"If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion." - St. Maximilian Kolbe. Let us continue our reflections on the Sacrament of the Eucharist. As we do this we turn to Fr. Ronald Rolheiser’s book: Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist because in the second part of his book, Fr. Rolheiser looks at the Eucharist from 12 different perspectives. The quotes from his book will be in bold and my personal commentary will be in the regular font.

8: The Eucharist as the Ultimate Invitation to Mature Discipleship—to Wash Each Other’s Feet
This wonderfully expresses what the Eucharist is meant to do. It is a call to move from worship to service, to take nourishment, the embrace, the kiss, we have just received from God and the community and translate it immediately and directly into loving service of others. To take the Eucharist seriously is to begin to wash the feet of others especially the feet of the poor and those with whom we struggle most relationally. The Eucharist is both an invitation that invites us to do is to replace distrust with hospitality, pride with humility, and self-interest with self-effacement so as to reverse the world’s order of things---wherein the rich get served by the poor and where the first priority is always to keep one’s pride intact and one’s self-interest protected. The Eucharist invites us to step down from pride, away from self-interest, to turn the mantle of privilege into the apron of service, so as to help reverse the world’s order of things wherein pride, status, and self-interest are forever the straws that stir the drink.

I get really frustrated when people tell me that they do not come to Mass anymore because they do not get anything out of coming. My frustration comes mainly from the fact that I do not know what to say to someone who has so completely missed the point. It would be for me like someone complaining that there are not enough touchdowns in baseball. Where do you begin to correct their faulty misconceptions? Before my grandmother past away my mother would invite me to come over and stay with her so my mother could leave the house for a while. There was a major part of me that did not want to do this because I did not want to see my grandmother suffer and I did not want to be reminded of my mortality. I went though when I was able because I knew it was one way in which I could show my grandmother that I loved her. I go to Mass not because I get something out of it but rather to give thanks to God and to show God my love for all that He has given me – natural and eternal life.

9: The Eucharist as an Invitation to Justice
When the famous historian Christopher Dawson decided to become Roman Catholic, his aristocratic mother was distressed, not because she had any aversion to Catholic dogma, but because now her son would, in her words, have to “worship with the help.” She was painfully aware that his aristocratic background would no longer set him apart from others or above anyone else. At Church he would be just an equal among equals because the Eucharist would strip him of his higher social status.

When you think about it there is a tremendous equality that happens in the Church at Mass. This equality stretches out in terms of social status, wealth, nationality, etc. All Catholics are invited to come and receive the Sacraments. The word “Catholic” means “Universal”.

We have to be careful though because “equality” does not mean sameness. There can be different roles within the Church because our personal value does not come from what we do. God loves the mother and father who is trying to quiet their child in the pew just as much as He is loving the priest. God loves the person who gets every response wrong as much as He loves the cantor who not only gets every response corrects but leads the congregation in doing so.

Anything that tries to say that one person is more loved by God at Mass is not truly a part of the liturgy or from God. If we need any proof of this we should turn to St. Paul’s letters.