A Meditation

The Mass

 It is the highest privilege a priest has, 

to celebrate either as a “president” or as “participant” in 

the Mass –

 Even on the days when you don’t feel  so good, 

standing before the altar of the only God there is, 

the God who wants so much to share love and life;

that God who asks you to bring the love  from this homely meal; 

it reminds the priest and those there and those not there

of the primary vocation: 

to bring the fellowship of the meal of the disciples

to the sometimes reckless community 

in the location where we have been placed.  

By the time of sharing, it has always been my experience, 

no matter how I started, 

now

I am fully awake and energized by the love manifested in the shared meal, 

where I am the waiter, 

bringing Jesus 

to those there and those not there 

-- and it happens whether I am at the altar or in the pew, or -- as now --

at home and receiving from the blessed sacrament reserved. 

It is this for which I was created -- and also, 

it is this for whom we all are created. 

The Mass is not something we do: 

it is the expression of who we are, 

and as such,

it energizes us.

“Do this, 

for the anamnesis of me.”

E. Perren Hayes

3/8/2013