Oh Jesus, I miss you. These days without the Eucharist, they are an invitation into the agony you must have felt in the garden, over the souls that refuse to want you, that deny you, that assert with all that they have, “My will, not Thy will be done.”
I keep thinking of the wise and foolish bridesmaids and hoping to have enough oil. I both worry about running out, and about not having ever stored enough. I keep thinking of the woman in the crowd and hoping just to touch the tassel. I want the scraps under the table that even the dogs receive from the Master and the reality hits home.
Did I want the Eucharist for the Eucharist, or because it felt like then, I was secure in my sanctity? I cannot say because I’m sure sometimes, I received as if somehow meriting it which I never did, and that I received sometimes distracted.
Even missing Jesus, I am distracted. I miss the mass for the cloud of witnesses that sometimes helped me to stay more attentive and focused on the Eucharist. We cannot gather, so all our witness must be interior. We can no longer get away with outward gestures. We cannot fool ourselves anymore about our zeal for Christ versus our habits of practice.
My response to God in this time of willed participation reminds me of my middle school life –when the constant lament on my report card was, “Sherry daydreams in class.” I know I’ve discovered how distracted I am in prayer and in Mass, and it isn’t a pretty reality. More and more, I recognize, I’m the kid who raises her hand after everyone gets to work and says, “What are we doing?”
It is a reminder of the purpose of Sunday, because in this time of the coronavirus, all days blur together, to be deliberate in our relationship with God, to seek to rest in God. This time of staying at home is also an opportunity to restore our domestic church to something beyond a hotel with relatives, and into a home that bleeds out for each other, that mirrors the Church in offering to all who come, a place to be loved and be fed and be at rest. Again, I recognize my own distractedness in the ordinary offerings of the day and feel like so much time has poured out without my noticing.
Fortunately, God anticipated my distraction, and sent many saints and the Scriptures so I can hear what He expects again and again and again and again as need be.
He does not seem to tire of my needing more help. Just as we experience the dawn each morning, God invites us to begin again each day. He invites us to feast on His flesh, to experience Easter as not merely a day but a lived reality.
Breathe in, breathe out and go on, trying to love others as Christ loved us, each day. Be Easter to others. Do it again tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that, infinitely. He also promises, if we do this, if we are Easter to others, we will, as Martha confesses to Jesus, rise again on the last day. We will see Christ face to face again.
(Sherry Antonetti, the author of The Book of Helen, is a freelancer and blogger at @Chocolate For Your Brain!)
