June 5, 2005

The dramatic events surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI could have obscured the observances of the Holy Year of the Eucharist except for the fact that everything done as a Christian is Eucharistic. Funerals and inaugurals are centered on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Pope Benedict’s first trip was last Sunday to a Eucharistic Congress in Bari where he celebrated the Sacred Liturgy before 180,000 people and renewed an appeal for reunion with the Eastern churches. The Holy Father is now escorted on his travels outside the Vatican by the Swiss Guards who formerly attended him only in the Vatican. Their elegant armor belies the fact that they are modern soldiers, armed with modern weaponry. The new Pope has also enlisted a more conspicuous presence of deacons to attend him at the altar in ancient custom.

The only way to make a worthy communion is to make a humble confession. In our parish I am edified by the increase of confessions. It means more saints. We now have more confessions than in easier days when there were more priests here. Sometimes I have to stop hearing confessions to offer a second Mass. Most people understand this. A few say that this is inconvenient to them. This is a distress to me, but unless they have born sons who now are priests, they have no right to complain. Only saints can bi-locate.

Do meditate on these words of Pope Benedict XVI:

". . . the Eucharist is far more than just a meal; it has cost a death to provide it, and the majesty of death is present in it. Whenever we hold it, we should be filled with reverence in the face of this mystery, with awe in the surface of this mysterious death that has become a present reality in our midst. Certainly the overcoming of this death in the Resurrection is present at the same time, and we can therefore celebrate this death as the feast of life, as the transformation of the world. In all ages, and among all peoples, the ultimate aim of men in their festivals has been to open the door of death. For as long as it does not touch on this question, a festival remains superficial, mere entertainment to anaesthetize oneself. Death is the ultimate question, and wherever it is bracketed out there can be no real answer. Only when this question is answered can men truly celebrate and be free. The Christian feast, the Eucharist, plumbs the very depths of death. It is not just a matter of pious discourse and entertainment, of some kind of religious beautification, spreading a pious gloss on the world; it plumbs the very depths of existence, which it calls death, and strikes out an upward path to life, the life that overcomes death."