should not really be a year of activity, but instead a year of deeper reflection about what it means to be Catholic. The original purpose of the Jubilee Year was to create the possibility of returning to the essentials of our faith and its practice. We "let the land lie fallow" so we can start over with a fresh vision.

Of the many things one could do during this coming year, participating each week at Sunday Mass stands out above all the others. It would be strange to celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Christ in any other way. At that birth God came among us. God entered our lives. God became a part of our human history in a new and exciting way. Since Jesus promised to be with us till the end of time, we have to take seriously his words at the Last Supper and celebrate his coming in the Eucharist -- till he comes again in glory at the end of time.

Exactly 50 years ago on October 7, the Feast of the Holy Rosary, I found myself at Lourdes in France. What a moving experience for a young man of 22: the candlelight procession at night in the large square; the fervent singing of the Lourdes hymn, the Ave Maria; the large numbers of sick and lame with their expectant faces filling the square; that tremendous expression of a faith in Jesus Christ being shared by thousands. The next day I boarded the train for the long and tedious trek back to Rome where I was studying theology. In 1949 the trains were crowded and not too comfortable. I caught the train to Marseilles just on time, found a comfortable corner, and half dozed off. Eventually three other people entered the compartment. First a young woman, pretty but looking so very tired and cuddling a child I judged to be about six, greatly deformed and in need of much care. Lastly a middle-aged man elegantly dressed and, for some reason I remember this detail, hanging on tightly to a handsome leather briefcase. The conversation started at once and roused me from my nap. In a rather whiny and nasal voice the gentleman asked the young woman if she was coming from Lourdes. "Yes" was the simple reply. "And did you expect a miracle?" he snidely asked again. After 50 years I can still repeat her reply "Each year I come to Lourdes with my child. I have been doing so now for five years. And each year I come away with the courage to face life for another year. That is miracle enough for me."

How I wish all Catholics were able to say those same words about Sunday Mass: "Each Sunday I come to Mass and I find the courage to face another week." For the kind of conviction that results in the practice of participating at Mass every Sunday, one needs a renewed esteem for the value of the Mass in itself and in the life of every disciple of Christ.

We must see the Mass, first of all, as an encounter with Jesus Christ. What a unique event Sunday Mass could become in our lives if we were to do so! Christ invites us personally each Sunday to his Last Supper. We all have so many excuses for refusing the invitation. Pope Paul VI mentioned how at Mass we must encounter Jesus Christ in his Word, proclaimed and then explained. At Mass Jesus Christ speaks to us. We encounter Jesus Christ in the priest and in each other. He reveals his presence through others. But most of all, we encounter Jesus Christ in the Sacrifice, in the Sacrament itself. He is here present to us in the totality of his being and in the totality of his life, death and resurrection. The events of the Last Supper, the Sacrifice on Calvary, and the resurrection on Easter Sunday are all made present at the Mass--to which we should add, of course, his presence at Pentecost through the powerful action of the Holy Spirit. We encounter Jesus Christ in all these events rolled into one.

How many of us wish we had been present at the Last Supper or on Calvary or had met Jesus after the resurrection. For those of us living after those events Jesus found a way of making us, not bystanders or just readers of history, but truly participants in history. That is the miracle of the Mass.

We believe that Jesus Christ, because of his promise at the Last Supper, is truly, really present as the priest pronounces the words Jesus told us to continue to pronounce till the end of time, till he comes again in glory. Since he is really present at the Mass in all the events of his life, death and resurrection (what we Catholics call the Paschal Mystery), we can encounter him, meet him, truly and objectively, in those events. The Jesus Christ we encounter at Mass is the Risen Savior, the Lord, but the same one who walked this earth, spoke to us through his apostles, and died for us. We do not meet a dead Christ, but a living one.

What a field day an advertising firm would have trying to make us all aware that the Mass is such an encounter. One can imagine the billboards: "Christ is alive in our midst as he promised! He invites you all to a special meeting with him. Come to All Saints Church at 10 o'clock on Sunday." It is curious how people will travel for miles and make all kinds of sacrifices because they hope they will be able to see Mary or Christ or some saint in a window, in a smoke stack or on a barn door. Every Sunday they could make the same kind of trip, a more convenient one, and find the real thing--no illusion, no trickery, no deception. Sunday Mass is a real encounter with the living Jesus Christ because he promised us it would be.

The encounter with Jesus Christ at Mass is both personal and communal. We must keep both aspects in mind. It is personal and, in that sense, also very subjective, because Jesus Christ comes into each one of our lives. He is not out there somewhere, but in our midst here and now, in our very being. All the graces and benefits, all the dynamic power of love and forgiveness that were historically at work in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are now present to each one of us. Through that belief we obtain the courage and strength to face another day, another week. The real presence of Christ on the altar becomes alive in us in Holy Communion. Could there be any presence so intimate, so overwhelming and so full of love!

The presence of Christ is also communal. It is a community of faith that is gathered at Mass, not a group of isolated atoms. We are with others in Christ when we encounter Christ. We followers of Christ are convinced with Saint Paul that Jesus Christ can now never be separated from the fullness of his Body, the Church. Wherever Jesus is now, he brings with him the whole Body, all the saints, all the baptized, because they are all united to him. The Mass is, thus, both a personal and a communal meeting with Jesus Christ. That is why we celebrate the Mass together: we listen, we respond, we sing, we accept the priest's greeting as one. We also greet each other with a sign of peace to show through that gesture that our unity is deep and not something superficial. It is a sign that we want to be one with all the others in Christ. We pray for the living and the dead, we invoke Mary and the saints. Throughout the Mass we try to keep both the personal and communal aspect in mind so that we are interiorly one with Christ but ever mindful that in and through the same Christ we are united to one another. The action of the Holy Spirit at Mass is a unifying one.

It is that unifying experience that we become so attached to. The experience of praying together becomes an experience of intense joy - one we want to continue to share together. Parishes that embrace and feed their faithful with both the personal and communal aspects of the Eucharist are the strongest and most vibrant.

That's what makes change in parishes difficult to accept. As parishes are forced to merge or close, that link to the community of faith becomes weakened. It doesn't have to be so. Our "community" as a Church isn't limited by the walls of the building or by familiar faces. We are all intimately related through our unifying relationship with Jesus Christ.

Who hasn't made a new friend and immediately wanted to introduce this new friend to some other friends. You're so excited about your new relationship, you want to share it with everyone else you know. Sometimes the "old" friends feel reluctance or anxiety or jealousy about this new person who is intruding on your friendship and sharing your life. But soon, it's like this person was part of the group all along. It should be no different when Christ himself introduces us to each other in an unfamiliar parish community.

One of the most rewarding experiences during the papal Mass at Denver was a sense of unity that prevailed at the Mass. It was good for the younger people to experience hundreds of thousands of others of their own age profess their Catholic faith. From such gatherings, from every Mass, one should have one's faith encouraged, enlivened, strengthened. It is through the personal and communal presence of Jesus Christ at Mass that one can then find the courage to face another week.

In our culture it would be so easy to stop here and see everything in terms of what each one of us has received at Mass and how that will strengthen us in our relationship to Jesus Christ. Wisely, though, we are taught that Eucharist does not stop at the walls of the church, that we must then bring the presence of Jesus Christ to the world in which we live. The Eucharist must break down the walls that divide the church from home, from the marketplace. Often we say that we have to become Eucharist to and for others, that we have to be Eucharist to the world. Since the way this will work itself out for each one of the faithful will vary according to the situation in which each one finds himself or herself, I can only ask questions about how we should act as we exit the church doors when the priest or deacon says that the Mass is ended, go forth in love and peace to serve the Lord and one another.

How do I bring the presence of Jesus Christ to my personal life? If I am a student, it means asking myself how I relate to others around me in so many aspects of school life and in so many different circumstances. If I am a parent, it means asking myself how to bring that presence to the home, to those with whom I am most intimate. If I am single, how do I bring Jesus Christ into my friendships? In each one of those circumstances there is always need for courage and love. It is often more difficult to bring Christ into the workplace. There we might have less control over what happens and are often more passive. But Christ must be found there as well. Finally, there is leisure. How do I bring Christ into my recreation, or do I lose that strong presence of Christ at that point? These are the questions one must ask. The trick I find is to say little prayers during the day, just short reminders of Christ's presence. These calm us down and give meaning to the whole of our day and lives.

Because the Mass is a communal experience and not just a personal one, we must ask how our encounter with Christ as a community of faith in the church should affect our corporate reaction outside of the church building in the whole of society. As we grow into maturity and assume a more direct role in society this larger question becomes more important. We should be asking ourselves: How do we work with others to bring Christ into the fabric of the society in which we live? Pope Paul VI once wrote that the greatest problem of our age is that there is such a gulf between the gospel and contemporary culture. By that affirmation he meant that our culture--our music, our art, our literature, our movies, our newspapers, our desires, our wants, our ideals, in other words, all those things that make us into the kind of society we are--has so few reminders of the kind of unselfish love that Jesus preached in the gospels and showed in his life and death.

How do we bring hope and courage to the larger society and world? This is the challenge the Eucharist presents not just to the individual but to the whole faith community.

That question will make no sense, however, if we have not been at Eucharist on Sunday, if we are not a part of the Eucharistic community. For each of us, individually and collectively, it is necessary to return again to Mass every Sunday, to have our spiritual batteries recharged Sunday after Sunday, so that we can face the challenges in the following week of bringing Christ as light to the world.

Because Jesus Christ had a special love for the poor and those who were living at the margins of society, we cannot be a Eucharistic community without constantly questioning how we are reaching out to the less fortunate. Seeing Christ in them should be the result of our union with Christ in the Eucharist.

What would be my hope for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee during the Jubilee Year? I am permitted to dream: That on Every Sunday the Masses would be so well Attended that one would think Every Sunday was Christmas or Easter. Why should it not be so?

Through the Eucharist, may the Jubilee Year be a time of personal renewal for each one of you. May it draw you closer to each other and give you a deeper sense of your communal responsibilities in society. May Christ's presence in the Eucharist fill your lives and walk with you every step of the way. May the Eucharist draw you ever closer to Jesus Christ as you wait for him to appear in glory. Peace!

+Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B.