Review: Bread That is Broken

I am sure that at least some of every book I have read by Wilfred Stinissen was inspired by God.  This book is no different.

In writing of the Eucharist, Stinissen explains many points and provides many examples which clarify what it is, and isn’t.  He writes of the sacrificial meal, the Real Presence, and how it is all summarized in Agape, Self-Giving Love, and in unity.

I especially liked how he linked the washing of the feet at the Last Supper --- even a Jewish slave wouldn’t stoop that low, the giving of Himself in the Eucharist --- then and for always, and finally His death on the cross.  “The key word that sums up the whole drama is love, or rather, extreme love… The washing of the feet and the Eucharist say the same thing, they express the same love.  And both conclude with the same exhortation: ‘I have given you an example that you should do as I have done,’ and ‘Do this in memory of me.’”  And the willing death on the cross concludes the examples of self-giving love.  Later Stinissen further summarizes: “To be so completely at the service of others that one becomes food and drink for them presupposes that one has died to oneself.”  And he concludes: “As soon as one dies of his own free will and gives his life instead of having it taken from him, death is transformed into life.”

I have never heard it explained better.

Of course, I must make note of a few exceptional lines, which gave me pause:

-          Eucharistic adoration is a treasure we must guard carefully.

-          Through sin, loneliness has come into our lives.  Sin always causes loneliness.

-          The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity.  In the Didache we read: “As this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together to become one, so let Thy Church be gathered together… from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom.”

-          Sin in its essence is division.  Our first task as Christians is to establish peace, to forgive, to live in love between us.

-          A non-Christian humanism speaks about self-realization, while the Gospel speaks of self-forgetfulness.  It speaks about satisfying ones needs, while the Gospel speaks about denying oneself.

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The weather in my area of Michigan today was kind of a summary of Creation-to-date, in a single day.  I awoke this morning to a clear sky, bright son, and warm temperatures.  I had time, so I grabbed my brievery and walked my neighborhood sidewalks --- and streets, if anyone passed nearby.  Reading my prayers, it was easy to give praise to God.  To those I passed I said: “This day is a blessing.”  They all agreed.

Home, I turned on my computer and went to YouTube, where a 10:30AM mass was broadcast live from my parish, Christ The King, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I guess I was used to it, but the camera angles showed how beautiful and reverent our church appears.  Although Fr. Ed seemed a bit nervous at the start of his sermon, he soon got with it and delivered a good message.  I am so glad my parish will be able to broadcast mass like this each week, although being quarantined home not receiving the Eucharist makes it feel strange.

As I complete my night prayers, now in the quiet of the chapel, it is windy, rainy, and colder outside.  The weather is like a representation of what the world is going through now, a dark place, so different from this morning.  But, this morning gave me hope.  Even this rain has a reason; it helps bring of the Spring and Summer new growth.  This morning as I walked the streets, I saw many a tree with new buds, and many a soon-to-be spring flower sticking out of the ground, and I heard the birds singing loudly.  A good will come out of this darkness, even as it did from His Cross.

This is a Lent we will never forget.

Thy Will Be Done

Today is the feast day of the Annunciation, the night the angel spoke to Mary, and she said in response: Thy will be done.  And nine months later, Jesus was born on Christmas Day.  We so celebrate Christmas, but this was the night when the change really happened.  This was the start of a great change in the world, and the world would never be the same.

So often, we don’t really recognize the start of something important, but truly the start is a great thing in itself, the results, of which we often are so enamored with, just unfolds as it was meant to from the start.  God doesn’t make things happen in our lives; we are not His robots, but He did make our start.  Jesus was made a human for a reason.  We were born in this country at this time for a reason.  He gave us life, in part, so that we could be here, right now, to bring our purposes to fulfillment, as He did with His life.

Will this be our greatest hour?  Were we born to be here, right now, in this time of trial, because God needed people like us right now?

Tonight, in the chapel, I prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary.  I hadn’t planned on that, but to my surprise when I looked into my folder for my rosary meditations, I did not find the meditations for the Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious and Luminous Mysteries as I expected, but only found 4 copies of the Sorrowful Mystery meditations.  And so that is what I meditated upon, and I found my meditations were indeed sorrowful this night, for Jesus’ plight, and for ours.  I think I shall continue to pray these meditations each night during this crisis.

When I got to the 4^th Sorrowful Mystery of the rosary, the Carrying of the Cross, I read this meditation: “The heaviest weight is the loneliness.”  Jesus found it wasn’t the cross which was heavy, it was all the people who abandoned Him.  Those words gave me much to contemplate, alone in the chapel, or quarantined in my house.

Jesus, carrying His cross was alone, abandoned by all His friends --- except His mother.  She was there at His beginning --- the Annunciation we celebrate today, and there at His end.  That beginning was scary, but it made the end possible, the end of which was itself scary but which was also one of the greatest beginnings in the history of man: the gates of heaven would be open again.  God and man would be united again.  Things would again be as they were meant to be, and it started with Mary saying: Thy will be done.

In the chapel, I thought of the cross we are all now bearing, unwillingly.  Many of us, quarantined, are carrying it alone, as Jesus did.  People are dying in quarantined hospital rooms, alone.  Can we trust in the Father, even as Jesus did, and carry on?  Can we make no complaint, but trust that this for a greater reason?  Is this the time, the reason for which we were created?  And can we say, in our loneliness, in our sorrows, and perhaps in our pain and death, the words Mary said?  Her life was suddenly disrupted by the angel’s visit, her life set on a path beyond her control --- as ours now is --- and she said: Thy will be done. 

What do we say?

Lent is to be a time of willingly offering sacrifice, and it is to be a time of change.  Perhaps we had planned for no Lenten sacrifices this year, and this world condition was just thrust upon us --- like it or not --- but still, we can accept it, even as Jesus in His Passion repeated what His mother had said:  Thy will be done.  If there was ever anyone in the history of the world who did NOT have to accept pain and suffering, it was Him.  He was God!  And yet He did, for us, because He knew His sufferings were for a reason.

Turn off the computer, the phone, the television and in the quiet take time to consider what He did for us.  And then take time to consider what you might do.  You were created for this time; you were created for a reason.  Carry your cross, willingly.

The heaviest weight is the loneliness, but we can will to bear it.

Thank you, Mary, for saying: Thy will be done.

Hail Mary, full of grace
The Lord is with you.
Blessed are you among women,
And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners, now,
And at the hour of our death.  Amen.

And please help us remember, dear mother, in this our time of sorrow, the other words which the angel also spoke to you that night: Nothing is impossible for God.

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It seems to me that there is a familiar parable which we could apply to this time of crisis.  The Prodigal Son took all the blessings his father gave him and went off to enjoy the world, taking advantage of everything he had, forgetting that it was a gift given to him.  But then, suddenly, his world changed.  He was in a terrible state, alone, with nothing to eat.  And afraid --- a lot like we are today.  All that he had in the past didn’t matter.  Today he was alone, and he had time to think.

The Prodigal Son remembered that his father was a loving father.  With humility he went home, searching for the father he had left, planning to beg for his mercy.

Are we the prodigal sons of today, who took all the blessings given us and went off to enjoy the world, forgetting about our Father, Who gave us those blessings?  Were we all caught up in things of the world, and now we suddenly, much to our surprise, find ourselves totally out of control of our lives?  The Prodigal Son was surprised to find his life out of his control, but then he remembered he had a father who loved him, and went begging for mercy.

Cannot we do the same?

We Will Never Forget This Lent

Things are happening to me in a way which they have never happened before.  I have often felt God’s presence in the quiet of the adoration chapel, His Spirit sometimes overwhelms me there, with thoughts and insights.  I don’t recall, however, --- or at least not often --- that feeling, that sense of Presence in my own home.

Last night, I did go to the adoration chapel, starting my night prayers there with the rosary, praying in particular for our country as I do every Sunday night.  Last night, however, as I fingered the beads of the Patriotic Rosary and I prayed for each of the 50 states one by one, I looked at each bead with its two-letter abbreviation for a state, and my thoughts perceived many things about that state and the suffering happening there right now.  My heart was heavy and I felt somehow united with them, the dying, those trying to help them and those praying for them.  And I felt sad but I knew God was present with them, and He too was sad.  I thought briefly about writing these thoughts last night, but they were only my personal thoughts and feelings.  This morning, there was more.

I rose early to say my morning prayers, and once more words I read hundreds of times in the past now spoke with a new meaning to me.  They weren’t words about history; they were words about right now.  They weren’t parables about past events, but parables to explain what is happening today.  And before today and these times, they could not have had such a meaning for me --- and for the world.

My prayers began with Psalm 95, and I read the words: “Today, listen to the voice of the Lord”; they spoke to me.  Then I read Psalm 73, which questions why the good have many troubles, but its concluding lines note: “I was stupid and did not understand, no better than a beast in Your sight.  Yet I was always in Your presence; You were holding me by my right hand.  You will guide me by Your counsel.”  The words spoke to me, as a reminder to trust, especially in these dark times.

The reading from Leviticus in my prayers said how Aaron was to offer atonement for the sins of himself and his family.  It mentioned how after touching sinful things Aaron must bathe his body in water before he visits others --- and I thought how we now must wash our hands to prevent the spread of the virus.  Then I read Psalm 90:

Make us know the shortness of our life,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Lord, relent.  Is your anger forever?
Show pity to your servants …

And then I read this petition: “Forgive us for failing to see Christ in the poor, the distressed and the troublesome, and for our failure to venerate Your Son in their persons.”  And after reading these things, my mind slipped away from prayer, to some words I had read in the paper about a doctor in Italy.  He said they must use their limited equipment on those under 60; they must prioritize who they will try to save, or let die.  In a war that is called triage.  I have not seen it said, but we ARE at war.

I didn’t complete my prayers when I saw that it was 8AM, time for mass on EWTN.  The entrance hymn sung was from Psalm 31: “As for me, I trust in the Lord.  Let me rejoice in Your mercy, for You have seen my affliction.”  And with that, my whole attention was focused on the screen and the words spoken.  The First Reading of the mass was from Isaiah 65:17-21, and I heard words of hope: “No more shall be heard the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.  No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days …”  And the words of hope continued in the Responsorial Hymn: “I praise You, Lord, for You have rescued me.”  Then the subsequent Gospel words were a parable for today.  In Jn 4:43-54 Jesus says: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”  But the centurion did believe, and his son was healed.  And I knew Jesus was using those words to give us a sign for today.  Trust in Him.

I was hearing and considering all these things as the priest than began his sermon, which quickly got my full attention.  I will paraphrase. 

 “The masses and readings of recent days have been viewed by us believers in a new light, with ‘new eyes’.  This is a great blessing for us.  Mid-day yesterday, we heard: ‘By waiting and calm you shall be saved, in trust.  Blessed are all who wait for Him.  By waiting and in calm, you shall be saved (Isaiah).’

In times like these, the great temptation is to say: Why have You abandoned us, Lord?  Why have You allowed this to happen?  We can use these words in blame and in bitterness --- or, with faith.”  And then the priest read from Psalm 10: ‘‘God hears us --- but do we hear Him?  The thoughts of the wicked are that there is no God.’”  Then the priest read from Psalm 23: “‘The Lord is my Shepherd … Even though I walk through the alley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for You are with me …’”

Then the priest paused:  “Turn off the news.  Read Scripture.  Our hearts and our minds are made for contemplation, especially in these times of trial.

We will never forget this Lent.

The priest said that his prayer and that of his fellow priests is that everyone may hunger for God more during these days.  He noted how during the Tridium we will renew our Baptismal promises.  We will renounce Satan.  And when asked: Do you believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we will answer “We do.”  We must answer those words as never before.

In these days we are being invited into a new life with Jesus Christ.  Jesus said to the woman at the well: I thirst.  He thirsts for your faith today.  He healed the blind man; let us pray for a new set of eyes, to see Him gazing in love upon us, to give us new eyes of living faith.”

And then the mass continued, and what continued for me was the feeling that many of the same old words I had heard before were now said with new meaning, meaning for today.  I heard the many prayers prayed in Latin during this mass, and I heard in my heart those same words echoing in masses right now throughout the world, praying: “Agnus Dei …” 

Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.