Page 2 • Faith Today
Faith Today • Page 3
The call to
assemble
By Father Alfred McBride, O.Praem.
NC News Service
A cricket field in
Australia...a park in
Dublin...an airport
hangar in France...a
cathedral in India: Those
are spaces that still ring with the
memories of Pope John Paul II
celebrating Eucharists with
multitudes of people.
When the pope travels his
celebrations of the Eucharist are
more than just filler between major
speeches. Yes, his speech to the
United Nations counts for a lot.
But in his own mind, the true goal
of his 1979 pastoral visit to New
York was that of a priest, offering
Mass with and for his people at
Yankee Stadium.
The pope assembles the faithful
for the liturgy of word and sacra
ment in the Mass.
Catholicism is a community-
minded faith. The very word for
church traces itself back to the
Hebrew term for "called communi
ty ■ ”
“The spires, domes and bell
towers of parish churches
serve as physical reminders and
settings of this dialogue bet
ween an inviting God and a
responding people.... ‘Come to
the Welcome Table.’ That is the
divine assembly call.”
Jesus did not assemble in
dividualists to do their own thing.
He gathered together 12 individuals
and formed them into a communi
ty. He called the apostles; he
worked with them until they
became what we now call the
apostolic college, a community of
apostles.
What was their first task after
Pentecost? To call people to Christ,
to form them into community and
to assemble them for the "breaking
of the bread."
Still, such an "assembling” of
community for worship may sound
too official, even officious. The
language could give the impression
that God is delivering office memos
or imperial edicts.
Why does the Lord assemble us?
What is his tone of voice?
A clue may be noted in the com
munion hymn often sung at parish
Eucharists: “Where charity and
love prevail, there God is ever
found. Brought together by Christ’s
love, by love are we thus bound.”
God assembled the Hebrews at
Sinai because he loved them and
wanted to experience a pact of af
fection. Jesus invited his apostles to
the Upper Room because he loved
them. “I call you friends, not
slaves.”
Love still invites people to the
joy of community. Assembling for
the Eucharist is a response to the
divine love that beckons one to
worship. The spires, domes and
bell towers of parish churches
serve as physical reminders and set
tings of this dialogue between an
inviting God and a responding
people.
What results, however, is more
than a pleasant fellowship ex
perience. Nor is God merely in
terested in crowds or mass appeal.
God’s ultimate purpose for assembl
ing us at Mass is to offer us, in a
sacramental experience, the purest
love available. That is the saving
love of Jesus Christ, won by his
cross and resurrection and
mysteriously made available to us
by our personal and communal
participation in eucharistic worship.
But why community? Perhaps no
other regular act of the church bet
ter fulfills the words of Jesus:
“Where two or three are gathered
in my name, there am I in the *
midst of them."
God told Adam, “It is not good
for man to be alone.” Others are
needed to bring fullness to human
experience.
At worship, the sharing of faith
by the assembled believers, the
kindness and affection experienced,
the sense of a shared goal and
destiny create an environment that
other experiences cannot match
over the long haul. And the affec
tionate call to Eucharist can be the
beginning of a new phase of loving
concern for others.
John Paul II carries this meaning
of the Mass, whether it is in the
simplicity of an Iowa farm church
or the grandeur of St. Peter’s
Basilica. He invites people to come,
to bring the gifts of every culture
to the altar of God whether it is a
lei in Hawaii or a cluster of fresh
roses in Canterbury, a soccer ball
in Italy or an ebony saint’s statue
in Africa.
“Come to the Welcome Table.”
That is the divine assembly call.
(Father McBride is a consultant
to the papal visit office of the U.S.
Catholic Conference.)
Company for the journey
FOOD...
By Father John Castelot
NC News Service •>
O n his way back from
Greece to Jerusalem, St.
Paul stopped at Troas.
Luke tells us what hap
pened there:
“On the first day of the week
when we gathered for the breakisg
of the bread, Paul preached to
them. Because he intended to leave
the next day, he kept on speaking
until midnight” (Acts 20:7). *
An unfortunate accident momen
tarily interrupted his extended
homily. There were many lamps in
the room and they made it very
stuffy. A young man who was per
ched on a windowsill fell asleep
and tumbled out the window. *
Luckily he was quickly revived and
was able to share the Eucharist
with them. And then Paul went Qn
talking until dawn.
HU next stop on the homeward
pilgrimage was Miletus, not far
from Ephesus, where he had spertt
three years. He sent word to the
leaders of that community, calling
them to Miletus where he delivered
a touching farewell address. “After
this discourse, Paul knelt down
with them all and prayed. They
began to weep without restraint, *
throwing their arms around him
and kissing him for they were
deeply distressed to hear that they
would never see his face again”
(Acts 20:17-18, 36-38).
The call to assemble in com-
* munity seems to have been a
regular feature of the apostolic
journeys. Along the pilgrimage
„ route, the people assembled. It was
natural enough; if Paul or others
wanted to communicate with the
people of one of the churches in
• person, the best procedure was to
call them to worship and address
them within that context.
However there was another
almost sacramental significance to
these calls to worship. They were
visible signs, sharp reminders that
» they were a “called” people, that
they owed their very existence as
Christians to God’s gracious call to
accept his saving love in Christ
' Jesus. This notion of “call”
permeates Paul’s letters.
An excellent example is the
,. beginning of the first letter to the
Corinthians:
•“Paul, called by God’s will...to
you who have been consecrated in
* Christ Jesus and called to be a holy
people...” (1:1-2).
•“God is faithful and it was he
»who called you to fellowship with
his son, Jesus Christ our Lord”
(1:9).
•And later, “Brothers, you are
among those called” (1:26).
This calling of people together
signified their oneness with God’s
people of old. The Old Testament
prophet Hosea, speaking in the
name of the Lord, reminisced about
the great pilgrimage of the exodus:
“When Israel was a child I loved
him; out of Egypt I called my son”
(Hosea 11:1). All throughout the
long pilgrimage through the desert
to the Promised Land, the people
responded to Moses’ repeated calls
to gather together at the Tent of
Meeting, as it was known.
This was a constant reminder
that they were not journeying
alone. The God who had called
them out of Egypt was journeying
with them and wanted them to be
always conscious of his presence
and active concern.
All of this is summed up in the
very word for “church.” The
Greek word is “ekklesia” which
means assembly, but also a “calling
forth.” The church is the assembly
of God, called forth by his gracious
favor to worship him, to spread
the good news of his saving love
and to find fellowship and strength
for the journey in the company of
“those called.”
(Father Castelot is a professor of
Scripture at St. John’s Seminary,
Plymouth, Mich.)
Why we celebrate together
By Father Mark Link, SJ
NC News Service
r
J esuit Father Walter Ciszek,
a Pennsylvania-born priest,
was arrested during World
War II by the Soviets. Ac
cused of being a “Vatican
spy,” he spent 23 years in prisons
and labor camps in Siberia. He ,
was forced to work with other
Catholic prisoners from dawn to
darkness in subzero weather,
seven days a week, without ade
quate food or rest.
How did these Catholic
prisoners survive under such htvr-
rendous conditions? Father Ciszek
reveals the answer in his book,
“He Leadeth Me.” They drew
strength from the Eucharist. The
priest, who died in 1984 at the
age of 80, writes:
“I have seen priests and .
prisoners deprive their bodies of
needed sleep in order to get up
before the rising bell for a secret
Mass. We would be severely •
punished if we were discovered
saying Mass, and there were
always informers. But the Mass jo
us was always worth the danger
and the sacrifice.”
Describing the conditions under
which they celebrated Mass,
r Father Ciszek says: “We said Mass
in drafty storage shacks, or huddl
ed in mud and slush in the corner
of a building site founda
’’ tion...there were no altars...Yet in
these primitive conditions, the
Mass brought us closer to God
* than anyone might conceivably
imagine.”
The loyalty of these prisoners to
the Mass leads to two important
* reasons why people gather to
celebrate the Eucharist.
First, the Mass is a source of
strength on the pilgrimage in this
world. Without the Eucharist to
sustain us, few if any of us would
ever be able to complete the
pilgrimage.
When Jesus said at the Last Sup
per, “Do this in memory of me,”
- he wasn’t asking us to do him a
favor. He was doing us a favor.
He was making it possible for us
to survive our pilgrimage in this
world, just as the Mass made it
possible for the prisoners to
survive.
A second reason for gathering
to celebrate the Eucharist is not
for our own sake but for the sake
of the entire human family. It is
the way we proclaim to them the
good news about Jesus Christ. It is
the way we proclaim the most im
portant message of history:
“Christ has died, Christ has risen,
Christ will come again.”
This is a message that the world
needs to hear. It is a message the
world wants to hear. It is the
message Jesus entrusted us to
preach: “Go then to all peoples
everywhere and make them my
disciples...and teach them.”
The message Christ entrusted to
his church cannot be spoken by a
single person. It needs to be
spoken by the whole Christian
community in every nation on
earth.
For here on earth we are
Christ’s body. We are Christ’s
voice. We are Christ’s heart.
If Christ is to speak to the
modern world, it must be through
us, his church. If we are silent,
Christ is silent. If one of us is
silent, a part of Christ is silent. If
a part of Christ is silent, a part of
his message goes unheard.
(Father Link has written several
books on Scripture.)
“Through the
Eucharist... man
shares in the sacrifice
of Christ which this
celebration actualizes,
and he also learns to find
himself through a gift of
himself, through commu
nion with God and with
others, his brothers and
sisters....The church from the
\ beginning expressed and con
firmed her identity through the
Eucharist” (Pope John Paul II in
his 1986 encyclical on the Holy
Spirit, “The Lord and Giver of
Life”).
Think back to an occasion
when it seemed particularly im
portant, urgent, that a communi
ty had assembled for a celebra
tion of the Eucharist.
•Was it perhaps a funeral,
when the surviving family
members had great need for the
support of the church and its
people?
•Was it perhaps the time of a
baptism, when the parents of a
new child had a great desire to
celebrate the new life coming in
to their family with others?
•Was it perhaps an ordinary
Sunday liturgy when, for
whatever reason — pressured by
the events in your life; refreshed
by recent experiences; thankful
for a turn of events in your life
— you were acutely aware of
your own desire to be with the
church and its people?
...for discussion
How much difference does it
make that the people of the
church assemble as a community
to celebrate the Eucharist?
Why can Pope John Paul II say
that in the Eucharist the church’s
identity is expressed and
confirmed?
What does the Greek word for
church mean, according to
Father John Castelot?
Why did Margaret O’Brien
Steinfels change her mind about
the lengthy Prayers of the
Faithful in her parish communi
ty? What is the difference she
sees between the tone of these
prayers and the tone of some
reports heard on the evening
news?
...for thought
There are occasions when one
has a renewed sense that it
makes a real difference whether
or not the church gathers —
assembles — as a community for
the liturgy. They can be occa
sions when a fuller glimpse is
caught of what the church is
meant to be as a community.
It isn’t so surprising that this
might happen when you con
sider the words of Pope John
Paul II: “The church from the
beginning expressed and con
firmed her identity through the
Eucharist.” By participating in
the Mass — through this action
— one can begin to grasp the
church’s identity more fully; one
begins to see, too, what a dif
ference its community life
makes.
This is also an opportunity for
self-discovery, as the pope’s
words suggest. Again, it makes a
difference that one assembles
with others. In the Eucharist a
person “learns to find himself
through a gift of himself,
through communion with God
and with others, his brothers and
sisters,” says Pope John Paul.
Think back to an occasion
when it became just a bit clearer
to you that assembling for the
Eucharist, the church’s ordinary
activity, was really an extraor
dinary thing to do.
What difference did it make at
that moment that the people
worshiped not so much
alongside each other, but truly
“with” each other?
SECOND HELPINGS
Gathering Prayers, by Debra
Hintz. “Prayer binds us, unites
us and makes us one. As we
gather in community, prayer
gives us a common bond as we
turn our attention to God and
open ourselves to the presence
and guidance of our Lord,” the
author writes. These prayers, ar
ranged around the liturgical
seasons and broad topic areas
such as peace and justice,
praise or thanksgiving, can be
used by any group of
parishioners meeting to pursue
a common activity — from parish
council meetings to liturgy plan
ning sessions. Ms. Hintz recom
mends using creativity to set up
a special environment for prayer;
setting the mood for prayer can
sometimes be accomplished just
by dimming the lights and lighting
a single candle, she says.
(Twenty-Third Publications. Box
180, Mystic, Conn. 06355.
1986. Single copy, $7.95.)
