By Bread Alone

It is said that for the last years of her life Catherine of Siena subsisted solely on the Eucharist. Then there is Mary Magdalene, who legend says was fed daily on heavenly bread brought to her by an angel. So many saints it seemed, at least in the medieval period, didn’t need to eat, they were sustained by the Eucharist alone.

I had not given these pious legends much thought until recently, when for the last couple of weeks the only solid food I have eaten was the Eucharist (though not delivered by an angel). The rest of my diet has consisted of yogurt and mashed tubers of various sorts, with a bit of (mashed) squash thrown in for variety.  Baby food has more texture than most of the things I’ve been eating. I am definitely not a saint, as I am certain a saint would not be as grumpy about my limited diet as I am. 

Despite my grumpiness, I am grateful that yogurt and mashed yams and their ilk can hold body and soul together for a few weeks, grateful that I have food to put on the table at all, grateful that these limitations are short term, grateful that I can receive the Eucharist. Does the grumpiness give some texture to my gratitude? Perhaps. Perhaps when things are going smoothly I am less aware of what I am grateful for. 

Hard realities to remember

The birth of my second son was fast and tumultuous. Literally heart-stopping. When it was all over, his heart once again beating strongly and all the necessary medical tasks for us both tended to, the obstetrician who had delivered him filled a basin with warm water and brought me a fresh towel to wash. It was unexpected, and like Peter when Jesus knelt at his feet, I was taken aback. I’m fine. I don’t need this done, I thought. Except I did.

I’m always tempted on Holy Thursday to let my attention be seized by St. Paul’s mandate to the Corinthians to break the bread and drink the cup that is Christ’s Body and Blood in remembrance of his death and resurrection. To focus on the incredible gift of the Eucharist that we enact daily on altars around the world. This once-a-year washing of the feet, towels piled on the altar and the choir singing meditatively, can feel like something extra, an embellishment for the Triduum. It’s nice, but not needed. Except it is.

For here is the one moment in the liturgical year when the two dimensions of the Eucharist come crashing together in the same space. The Eucharist is not just the summit of our lives as Christians; it is the font as well. Here, with literal water poured out on the steps of the altar where we will shortly literally encounter Christ, we show each other what we are about, what it means to be Christ. The aching feet I have been standing on to teach, then to rehearse, and now to celebrate will be soothed in the warm water. What I will eat and drink will in truth feed a body that has missed lunch and dinner as much as it will feed my soul. These are not metaphors we are playing out here, but hard realities, the water as much as the bread and the wine. We wash each other, feed each other. We do these things, and so we remember. We remember, and so we do.

How often do I respond to an offer of assistance with a quick, “Thanks, but I am fine.” Too often. I don’t want to think that I need any help, or maybe I think that it would be nice, but really, I could manage. Yet these days I cannot always manage. Yet if we are Christ for each other, why would I reject God’s tender care and help? God knows.

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A version of this reflection appeared in Not By Bread Alone in 2020.

Keep us attentive to the needs of all

There are times when the second half of the Eucharistic Prayer just pours over my head, cascading off the altar, flowing down the aisle. Sometimes it murmurs in my ear, soothing, calming, a burbling fountain in a hidden courtyard. Other times, I regret to say, the grocery list starts jittering. Remember to get eggs and lettuce at Acme after Mass.

Then there are the moments when I really hear the words, battering at my defenses, badgering me long after we have been sent out the door. Ite, missa est? Not so much. We may have been dismissed, but I can’t so easily dismiss what I have heard.

Last weekend, the pastor used one of the Eucharistic Prayers for “various needs” (EP VN 3). Given the current political situation, and the insistence of some that Christian faith does not demand that we have a care for those beyond our immediate circle, those we love and those who love us back, these words struck home:

"Grant that all the faithful of the Church, looking into the signs of the times by the light of faith, may constantly devote themselves to the service of the Gospel.

Keep us attentive to the needs of all that, sharing their grief and pain, their joy and hope, we may faithfully bring them the good news of salvation and go forward with them along the way of your Kingdom."

It’s a potent examination of conscience. Made with the body of Christ right there on the altar in front of us. Can I — can we — constantly devote ourselves to the service of the Gospel in these times? Where are the signs pointing out the needs of the world? What do they say? How are we being attentive to the needs of all? Without exception. Do we think about their grief and pain? Do we share their hopes? Are we willing to walk with them?

I used this snippet of the prayer as the closing prayer for a celebration of the Liturgy of the Word last week, and as we creep toward Lent, I am thinking that I should let this prayer shape my Lenten discipline.

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Aside: I wondered how VP Vance reconciles the Gospel today, where Luke recounts Jesus’ command to love your enemies, to give more than the bare minimum to those in need with his version of  the “ordo amoris” a preferential option for those you love. Then I thought of the part of the Gospel which says I will be judged by the measure I judge others by…

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.

The Cheerio Section

Daniel Schwen - Own work, CC BY 3.0

Periodically I hear rumblings about parents who bring their children to Mass. The children are noisy, they won't sit still. And the Cheerios. All those crumbs. If you are going to bring children and their Cheerios, better bring your dust buster and clean them up.

Sometimes I think the subtext is that these parents haven't taught their children how to behave at Mass. Can't they get through an hour without eating? Can't they sit still?

I sat in the Cheerio section for Mass on Sunday, a little one to the right of me, a little one in front of me. Each with their Cheerios. As I knelt after communion, a little face popped up in front of me, her bag of Cheerios in hand. She ate one and flashed a contented smile. Meanwhile, we are singing "I am the Bread of Life, you who come to me shall not hunger..."

It occurred to me that parents who bring Cheerios for their kids are teaching them that the Mass is a place where their hunger can be fed. And is that such a bad thing?

Hard teachings

I read a column this week in a local Catholic paper about the need for the Church to return to the Gospel - but that then focussed entirely on issues of human sexuality, something that I argue is not the moral core of the Gospel.  These teachings should be "black and white," no nuance, says the author. But the moral core of the Gospel is direct, it is black and white, it's just not focussed solely on these issues: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind. And your neighbor as yourself. Whatever you do for another in need, you do unto me. 

The author notes that young people feel that the Church has nothing to offer them, and that if only we offered clarity they would come. I think they might, but I think the clarity they desire is focussed outward, onto what we have been missioned to do. Who are we to be for the world? How can we do the hard work of loving our neighbor in a culture that considers human dignity to be a luxury?  These questions take us far beyond the issues of human sexuality.

The Sunday readings might seem as if they lend themselves to black and white and "hard teachings," but in a reflection for Give Us This Day a few years ago I wondered if we had missed the hardest teaching of all.  That perhaps God's interest in marriage and fidelity and human love isn't primarily about individual needs and wants or marriage and divorce law, but is pushing for something far deeper. Something that applies to all of us, married or not, divorced or not.  It makes me wonder if young people sense our superficiality when we focus only on the "black and white."

I wrote this:

“Are you trying to tell me that my husband is dead?” I asked the surgeon. “Yes.” In that harrowing moment of my first marriage’s dissolution, I  finally grasped in my bones the reality of these words:  they are no longer two but one flesh. Half of me had been torn off, and what remained was pouring out onto the floor in a pool of tears. 

It is tempting to hear these readings from Genesis and Mark as mere marriage instruction, demanding husbands and wives to cleave to each other no matter the cost. I see in them instead potent images of what it feels like to be one body, not just in marriage but as the People of God: you are bone of my bone, flesh of my  flesh. We proclaim in the Communion Antiphon for this Sunday that we are one body (1 Cor 10:17). But do we feel in our bones that we are one flesh, mingled with Christ in our communion, as the water and wine mingle in the cup we share? One. Inseparable. 

These readings point us to realities beyond marriage, challenging us to deepen our  fidelity to one another and to Christ as members of his One Body.  This indeed is a hard teaching for all of us, not just those struggling with marriage. Are we torn open by the sufferings of our brothers and sisters? Do we weep for each other as we would weep for a beloved spouse? We are no longer two, but one flesh. One Body. Inseparable. Christ.

Receive The Body of Christ: The Weight of Glory

I slept at the shelter last week, drifting off to the sounds of the beeping delivery trucks at the Acme across the street on an air mattress in the hallway. The Virgin Mother and I stood guard at the door. I had arrived after everyone had settled in for the night, the lights dimmed and the air hovering between warm and cool. It reminded me of a summer's night at Wernersville.  Just enough of a breeze stirring, a sufficiency of grace, a heaping measure of silence.

I was up at 5:30, washing my face, thinking as I did of Jane Hirshfield's early morning icy, awakening slap.  5:38 am, the van appeared at the door, simultaneously the sun appeared over the horizon, its rays careening down the still and dim hallway. A little one popped out into the dimness, bright pink skirt, and brighter blue shoes, twirling in the sunlight with the motes of dust.

Two mothers calmly juggled babies and bags out the door.  And the little one raised her arms, wordlessly asking for a boost to the van.  I leaned down and picked her up. Receive the body of Christ. Amen.

I was surprised at how little glory can weigh, and how much.

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Jane Hirshfield's poem, A Cedary Fragrance, recalls the early morning routine in the Zen monastery where she trained.

Read this bit from C.S. Lewis's Weight of Glory

A real presence

Loaf of Hackney Wild, ready to be slashed and put in the oven

Crash is home for a couple of weeks, between a spring  and the start of the summer Shakespeare season.  He brings with him new break baking skills — honed in a London bakery.  I've been enviously admiring his photos of crispy sourdough loaves from afar, and dutifully keeping his Atlantic crossing starter alive, so was excited to get to give it a fly this weekend.

This is not a recipe for quick bread, you start three or four days ahead of time.  A leaven is made from the mother starter.  And fed up for a few days. Finally, in goes the flour and water. The dough is stretched and turned, again and again over 5 hours.  Then into a basket it goes overnight, to be baked after Mass this morning, where the gospel took up the story of the disciples who had walked to Emmaus, and who had recognized Christ in the breaking of the bread. And where three young members of the parish received the Eucharist for the first time.

It was hard to wait to bake this bread, harder still to wait for it to cool once it came out of the oven.  When I had asked one of the young First Communicants if she had been excited, she told that she could not wait, and told her siblings (and parents!) that they had to be out the door early. "I was afraid I wouldn't get there in time, that I would miss communion." She had, I thought, a well developed practical theology of the Real Presence going, she knew what she desired and it wasn't the dress or the party or the relatives. It was God incarnate.

The week before I'd been sitting in the pews before the vigil Mass began, taking a short walk to Emmaus myself, when the unmistakable smell of fresh bread insinuated itself into my meditations.  I looked up to find a young man in suit, with what I suspect was a still warm loaf of bread wrapped in foil, in search of someone in the congregation to give it to.

There is bread here, and a God we come to know in the breaking of bread with each other.

Column: Where is God?

For another writing project I've been reading A First Initiation into Carthusian Life [Gracewings, 2010] which is the source of the quote below, advice for novices on both prayer and practical aspects of life in a charterhouse.

This column appeared at CatholicPhilly.com on 11 June 2015.

While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Mark 14:22

Where is God? As I sat in church on the vigil of the Feast of Corpus Christi, it seemed very clear where God was. On the altar, the Body and Blood, under the appearances of bread and wine. In those gathered to celebrate, the priest and the assembly. In the Word proclaimed and preached. Christ is here, truly present in all these different ways. Then the Mass ended, we got in the car and went home.

On Sunday morning, I watch furiously as a woman runs a stop sign, all the while chatting on her cell phone. Sunday night, I’m sleeping at the local shelter, feeling helpless in the face of an inconsolable child and her exhausted mother. Monday finds me seething as two people cut in front of me in line at the grocery store. Where is God, now?

An anonymous Carthusian writes, “[God] is … wholly present wherever he acts, that is to say, everywhere. Open your eyes. You will see signs of him everywhere ….” It is, he points out, a practice, one that requires a continual mindfulness, a particular way of seeing the world. Can I see the many ways the Body of Christ is held up in this world?

I want to squeeze my eyes closed and avoid looking at the person cutting me off in traffic or ducking in front of me to take the last loaf of bread. I struggle, too, with the situations that I cannot put right, where nothing I can do in that moment will help. The friend in intractable pain, the child who is overtired and sleeping in yet another new place, replete with strangers.

Benedictine monk and liturgical scholar Godfrey Dieckmann, O.S.B., famously asked his students, “What difference does it make if the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, if we don’t?”

When I say “amen” to the Body of Christ, when I assent to bearing within me God made flesh, when I profess my desire to become what I am about to receive, does this mean I am willing to say “yes” to being helpless, to being crucified on another’s cross as well as my own? To be present to the exhausted mother, to listen to the friend in pain. Does it mean I can see beyond the mindlessly rushing drivers to see, however blurred, God’s presence?

I have less trouble finding Christ, as St. John Chrysostom would say, in either the beggar at the church door or in the chalice, than I do in seeing the face of God in the troublesome, than I do when faced with painful situations that call out for something I cannot provide. Still, I trust that Christ’s presence in the bread and wine has made a difference, that God-within-me will recognize God within my neighbor, and so open my eyes to see God within us as well.

Corpus Christi

Me, no glasses.

On this day, forty nine years ago, I received the Eucharist for the first time.

I still have the dress, but not the veil, which was my mother's communion veil, too.  We sat in the front pew, which meant I could see what was going on.  I was so nearsighted in those days that I had no idea you could actually see each individual leaf on a tree.  But since I'd always seen the world in a blur, I never noticed, and it wasn't until third grade when I was moved to a seat several rows back in the classroom that I realized I couldn't read anything on the flip charts.

My mother, wearing the same veil.

Father John Sullivan heard my first confession the day before, and Father John Coholan, a Maryknoll missioner and English professor, who learned his role only a few minutes before Mass began, was that Sunday's celebrant.  I was the only first communicant, having been accidentally catechized the spring before, and both my parents and the pastor (who had quizzed me over the summer) were convinced I was prepared for what I desired and not inclined to make me wait a full year more.  So on a warm September Sunday, I knelt at the altar rail, and to the words "Corpus Christ," I responded, "Amen."

I can still remember the aching desire to receive, and my relief that my parents and pastor took my request seriously.

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Someone asked me this morning why I am marking 49, not 50?  It's a perfect square of a sacred number:  7 x 7? Once a geek, always a geek.

What to wear to church

PrayTell's discussion question of the week has to do with getting ready to go to Mass, or at least with getting dressed to go to Mass.

There is a lot of advice about getting dressed to go to Mass on the web (about 20 million hits depending on what search terms you use), and remarkably little about anything else you should do before you go.

Skimming the first few pages of hits on appropriate attire for Mass, I am disturbingly transfixed by the advice, and how much time people clearly spend thinking about what other people are wearing. The debates rage: about whether or not women should wear pants, are flip-flops¹ suitable, must your shirt have sleeves, or a collar — and the million dollar question: does God care what you wear to His house? (Arguably it's all God's house, inside a church's walls as well as without, but attire within sacred space is what is under discussion.)

My take in the comments was that dressing with care for the Sunday liturgy seemed a link, for me at least, to the new garments I wore at baptism and baptism's cleansing waters, and so gently underscore the Sunday liturgy's Pascal character. And besides, I was concerned about the consequences if the fashion police were to join forces with the liturgical police.

The comments section, and a conversation with a fellow cantor who'd been to the NPM last week where a cantors' workshop had talked up the idea of using lectio divina with the psalm as preparation, got me wondering about how we get ready to go to Mass — by which I do not mean selecting suitable attire — but how do we suitably prepare interiorly to move into and out of these sacred rites.

Crash was reading this over my shoulder (we are on an airplane somewhere between Philadelphia and Phoenix en route to California) and suggested that if I wanted advice about what to wear, he could show me 40 or 50 parish bulletins among those he read over the last few weeks that contained advice about what to wear to Mass. I asked him how many he recalled that offered any other advice about preparing to go to Mass. A few, he conceded after a moment. And the advice? Reminders about fasting before receiving the Eucharist and requests to respect the silence so that other people could pray before Mass.

I wonder if we should stop arguing about whether or not it's OK to wear sandals (or go barefoot) because Jesus did, and scolding people (who have arguably made an effort to show up in a culture that doesn't prioritize Sunday worship) in the vestibule or bulletin or homily, and start a conversation instead about how we might help each other prepare well for the Eucharist which is the font and the summit of our life.

Herewith is my advice for some ways to prepare the ground for Sunday worship, so that what is sown there can take root and bear fruit. What would you add? I'd love to know what traditions outside the Roman Catholic communion do, so even if you aren't Catholic, please share your ideas and practices with us all.

• Early in the week, read the readings, reflect on them, talk them over with God.
• Read and reflect on the proper prayers for the day: the opening prayer, or the preface, or the prayer after communion.
• Pray one of the Eucharistic prayers, slowly and reverently, aloud or silently.
• Fast, sharpen your hunger for what you are about to receive. (For an interesting reflection and exercise, read Jim McDermott SJ's posts

here and here.

Wash your hearts, not your garments (with apologies to the prophet Joel). Reception of the Eucharist itself heals the dings in our souls, spend 15 minutes with God seeing where you missed the mark this week. What is it that cries out for God's healing touch during the penitential rite? What weight will be lifted when you say, "Amen" to that which you would become?

If we spent more time helping people celebrate the Eucharist fruitfully, perhaps we wouldn't have to worry about what they wear.

Up next? What to do when you leave...beyond take a bulletin.

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1. One should note that our culture's flip-flops are Japan's traditional dress shoes.

A good resource for preparing is at the St. Louis University Sunday liturgy site. And if you read Give Us This Day, may I recommend Mary Stommes stark and thought-provoking reflection on pulling up weeds among the wheat that appeared on July 31? (Full disclosure, I'm an occasional contributor to Give Us This Day.)

Column: God pitches his tent within us

The root of tabernacle is the Latin for tent, tabernaculum , which derives from taberna, hut. The photo is of a stamp for making hosts found in Jerusalem, dating to the time of the Crusade (the hands are mine, reflected in the glass.)

This column appeared on CatholicPhilly.com, the Philadelphia Archdiocese's news portal on 24 July 2012. CatholicPhilly has launched a weekly electronic newsletter, to get it, sign-up here (link is at the end of the text).

Then He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me. — Luke 22:19

“Is there anything I can bring you?” I asked my friend Maryann, who had been hospitalized without a chance to pack a thing and was now facing major surgery. “A scrunchy to keep the hair off my face?” “No problem.” She turned momentarily serious. “And the Eucharist?” Absolutely.

So this morning after Mass, with the blessing of the pastor, I retrieved a pyx from the sacristy, and in it placed a tiny fragment of the host consecrated just a few minutes before. Two of us went from the church to Bryn Mawr Hospital to bring Maryann word of our community’s earnest prayers for her, and Christ, cradled in our hands.

The custom of bringing the Eucharist to the sick and homebound is an ancient one. In the 2nd century, St. Justin Martyr, in his First Apology, tells of the deacons who made arrangements to carry “the consecrated bread, wine and water” from the Eucharistic table to the absent.

It’s the original reason for having a tabernacle in churches, so that the Real Presence of Christ could be ready on a moment’s notice to be brought to those in need, day or night. And later, so that those in need could find Christ, and sit in His Presence, outside of the Mass.

The Mass is a sacrifice, inextricably wound into the Sacrifice made for us on Calvary. The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for sacrifice, korban, comes from roots that mean “to draw near.”

I know that when I hear the words of consecration at Mass, what comes first to mind is the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, but the sacrifice Jesus made for us extends far beyond those moments, pivotal as they were in salvation history.

At the beginning of John’s Gospel, we hear that the Word became flesh and “pitched his tent among us” (Jn. 1:14). It’s a reminder that the entire Incarnation is one long sacrifice. The way in which God chose to “draw near” to His people is not restricted to Calvary or an upper room in first century Jerusalem, or in the present time, to the celebration of the Mass.

This Sacrament makes ever present to us God-in-the-flesh. So we pitch sacred tents in our churches, in tabernacles, so that Christ can dwell in our midst and we might draw near to Him.

God pitches his own tents as well. When I held up the host and said, “The Body of Christ,” I heard in Maryann’s firm “Amen!” an echo of St. Augustine’s exhortation: “to that which you are, answer, ‘Amen!’ … Become what you receive.”

Here, in my hands, is Christ. Here, in your hands, is Christ. Here, in this hospital bed, lies Christ. What was sacrificed on the altar this morning, continues to draw us near, His tent pitched within each of us, present at the table and not.

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Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. — From St. Patrick’s Breastplate

Phaith: Become what you receive - Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is celebrated this week (the date depends on your local diocese, the traditional Thursday or translated to Sunday). My column in this month's Phaith, on how meals shape our communities, large and small. Full disclosure: The table at my house rarely rises to the level in the (stock)photo that is shown with the article. Trust me on this one. And the conversation is not always, shall we say, elevated in tone. But there is much laughter and love....

"Dinner was almost cleaned up, the last dishes were stuffed into the dishwasher, and Chris was at the kitchen table neatly packing the leftovers while chatting up our guest. A cherry red apron over his jeans, Mike was sifting powdered sugar over the top of a chocolate cake. Kaitlyn bet him a cake that he'd get into Georgetown, and acceptance letter in hand, he's making good on the wager.

As he presents his creation with a flourish to Kaitlyn, wrapped and ready for her to take home, I notice that he's put it on my best cake plate, a wedding gift from a good friend. "Nice choice," I tell him. He grins.

The china cabinet isn't off limits to the kids at my house, so I'm neither surprised nor bothered that Mike has gone rummaging in it for just the right platter. He knows, too, that I believe in using the good dishes not only for big holidays, but also to mark somewhat less momentous occasions -- such as the end of semester breakfast with my students, where guests are perched on chairs, and parked on the carpet.

My kids have learned that meals are about more than refueling. It's a time set aside for us to be together, to hear how the day has gone, to laugh together."

Read the rest in Phaith.

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Photo is of Mission San Miguel's sanctuary. My parent's parish.

Via Crucis VI: Become what you seek.

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus. Hands reach out, seeking the face of God, holding it tenderly within hand and heart. Become what you seek.

St. Augustine on the Eucharist: "You are saying "Amen" to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear "The body of Christ", you reply "Amen." Be a member of Christ's body, then, so that your "Amen" may ring true! ... Be what you see; receive what you are."

What am I reaching for outside of Mass? Does it ring true with what I reach for at the Eucharistic liturgy?

Become what you receive.

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A study for the sixth station of the cross by Henri Matisse for the Chapel of the Rosary.

Ignatian Life: Custody of the Eyes

I've been following the conversation at the Deacon's Bench on the prudential judgement that needs to be exercised in deciding — in the moment — who should be admitted to the Eucharist. There is a lot of slicing and dicing of canon law, Eucharistic theology and moral theology being done (who has what rights, what is a correct disposition...) as well as a great deal of Monday morning quarterbacking going on.

It's been making me think, not about Eucharistic theology per se, but rather about the decisions we make — in the moment — when we come face to face with Christ in a "distressing diguise." Those can be tough, as a young Jesuit Volunteer courageously recounts here. What happens at the altar, does not stay at the altar, but plays out on the altar of the world. It's easy to be critical of the decisions made on all sides when there is time to think and discuss, not so easy when the decision is standing in front of you, asking to be fed.

I'm struggling with how to respond in these encounters with Christ as well — as you can read in my latest reflection at This Ignatian Life.

"We issue lists of grave sins, delicta graviora. We wrangle over translations, theological nuances and liturgical praxis. We worry whether we are sufficiently reverent with the body of Christ when we receive in the hand, and all the while the body of Christ lies crumpled and abandoned on the sidewalk. And I walk past, averting my eyes.

'And what about His hunger, cold, chains, nakedness and sickness? What about His homelessness? Are these sufferings not sufficient to overcome your alienation?' challenged John Chrysostom sixteen centuries ago. How can you continue to walk through the city, pretending not to see, failing to recognize what is before you? It’s not just new perspectives in science I seek on this sabbatical. What about His homelessness? I chose to work in the city on this leave, not just because the materials I needed were here, but because I wanted to look at this horizon, to struggle with my response to these challenging questions. To face what I had walked away from two summers previously."

Read the rest here.

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Photo is from rubygold, used under Creative Commons license.

Elected silence sing to me

Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear. — from The Habit of Perfection by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ

Elected silence, in generously deep and stilling pools, is a part of the fabric of my life. I spend about three weeks being silent a year, in chunks that range from a day to a decade of days, and have done so for many years. It's not quite a tithe of my days, but close enough.

My parish talks about giving of time, talent and treasure, the returning of the gifts we are given. I often think of the "time" part of the triad to be the hours I volunteer for the parish, whether as cantor, or spending the night sleeping in the school hall, serving as 'portress' when we host struggling families, or going to a committee meeting.

But I'm starting to wonder if the gift of time we are called to share and return is not just busy time. My book group talked a bit last month about silence in liturgy. How much is there, and how do we respond? Are we reluctant to leave it because we are afraid someone will think we don't know what we are doing? How do we use it when it comes? Are we itchy to get on with things, or thinking about the shopping list, or listening to God? Can we give of our time in this setting, not in busy-ness, but in stillness?

As I prepare to cantor the vigil Mass tonight, I thought again about time and silence. My parish sits well with silence, we can do 5 minutes at a stretch in a liturgy filled with kids, and we routinely leave space after readings and psalmody and homily for silence. (Reverent, contemplative silence is not the sole purview of celebrations of the Eucharist in the Extraordinary Form, no matter how many people want to make that case. I'm convinced it is about forming the community, not about the form of the liturgy used.)

As cantor, I'm one of the people (along with lectors and presider) responsible for reading the silence at Mass, and bringing it to a close. When do I stand after the reading to lead the psalm? The norms for the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours call for silence, but not in quantities that might be a burden for the community celebrating, and surely the same applies in this context. I feel responsible to both offer this gift of time and to be sure that it does not weary us. I don't want to count to a certain number, or watch the clock, or even get lost in my own meditations on the first reading (that would be unbearably selfish), but want to listen carefully and deeply to the assembly. I don't want people to be thinking, did the cantor forget? I'm not quite sure I can describe what I'm listening and waiting for, but I can often sense a deep stillness that follows the reading, and somewhere before that starts to fray, I stand and move to the ambo.

This listening is prayer. We believe that Christ is present in four ways in the liturgy, including in the assembly itself. I listen and sit before the assembly holding that contemplation front and center. This is the Body of Christ, can I listen and respond to what Christ is saying in this moment? Can I let the silence sing to us all before I raise my voice?

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Photo is of copper basin of rainwater in ruins of old farmhouse in rural Japan.

Column: A fierce and wondrous light

The photo was taken last winter at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, PA. There is an article in this weekend's NY Times on making an Ignatian retreat at Wernersville. If you've wondered about what it might be like to go on such a retreat, this is a graceful, albeit slightly quirky (sphinxiness?), description of a first time retreat. And I added a new word to my vocabulary, adytum.

I can relate to her description of showing up a bit late and not knowing where to go. The very first time I went on retreat at Wernersville (many years back) I arranged to arrive a day late. My bag and I wandered the halls (without noticing the posted list) until I ran into a random retreatant and asked for help. He kindly pointed out the list and suggested I go to my room. Where a delightful note from my director for the week awaited me.

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times, January 2012

He has spoken to us through the Son,
whom he made heir of all things
and through whom he created the universe,
who is the refulgence of his glory,
the very imprint of his being,
and who sustains all things by his mighty word. Hebrews 1:2b-3a

A virtual jungle of tropical plants lines the south wall of my family room. Earlier this week, as I made room for the family crèche on the windowsill, I realized that every plant had turned its leaves until they were plastered to the window, their faces toward the sun, hungry for whatever light they can find in these short and dim days.

Yesterday, listening to the words of the second reading at Christmas Mass I was struck by the this line in Hebrews, Christ is the refulgence — the shining radiance — of God’s glory. The Latin, refulgere, implies more than just a light that shines forth brightly; this is a light that shines fiercely and intently. And like my plants, this is a light we hunger for; this is the Light that sustains us.

Standing to the side at the cantor’s stand, I could see that hunger in the faces of those who came to receive Christ in the Eucharist. The grandparents holding hopeful grandchildren in their arms, the convert received into the Church last Easter still beaming with joy, the exhausted mothers bent over holding the hands of toddlers determined to walk the aisle on their own two feet, the new widow veiled in grief, all reaching out for that fierce Light that sustains us in all things.

John’s Gospel begins with the Word resounding through the chaos, creating the heavens and the earth. But in a homily on the letter to the Hebrews, St. John Chrysostom reminds us that the Word did not cease to speak, “He holds together what would fall to pieces, for to hold the world together is no less than to make it, but even greater.” Even the discordant pieces we cannot imagine being part of the whole are held in that Light and fastened together. Proof, says John Chrysostom, of God’s “exceeding power,” of Christ’s refulgence.

I’m always tempted in the days after Christmas to give over waiting, to be done with watching. But this ancient homily reminds me that just as the Word continues to sustain what He brought into being, the end of Advent does not bring an end to being attentive to where the Light is, to where I should turn my face, for what I should be reaching.

For the next few weeks the manger scene sits among the plants on the window ledge. Each morning as I drink my tea, I contemplate the infant in the crib, brushed by the light that day by day grows in intensity. I wonder what happened to the shepherds who saw the glory of God around them and went to seek the child in the manger. Such an outpouring of Light, such a Word spoken could not have left them unchanged.

And I wonder what will God’s exceeding power make of me in the coming year? What fragmented parts will be fastened together? I hear the familiar words of St. Augustine, “become what you receive” and I know where to look for that fiercely wondrous and sustaining Light.

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Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;
Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;
A released shower, let flash to the shire, not
A lightning of fire hard-hurled.
— Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., from The Wreck of the Deutschland