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Fourth Sunday of Easter
29 April 2007
Dear Friends in Christ,
On Easter Sunday at the eleven o’clock Mass, a Host dropped on the floor by accident. I picked up Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, made sure that there were no particles, and kissed the spot where He fell. As soon as Communion was over, I washed the spot with water and dried it and again reverenced the spot. Much ado about nothing? It was just an accident, after all! If you truly love someone, you cannot bear the thought of anything bad happening to that person. So it should not be a surprise that a priest cares about the Eucharist enough to make sure that no single particle of the Host is trampled under foot. Devotion and reverence are first of all interior dispositions of the soul, but they are manifested in outward forms.
If we love Jesus, we don’t need to talk in church. Why talk in church if Jesus wants to speak to your heart in those few precious moments He has with you on Sunday? If we love Jesus, the priest does not have to give a powerpoint presentation on what is appropriate dress for Mass; it is natural to come to church and behave in church in a way becoming the Sacrament of the Altar.
One of the things that drives priests crazy is when people leave after Holy Communion before the Mass is over. They will compare them to Judas who left the Last Supper early; they will excoriate them with jokes; they will remind them that they are not actually fulfilling their Sunday obligation according to the Code of Canon Law and are thus in sin anyway. But just like those people who still do not realize that God invented the vibrate mode on cell phones just for church, the early-goers don’t seem to care.
So if you can’t beat ‘em, get even with them! Once as Saint Philip Neri was saying Holy Mass, a woman came to Holy Communion and promptly went right out the door. Our dear patron saint of pranksters instructed the altar boys to follow her home with lighted torches. She was perplexed why two boys kept following her with candles, so she went back to church and asked the saint why. “Because the Real Presence is still inside of you, and Jesus is always accompanied by candles!” Needless to say, she got the point.
We have too many altar boys at St Mary’s with nothing to do, so I am going to outfit them with torches and send them out to the parking lot with the early-goers. If they climb into the car with you, don’t worry, just give them something to eat and send them home. But Father Chris wouldn’t really do that, would he?
We’ll see you next Sunday. Oh, and by the way, the third collection next Sunday will be for a cell phone blocker. Please give generously.
Yours in Jesus and Mary,
Father Christopher