Returning to the Pews

Dear Friends, 

Today, the feast of Corpus Christi – the Body and Blood of Christ – is like no other our Church has celebrated since this feast began in the 13th century. What makes this year so different is that, for over a year, we have been told to stay away or come only in qualified circumstances (distancing, masks, reservations). 

We stayed away lest the coronavirus come home to us from worship. Churchgoers searched for and found themselves celebrating Mass virtually in favored places across the country and across the world. Make a spiritual communion with Christ, we were told. That’s all that is possible – a spiritual communion with Jesus whose Body and Blood we have become over the years our being Catholic. 

But during this last week, many places in our country have opened up: beaches, the Indy 500, stores, all sorts of events and venues. Church, too.  

It’s time to come home to who we are in the depths of our being. Will we come home? In some ways, it’s more convenient to turn to our electronic devices while in our pajamas and pray at a distance, instead of dressing up and driving a distance to be with coughing strangers and friends in a church building that has nonetheless held many important memories for us. 

If we can, we need to return to the church building to pray shoulder to shoulder, breath to breath with others, to meet again people who, like us, value the Eucharist and our mutual immersion in Christ through baptism. We are invited to rediscover the community of which we were a part before the pandemic, and now, with whom we can share new, life-shaping experiences. God is among us. Fully present. 

Come. Come back. Come back each week to be with others who are also the Body and Blood of Christ. 

“Ah,” we may say, “I get nothing out of it.” Maybe. But being with God in worship and with our brothers and sisters in Christ means that we are becoming something more than a feeling of success or accomplishment or satisfaction. 

As a church, we believe that Christ is really and truly present in the Eucharist. His is not merely a symbolic presence nor is it a physical presence. It is the Lord, truly. 

One author suggests that Jesus might say to us today, “In the years ahead, I want you to know that the one who loved you still loves you. The bread you break and the cup you drink is your communion with me…the link that binds us together and makes us one. You share my life and love when you do these things in memory of me.” 

So come. Begin today and continue every Sunday if possible. Be nourished and take that nourishment out to others all week long to those places where we pour out our life’s energies, like Jesus, for the life of the world. Can we be less generous than Jesus, our Risen Lord, whom we receive in Eucharist? 

~Sister Joan Sobala