This coming week, we can take time to talk with family and friends about the importance of the Eucharist
Every three years, we take four weeks in the middle of summer to walk together through the Gospel of John, chapter 6. For much of the year, we are using the synoptic Gospel of Mark, but we run out of parts of that Gospel before we run out of Ordinary Sundays of the year. The Church uses that opportunity to insert chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. This year, it comes amid the Eucharistic Revival throughout the United States, when we are being asked to pay particular attention to the gift of the Eucharist and claim again that it is a gift for us, the Church and the world.
My childhood ministry at Mass was serving or singing in choirs. Take some time to think about our ministry and Mass experience growing up. If we grew up when the Mass was in Latin, did we have a missal to follow the English words? Did our parish have high Masses and low Masses? Do we remember the first time we were allowed to come forward and share in Communion? Do we remember how scary, exciting and mysterious that was? For the people who are younger than I am, there might be no memories of Mass in Latin, but only in English. If that is so, did we enjoy some ministry in the Church when we came to Mass? Did we proclaim the Word of God? Were we an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion? Were we one of the faithful people in the pews who sang and responded to the prayers as the presider spoke them?
Regardless of time period, the Eucharist is a gathering of the people of God to hear His word and share at the Lord’s banquet table. Together, as the people of God, we pray, ask forgiveness, worship, open our hearts to the Holy Spirit and support each other as we come forward to the table. We are always sent out from the Mass to go into the world to share the good news with anyone we met.
Many of us may have learned that evangelization was not a high priority. We may have been told not to socialize with or even form relationships with those who were not Catholic. In the parish where I grew up, we had our own church, school, bank, grocery store, bowling alley, movie theater and stage for live performances. There was no need to mix with anybody outside our community. There was a richness in unity, but we were not known for our diversity.
At the present time, I invite everyone to walk with me over the next several weeks through the various ways we are called to be Christ’s presence through our participation in the Eucharist. We’ll focus on a different one each week, and together we can each have a fuller sense of how Christ becomes present through our participation in the Eucharist.
Take time in these coming weeks to talk with family and friends about the importance of the Eucharist. Maybe it hasn’t been that important lately, but we would like to talk with them about being a support in our lives to revive our commitment to the Eucharist. Maybe some in our families have quit attending Mass, and we might want to share one testimony about its importance. If we sit next to the same people in church every week, maybe invite them to talk with us about why they come and how they experience the presence of Christ through their participation in the Eucharist.
Every three years, we get a chance to walk through John’s Gospel. Let’s do it well and enrich our experience of the bread of life.
Father Donald Wester is retired and serves as lecturer of homiletics at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary.
