Getting it
I was having a beer with one of the more colorful members of my congregation whom I’ll call “Bob” and he told me about an encounter with an older member, “Manny” who has been attending our parish for a couple years now. Manny is a rather irascible guy was a lapsed Presbyterian who came back to church reluctantly at the instigation of his wife.
Bob told me that last Sunday Manny came up to him and said “You know, a couple of years ago I asked you why you came to church and you told me it was to get a wafer and a sip of wine. I thought you were an idiot.” (Knowing Manny, he said that with all the disapproval it suggests.) Bob asked him what he thought now. Manny answered “today you and I kneel at the altar rail and together we look up into the face of God.”
Although I am unsure what theological synthesis connected the reception of the Eucharist with the beatific vision (I don’t think the connection came from my homilies), I am caught by what a deeply biblical metaphor this is for the celebration of mass. I am thinking here of Dom Gregory Dix’s reflection that the heavenly worship described beginning in Revelation chapter 4 is a description of Eucharist in the early church with the bishop at the altar representing God upon the throne. That Manny would somehow intuit this connection seems significant.
The context of the conversation was Manny’s desire to go sit with the wife of another member, an Alzheimer’s patient, so his friend could get to church to receive the sacrament with his sisters and brothers in Christ. For Manny, now Eucharist leads to ministry and being the church.
All of this got me thinking about a quote from Thomas Merton’s The Ascent to Truth, which I began reading this week: “We must know the truth, we must love the truth we know, and we must act according to the measure of our love.”
None of this I would have imagined a few years ago. It is nice to know we get it every once and a while.
Bob told me that last Sunday Manny came up to him and said “You know, a couple of years ago I asked you why you came to church and you told me it was to get a wafer and a sip of wine. I thought you were an idiot.” (Knowing Manny, he said that with all the disapproval it suggests.) Bob asked him what he thought now. Manny answered “today you and I kneel at the altar rail and together we look up into the face of God.”
Although I am unsure what theological synthesis connected the reception of the Eucharist with the beatific vision (I don’t think the connection came from my homilies), I am caught by what a deeply biblical metaphor this is for the celebration of mass. I am thinking here of Dom Gregory Dix’s reflection that the heavenly worship described beginning in Revelation chapter 4 is a description of Eucharist in the early church with the bishop at the altar representing God upon the throne. That Manny would somehow intuit this connection seems significant.
The context of the conversation was Manny’s desire to go sit with the wife of another member, an Alzheimer’s patient, so his friend could get to church to receive the sacrament with his sisters and brothers in Christ. For Manny, now Eucharist leads to ministry and being the church.
All of this got me thinking about a quote from Thomas Merton’s The Ascent to Truth, which I began reading this week: “We must know the truth, we must love the truth we know, and we must act according to the measure of our love.”
None of this I would have imagined a few years ago. It is nice to know we get it every once and a while.
posted by peregrinator at 5:27 PM
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