It feels like quite a long while, since I last wrote a piece for the Lonely Curate Blog. As you may
imagine, it has been quite a busy week for me. I began Holy Week with two days volunteering at the St. George’s Hospital, Chaplaincy, before returning to St. Anselm’s mid-week, where I came home and found Frs. Will & Mebrate very much in the flow of preparations for the Easter Triduum. It has been a bit of an adventure for us, digging out all of the different things necessary for the Holy Week liturgies. St. Anselm’s normally has a small army of Church helpers and volunteers, and it soon dawned on us priests, that we didn’t really know where lots of the things we needed were kept. I have always been very grateful for the parish sacristans in the various Churches I have worked at, but it was a salutary reminder of just how much the liturgy is very definitely a partnership between priest and people, each putting their hearts into the worship of God.
Which is why this year really has felt very strange. Celebrating these most solemn liturgies with so few people has been a very odd. It really was a blessing, I think, for the three of us priests, to have, at least, each other. My heart really did go out over this weekend to those priests who are on their own in their parishes, and have had to do all of this alone. But, of course, when one celebrates the official worship of the Church, one is never actually alone.
Almost daily over the last few weeks, I have offered Missa solitaria - a Mass offered by a priest, without the assistance of any minister. It is not something I would ever choose to do per se; ordinarily I much prefer to have, at least, a server to make the responses. But the necessity of the circumstances has made it a practical reality of life.
As a priest, the most important thing I do each day is to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In the Mass, the priest in the most obvious way participates in the priestly mission of Jesus Christ. In his very person, the priest at Mass unites heaven and earth; drawing down the Bread of Angels, to the earthly altar at which he ministers. Then, in consuming the offering, his humanity becomes united with the Humanity and Divinity of Jesus Christ - and Jesus Christ is made a little bit more present in the world than He was before the Mass began. As Padre Pio put it: “[t]he earth could exist more easily without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”
Thus, for a priest, the offering of the Mass is always a public event. He always carries his people, his community, his country, even the whole world as he ascends the altar steps to Calvary; there, to make present once more the perfect offering to the Father. And what I have discovered praying the Mass by myself - which has one advantage of meaning I can take my time - is that one strangely becomes more conscious of the public dimension of what one is doing. The angels and saints are gathered and present. And increasingly I am conscious of the praying Church present, too.
It has been a very moving experience to read the messages from the faithful, and to be stopped in the street by people wanting to say ‘thank you’ for the live-streamed services we have offered. It is wonderful to know that so many people have been touched by being able to connect to the liturgy remotely. However, it is also a reminder for me of the spiritual life of prayer that goes on away from the Church. In a real way, this all flows through the Mass, as well.
The Mass really should be for each one of us the source from which our spiritual life flows out, and the end to which it returns. For most Catholics, this is the weekly experience of the Sunday liturgy. But even though a physical separation now - temporarily - exists, let us try and keep that reality in the forefront of our spiritual minds. Your prayers are dependent on the quiet, spiritual work of priests behind closed doors drawing down the mercy of God through the one perfect Sacrifice of Calvary. But, the spiritual energy which we rely on for this, is the prayerful activity of the Body of Christ, which is the Church. This synchronicity within the Christ’s Body is the key to the way that God has organised the spiritual economy - which is a theological way of saying “your spiritual life supports mine - and visa versa.” Even though it is harder for us to see now, it is still true.
As we head into ‘month two’ of lockdown, let us remember, we all of us still have a role to play in the keeping the Church going during this time. It is still very much a partnership between priest and people, each putting their hearts into the love of God.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.
But God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12.12-27)
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