Being Eucharist

Eucharist
I just heard a wonderfully encouraging talk on the Eucharist from a Redemptorist priest named Father Bruce. While I really can't do justice to his words, the part that struck me most powerfully was something along the lines of "you may be the only Eucharist some people ever have."

We who come to the table of the Lord are gathered together into the Body of Christ, and then sent forth to bring Christ to a wounded world. In Communion, we not only consume the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ consumes us, taking us into His own being. So then when we go forth from the Mass, it is Christ Who goes forth in us.

To be the Eucharist is to be comfort, love, acceptance, forgiveness, consolation, joy, and peace.

To be the Eucharist is to allow ourselves to be broken and poured out for others, as Christ was for us.

To be the Eucharist is to not only participate in, but to embody the Mass - to allow ourselves to become a living sacrifice of praise, a memorial of Christ's death and resurrection.

I pray that the Church will always go into the dark places, the difficult places, the seemingly impossible places where God is not to bring forth the light of Christ. I pray that we will never shirk from this sacred call to be light for the world.

Revive

Community
This past weekend, two of my community members and I drove up to Trenton for an ecumenical Christian conference entitled "Revive". The conference (or, rather, "revival") took its inspiration from that often-quoted passage from Luke 4:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free" (Luke 4:18, NAB).
I have to admit, I had mixed feelings about going to this conference - mostly because the prospect of rubbing shoulders with Christians from all points along the theological and political spectrum threatened to disturb the comfortable Catholic bubble I've been creating for myself here in Philadelphia. At the end of the day, however, I found myself renewed and encouraged.

Most of that renewal came from meeting Shane Claiborne, one of the founders of the Simple Way, an intentional community in the Kensington area of Philadelphia; and Bart Campolo, founder of Mission Year (a program very similar to JVC), who now lives in an intentional community in Cincinatti. Both of them talked about the challenges of trying to live a radical Gospel witness in contemporary American society. After ten months of living in community in the inner city and trying to be present to the needs of the poor and marginalized, it was incredibly inspiring to hear from two men who have walked this path for decades.

Both Shane and Bart talked about community as a huge part of what sustains them in this path. They talked about it only being possible to really love all of the broken people they encounter in their neighborhoods if the love within their community is strong enough to overflow and draws others in - (which is exactly the model of the Trinity - three Persons Whose eternal love overflows and draws in all of humanity!) They talked about a theology of place and a ministry of presence. They talked about the great Christian mission to love people, not to fix people; how it is our mandate as Christians not only to construct a just society in which our systems actually work for the people they are intended to work for - not only to staff soup kitchens and after-school tutoring programs - but also, and perhaps most importantly, to be in relationship with those around us, to truly love our neighbors, regardless of how broken our neighbors are.

And honestly, it was just really exciting to think that this way of living that I'm discovering through JVC could be more than just a one or two year stint after college. It's exciting, and terrifying, to think that it could be a calling, a vocation, a way of life. Or maybe (probably?), something in between the two extremes.

Love Will Hold Us Together

Love
This is currently one of my favorite songs: Love Will Hold Us Together by Matt Maher. I especially love the lyrics of the refrain:

Love will hold us together
Make us a shelter to weather the storm
And I'll be my brother's keeper
So the whole world will know that we're not alone

It's what Jesus told us - the world will know that we are His disciples by our love.

The Long View

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

~Archbishop Oscar Romero

The Credo Project

Prayer for Generosity

Lord, teach me to be generous
Teach me to serve you as you deserve
To give and not to count the cost
To fight and not to heed the wounds
To toil and not to seek for rest
To labor and not to ask for reward
Save that of knowing that I am doing your will

~St. Igantius of Loyola