MONDAY EUCHARIST Connecing Sunday Liurgy wih Daily Work and Relaionships WILLIAM L. DROEL
Conens Inroducion... 7 Do This in Memory... 13 Recalling he Collecive Sory... 23 Sacramenal Imaginaion... 31 A Walk hrough he Mass... 43 Solidariy... 61 Real Presence in he World... 73 Sources... 81 Abou he Auhor... 83 A word abou erminology: Eucharis, Mass, communion, liurgy, Eucharisic spiriualiy, Eucharisic devoion, Real Presence, and Mysical Body of Chris, hough cerainly relaed, are no synonymous. This book will clarify heir differences as warraned.
Inroducion T.S. Elio s 1941 poem, The Dry Salvages, is a mediaion on ime and on our rue desinaion. I conains his poignan line: We had he experience bu missed he meaning. Mos of us, mos of he ime, live episodically even o even o isolaed even and we usually don have he ime o weave hose evens ino a narraive, a poem, or a sory o discover he deeper meaning of hose experiences. Our dominan culure is also episodic. Everyone has fifeen minues of nooriey. Each news sory has a 24-hour (or possibly one-week) cycle. Inerne posings or phoos circulae for a day a mos. Clichés are delivered in passing. Neighbors and colleagues come and go. We are inundaed wih facoids and bombarded wih one-liners. We fli from one ask o he nex. Beneah i all, however, we may suspec here is overarching purpose o our harried exisence. Alhough our hyper-conneced world may leave us wandering in an exisenial daze, we occasionally sense a sory line, a deeper meaning. Maybe we have his sense during a ime of loss. A a momen of joy. In momens of doub or frusraion. During sex. Or maybe we sense i while 7
looking a family phoographs. We may be aware of hese hins of ulimae meaning, bu hen we jus move along. Vaican II s Pasoral Consiuion on he Church in he Modern World addresses his search for meaning. Afer praising accomplishmens in science, echnology, commerce and culure, he Vaican II documen asks: Wha is he meaning and value of his feverish aciviy? How should all hese hings be used? To he achievemen of wha goal are he srivings of individuals and socieies heading? I conend ha he Eucharis can provide a perspecive, a lens, a pair of glasses, a map, even an engine o give order and meaning o he seemingly isolaed and rouine evens of life. My claim, of course, is invalid if Eucharis is synonymous only wih Sunday worship. The Eucharis, as used here, is a Sunday-carried-hrough-o-Saurday dynamic wha I call Monday Eucharis. Perhaps more imporanly, he Monday par of Eucharis informs he hour of Sunday worship by providing i wih a necessary conex drawn from our everyday work and relaionships on he job, around he home, and in he communiy and civic affairs. Thus, work and relaionships provide he raw ingrediens ha make Sunday worship more han a morning respie from real life. To undersand and o live he Eucharis as a weeklong realiy, we have o be sensiive o he meaning embedded in he daily rouines and insiuions of he world. Living and celebra- 8
ing Monday Eucharis means discovering and creaing sories of our individual lives, of our families and heriage, of he world as i is, and of he grea sory of God s revelaion. The Eucharis (Sunday worship and Monday work) can give us he framework for hese sories and jus as imporanly promp us o carry ou our grea mission in life: o make he world more like God would have hings. This book will discuss how o discern and ell our sories by aending o memory (chaper one), respecing our heriage (chaper wo), engaging our imaginaion (chaper hree), culivaing virues, especially social jusice (chaper four), and building solidariy wih one anoher (chaper five). In discussing Eucharisic spiriualiy, i is necessary a imes o address individualism, ha srong curren in our presen culure. While rugged individualism has moivaed some people o do remarkable hings, i has serious implicaions for economics, poliics, careers, lifesyles, and even spiriualiy. In he spiriual realm, exreme individualism has driven some individuals o se aside family and communiy commimens in he pursui of he gospel of individual wealh and success. A mega-church pasor, for example, preaches abou he road ou of povery, advising members of his congregaion o avoid he empaion of assising exended family members wih loans or significan invesmen of personal ime. I s a sin o spend money on anyone else unil you have i made, he preaches. 9
Monday Eucharis, in conras, considers exreme individualism o be sinful. Eucharisic spiriualiy does no force people o lose heir individual ideniy, bu i does foser healhy self-regard and self-acualizaion only hrough ineracion wih ohers. Eucharisic spiriualiy draws upon images of one body wih many pars or of one loaf broken ino many pieces. Wha a liberaing and empowering alernaive for a world of unconneced, anonymous individuals. Eucharisic spiriualiy couners individualism wih personalism, a philosophy ha espouses personal freedom while calling individuals o life in and responsibiliy for communiy. How can we foser a holisic Eucharisic spiriualiy? There is no magic pill. No single rubric, sermon, official proclamaion, app, or book can ake he place of a slowly culivaed sacramenal imaginaion coupled o effecive acion. Eucharisic spiriualiy flows from he Incarnaion God walking he srees, God going o he carpeners hiring hall, God conversing wih eachers and lawyers, God falsely accused, God suffering abuse, God in deah and in resurrecion. In shor, i flows from God embracing he maerial world. I conrass wih oday s preference for virual realiy over maer and flesh. The Incarnaion does no depend on saellies and TV. I demands ouching and seeing and hearing naure, fabricaed objecs and especially people, physical face-o-face encouner. Some ime ago, John Flynn, OSA, conduced a our of 10
my church for boys from a nearby high school, aking grea care in showing hem all he arifacs, symbols, precious vessels, and holy books. A he conclusion of he our, he asked he boys, Now, wha is he mos imporan objec in his church? One boy replied, The exi sign. Flynn, presuming he boy was a smar aleck, reored, Can you ell he whole class why you say ha? Because, he boy said, i shows us where o live he gospel. 11
Chaper One Do This in Memory All of us who worship in he Unied Saes have been influenced by he Proesan ehic. Tha is, we usually hink of faih as an individual maer: God and me. Thus we paricipae in he Eucharis as if i is an individual conversaion wih God. Eucharis hen is ofen an even unconneced wih our daily life on our jobs, wih our families and loved ones, and in our communiy and civic involvemens. Cerainly we can briefly feel a spiriual connecion o family members who accompany us o Mass or maybe o friends or colleagues we see here. And worship can even be an occasion o feel aached o he concerns of he world if, for example, here is a sale of Fair Trade coffee or chocolae in he lobby ha weekend. And now and hen we become aware ha a paricular Mass is relaed o a larger radiion, maybe during Adven or Len or on a major feas. Bu mos of he ime we presume 13
ha he proclaimed passages from Scripure, he homily, and he oher prayers of he Mass are mean o speak individually o us. Monday Eucharis, as I call i, is no for individuals. I comes aached o a lo of people and hings. I is conneced o our weekday work and o our place in he world. I is conneced o a grea sory ha goes back o he Garden of Eden and forward beyond oday. Finally, we are conneced no only o he people in aendance wih us bu wih everyone who shares, has shared, or will share he mission o bring abou he kingdom of God on Earh as i is in Heaven. Monday Eucharis is conneced o who we are as relaional persons (no as soliary individuals); o where we came from, o where we are now, and o where we are going. To foser a weeklong Eucharisic spiriualiy means o frequenly re-member; o pu disparae pars of our lives back ino meaningful order. In fac Jesus, during he firs Holy Thursday Eucharis, ells his disciples ha hey are o break he bread and share he wine precisely for he purpose of remembering him. (See Mahew 22:19 and 1 Corinhians 11:24.) Jesus well undersood ha his communiy of faih his Jewish communiy of faih was buil on he preservaion of a corporae memory, one ha a ha ime wen back a leas wo millennia. Judaism s basic premise is ha he presen is only undersood hrough he lens of he preciousness of he pas. Anoher wo millennia laer, Sholem Aleichem s (1858-14
1916) characer Tevye he Dairyman, a Russian Jew, knows his family will endure poliical urmoil only o he exen ha hey remember heir Tradiion! he opening song from he 1964 musical adapaion of Aleichem s Tevye sories. One of he many hings ha Chrisianiy has reained from is Jewish roos is respec for he value of remembering. We Chrisians rejec he noion ha each passing day is los forever. For us, nohing of real value is ever los. Here is where he Eucharis comes in. Anamnesis is an obscure erm used in psychology and also used by some academics o explain wha is going on when we paricipae in Eucharis. I refers o a full sense of remembrance a psychological or spiriual momen in which he pas becomes ruly presen again. According o Chrisians who celebrae he Eucharis, he enire collecive memory of God s revelaion is presen in and possible hrough he Eucharis. Mos of us siing around a backyard or living room have lile rouble remembering delighful or sarling incidens in our lives. We are capable of recouning an inciden o family, neighbors or friends each ime wih more or less embellishmen, drama, hilariy, pahos or accuracy. When i comes o faih, however, many of us modern people wan exaciude in our prayer formula, unambiguous clariy in dogmaic saemens, chronology in revelaion, predicable oucomes, singular Scripure narraives, and coninuiy in worship. In a modern age characer- 15
ized by seeming randomness and absurdiy, we are disposed o a lieral faih. Ye, a lieral faih is an oxymoron. I is so in every major religious radiion. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) wroe five Chrismashemed sories abou he spiriual power of memory, including A Chrismas Carol. Professor Redlaw is he proagonis of he las one, The Hauned Man and he Ghos s Bargain. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, Redlaw, hauned by aachmen o his pas, gradually learns humiliy. As he sory begins, he bierly nurses pas unpleasanness and so his ghos offers he loss of his memory. Redlaw acceps wihou comprehending he ghos s warning: The gif I have given you, you shall give again. Ohers in Redlaw s life have likewise experienced hardship, ye hey seem happy enough. Bu as Redlaw ineracs wih hem, hey oo lose heir memory and become bier over everyday disagreemens and disappoinmens. Conemporary novelis Jane Smiley explains he lesson ha Redlaw evenually learns: Memories of boh pleasure and suffering are he source of forgiveness and, indeed, he source of our capaciy o live wih one anoher in oleraion and happiness. Wihou memories, only he presen inconveniences of life can asser hemselves, breaking connecions and driving people apar. The Eucharis is a communiy of memory, bu is no abou precision recall. I is no abou making exac copies of documens using a flash drive o rerieve an inac documen. 16
Human memory canno really imiae hese elecronic devices. A perfecly reliable memory is a disorion of memory s real purpose, which is o ell a sory ha resonaes wih he lisener. Our memory as opposed o a compuer s is selecive in wha i sores and in wha i rerieves, ofen rearranging hings and someimes mixing he rivial wih he imporan. While he process of human memory can be confounding, i is no acually random. In fac, claims memoiris Paricia Hampl of he Universiy of Minnesoa, we sore in memory only images of value. Of course, she poins ou, he value may be los over he passage of ime or be only parially clear a any given ime. In addiion o soring and rerieving, here mus be a hird dynamic of memory. Somehing mus help us recognize relaive value as hings go ino our memory sorage, and simulaneously somehing mus allow our consciousness o rerieve he valuable hings we need o recall. In he Chrisian pracice of soryelling, i is he soul ha creaes value among our many memories. A well-ordered soul helps us discover meaning in our lives by changing he isolaed incidens we all experience ino a body of digesed and prioriized memories. Wihou soul, life is a bes a series of episodes. The soul akes evens and refashions hem ino a drama, a sory, a meaningful exisence. I is he soul while wrapping deails in color, humor, drama, and embellishmens ha ies deails 17
from he pas o lessons for he presen and hopes for he fuure. Here is Paricia Hampl explaining her approach o wriing a memoir: My desire was o be accurae. [Bu ha urned ou o be] very differen from ranscripion. I am forced o admi ha memory is no a warehouse of finished sories, no a gallery of pained picures. I mus admi ha I invened I don wrie abou wha I know, bu in order o find ou wha I know My narraive self (he culpri who invened) wishes o be discovered by my reflecive self, he self who wans o undersand and make sense of a half-remembered momen Memoir mus be wrien because each of us mus possess a creaed version of he pas. Creaed: Tha is, real in he sense of angible, made of he suff of life lived in place and in hisory. And he downside of any creaed hing as well: We mus live wih a version ha aaches us o our limiaions, o he ineviable subjeciviy of our poins of view. We mus acquiesce o our experience and our gif o ransform experience ino meaning... The ruh of many circumsances and episodes in he pas emerges for he memoris hrough deails bu hese deails are no merely informaion, no fla facs. Such deails are no allowed o lounge. They mus work. Their labor is he creaion of symbol. Bu i s more accurae o call i he recogniion of symbol. For meaning is no aached o he deail by 18
he memoris; meaning is revealed You ell me your sory. Inser he idea of living a Monday Eucharis for he idea of wriing a memoir. Hampl s reflecion is jus as profound. During his final illness, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (1928-1996) of Chicago wroe a memoir in which he demonsraed how evens from someone s pas spiriually inform he presen and he fuure. Early in he book he menions a phoo album: One of my favorie memories from childhood is he hours I spen leafing hrough he phoo album my moher brough wih her from Ialy. She used o si down wih me and ell he sories of he people and places on each page. Laer on I would flip hrough he album by myself and sudy all he deails in each phoo. When I finally made my firs rip o Tonadico wih my moher and siser in 1957, I was 29 years old. Wha surprised me was ha I insananeously fel righ a home. Because of he phoos I fel as if I had been here before! Laer in he book Bernardin reurns o his experience wih a phoo album o show how i is possible o remember a place he has never been: 19
[During my bale wih cancer] many people have asked me o ell hem abou heaven and he aferlife. I someimes smile a he reques because I do no know any more han hey do Ye he firs ime I raveled wih my moher and siser o my parens homeland of Tonadico di Primiero in Norhern Ialy, I fel as if I had been here before. Afer years of looking hrough my moher s phoo albums, I knew he mounains, he land, he houses, he people. As soon as we enered he valley, I said, My God, I know his place. I am home. Somehow I hink crossing from his life ino life eernal will be similar. I will be home. Immigran lieraure is inriguing because, while drawing upon he pas, i always looks forward. Bernardin, a firsgeneraion Ialian-American (i.e., born in he Unied Saes of Ialian-born immigran parens), draws on his heriage o move forward in he Unied Saes and also o look forward o heaven. Second-generaion and hird-generaion immigrans are someimes forced o reclaim heir forgoen family sories. In doing so, hey ofen refashion he evens; elling hings differenly or a leas reemphasizing cerain aspecs of heir family experience. The purpose of he laer generaions is he same as i was for he firs generaion o ell heir family sories bu a meaningful presen and a hope-filled fuure someimes require fresh versions of he lieral sories. 20
Acually, all good sories are se in all imes. They are exisenial in he sense ha he whole sory, hough i makes references o hisorical realiy, is freshly presen for boh he soryeller and he audience. A good sory is no so much a looking back as i is an expansion of ruhs sored in memory ino he realm of expecaion and imaginaion. All ruh is an inerpreaion. To highligh inerpreaion is no o succumb o he pos-modern plague of relaivism. I is o say ha ruh, hough eernal, is no oally grasped by any single communiy a any poin in hisory. Bringing incidens and phrases forh from memory s recess by mulling hem over, by elling and reelling a sory, by reflecing on he sory and hen perhaps refashioning i and mulling i some more hrough his soul-conduced process ruh emerges. And all he small- ruhs over ime are direced o he capial T Truh, which is he Truh ha lies only in God. 21