Corpus Christi

Pomona College's Glee at St. Peter's in Rome.

It is the vigil of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ — Corpus Christi — and I went to Mass. In almost any other year, this would be unremarkable.

Four years ago, I celebrated Corpus Christi twice. Once in a diocese that hadn't transferred it to the Sunday, and then again, on Sunday in St. Peter's in Rome, weeping as I listened to my son (and his college choir) sing Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus and stretched out my hands between earth and heaven to receive the Body, if not the Blood, of Christ. This year, I wondered if I would receive communion at all.

My parish returned to the public celebration of the Eucharist. So instead of curling up in a chair with my iPad and headphones, I rode my bike, donned a mask, purified my hands with Purell and went to the vigil Mass. No singing, but with every window and door open, the music was beautiful nonetheless. The birds were in fine voice, the percussion section well served by the cars driving over the bridge, with a whoosh and a clang. No entrance gong or hymn, but someone's phone went off as the cross ducked under the lintel of the sacristy door. The altar, our altar, firmly planted in the world.

No Byrd this year as I went up, hands open to receive what I have been longing for all these weeks, just a quick whisper of my name to let me know it was my turn. I still wept.