What is Mass?
This weekend was planned to be the busiest weekend of my year, hands down. I was Brianne's 'plus one' at a wedding on Friday, Saturday was the big party on our house, and Sunday I had things going on all day. So when I looked at the Mass Chaos schedule, and saw 1000 Mass time, I was wondering what I was thinking when I set the schedule. I knew sleep would be at a minimum.
Sure enough Sunday morning came around, and I had only slept about four and a half hours, and my old bones were creaking and protesting. I thought to myself, just get through Mass and go sleep right away. I parked my car, saw Brianne and we walked up to church, and we went up the stairs, and saw a sign saying "Mass in basement" with an arrow pointing to a door on the side. We went over and went in and there were about twenty people in a hall (with air conditioning) with a small altar.
Mass began and we had the rest of our group joined us, other people came in, and soon we had run out of chairs. Mass was a little on the informal side, after we ran out of seats, I ended up standing behind the choir, and found out later other visitors thought I was in the choir (so what if I was reading the words/music from the music stand). I met and/or hugged everyone in the room during the passing of the peace. Everyone went out of their way to make us feel welcome. Things were a little chaotic, but as usual, everything worked itself out. It was particularly enjoyable when the gentleman serving as the 'usher', gave the collection to two little girls to take up to the priest, I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
What is Mass? Mass is about Communion, not just the body and blood of Christ, but being one with every other human, not just on the planet, but every other Christian who has ever lived. I only 'knew' five of the other people in the room, but I felt intimately connected to everyone there. There was a common purpose, a common thread, and that thread was love. I never did go back to sleep, I was too energized with what was going on in my heart to be tired.
Me, Teri, Brianne, Frank, Ron, and Joe
Location and Architecture:
Holy Family (links to Wikipedia), 1715 Izard Street, Omaha. Holy Family is the oldest Catholic church in Omaha and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. After Mass in the basement, we were given a tour of main church. The church was built with money donated by the Union Pacific for the Irish workers they had brought to Omaha. I'm not quite certain how to be politically correct here, but Holy Family is not going to have the resources that other churches have. Yet still their artwork, particularly the wood carving of holy family is amazing.
After the tour of the church, we helped out with some lunch making.
The altar in the basement.
You can see all my pictures from Holy Family here.
Gospel:
"Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough." Luke 13:24
To say that this is a challenging Gospel (Luke 13:22-30) would be a bit of an understatement. How do we determine what is the wide road and what is the narrow one? Just because something is popular doesn't necessarily make it bad, and just because something is different doesn't make it good. One would think that you could just take a look, a large highway doesn't look a thing like a narrow door, so there shouldn't be any trouble, yet it's easy to slip, slide, and/or be confused.
Jesus is warning us that many of us will attempt to enter Heaven but not be able to. Exactly how is this the 'Good News'? It sounds more like bad news. Not only is it difficult to find the narrow gate, but now when we get there we may not be strong enough to enter. Jesus wasn't one to sugarcoat, he wants to get our attention, and although He had mine already, He sure makes me think.
The Good News is that God has not abandoned us to wander around in the dark fumbling for that narrow door. He has sent His only Son, his heir, to us to provide instructions, guidance, and light ... indeed His Son IS the light of the world. The effort is important (it builds up our spiritual muscles), but it is not the only thing we have going for us. God has given us every tool we need to find the narrow gate and avoid pitfalls on the way.
Lord, please guide me on the way to the narrow gate, correct me when I'm wrong, encourage me on the path, and show me the way. Amen.
Prayers:
Please pray for:
My mommy (Judy) who is having leg issues for healing.
Tom who is being deployed to Afghanistan, and his wife and two daughters.
Amy for protection on her mission.
Shannon for protection on her mission.
Frank who is looking for meaningful employment.
Kevin as he prepares for his final year of seminary and the priesthood.
Marcus as he has been accepted into seminary and will be discerning the priesthood.
My friend M., who is pregnant, please pray for her and her baby.
Me, I applied for a new job.
Next:
August 28 @ 1730: Saint Leo's in Omaha (1920 North 102nd Street)
August 29 @ 1030: Saints Peter and Paul (5912 South 36th Street)
Peace, Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment