Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
January 4, 2015
Spiritual Ponderings
Spiritual Randomness

My Spiritual Ponderings this month will be another round of Spiritual Randomness which means I will have a different topic to ponder each week. Today, I would like to reflect on the third part of Fr. Ronald Rolheiser’s book: Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist. In the third part of his book Fr. Rolheiser suggest four steps/actions that a person should take in developing a Eucharistic spirituality. Quotes from his book will be in bold.

1. Receive
Moreover, we would have in our lives first and most important virtue of all, the sense that all is gift that nothing is owed us by right.

There is a great difference in people are aware that their life and everything they have is a gift and those who do not see their life as a gift. Here is a story from the book: The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning:
A very learned man who had heard of the rabbi of Berditchev—one of those who boasted of being enlightened—looked him up in order to debate with him as he was in the habit of doing with others, and refuting his old-fashioned proofs for the truth of his faith. When he entered the zaddik’s room, he saw him walking up and down, immersed in ecstatic thought. The rabbi took no notice of his visitor. After a time, however, he stooped gave him a brief glances and said: “But perhaps it is true after all!”
In vain did the learned man try to rally his self-confidence. His knees shook, for the zaddik was terrible to behold and his simple words were terrible to hear. But now the Rabbi Levi Yitzhak turned to him and calmly addressed him: “My son, the great Torah scholars with whom you have debated, wasted their words on you. When you left them you only laughed at what they said. They could not set God and his kingdom on the table before you, and I cannot do this either. But, my son, only think! Perhaps it is true. Perhaps it is true after all!” The enlighten man made the utmost effort to reply, but the terrible “perhaps” beat on his ears again and again and broke down his résistance.
Admitting that we are not in control opens us up to the possibility of miracles. We no longer have to control or explain every moment of our existence but rather we admit that perhaps there is a Great Being that loves us.

Adam and Eve began to take by force, as by right, what was theirs only as gift. The result of that is always shame, a darkened mind, rationalization and the beginnings of a dysfunctional world.

2. Give Thanks
To be a saint is to be motivated by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less. To give thanks, to be properly grateful, is the most primary of all religious attitudes. Proper gratitude is the ultimate virtue. It defines sanctity. Saints, holy persons, are people who are grateful, people who see and receive everything as gift. The converse is also true. Anyone who takes life and love for granted should not ever be confused with a saint.

Doing good for someone who has done good to me makes doing the good not only easier but makes it something that I want to do. Following God’s commands are so much easier when I realize that He has given me so much.

To consider life as tragic is not to live out the Eucharist.

3. Break
But it is on this very point that, perhaps, we struggle the most at Eucharist. What’s wrong at the Eucharist generally is not that we don’t pray and sing, but that we don’t break down. There is too little anguish in our Eucahrists. To become one in heart with each other involves precisely breaking down, anguish, the painful letting go of distrust, selfishness, bitterness, hurt, jealousy and even of shyness. All these things keep us apart and all of these are strongly held and fiercely guarded inside of ourselves. If our Eucahrists do not succeed in breaking down the barriers that separate us from each other, then we have little reason to hope that these barriers will break down in our world. If we cannot succeed at forming community in church, we will not succeed in forming it elsewhere.

The more that I allow myself to realize that I am in a safe place and can offer God not only my positives but also my negatives the more Eucharist means to me. Father Rolheiser in another part of the book writes this:
The Eucharist is such a prayer of helplessness, a prayer for God to give us a unity we cannot give to ourselves. It is not incidental that Jesus instituted it in the hour of his most intense loneliness, when he realized that all the words he had spoken hadn’t been enough and that he had no more words to give. When he felt most helpless, he gave us the prayer of helplessness, the Eucharist.

4. Share
Theologians tell us that God is as much a verb as a noun. God is a trinity of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For Christians this is more than a simple dogma that we are asked to accept, even if we don’t understand it. It is something that invites us to a whole way of life: God is a family, a community of persons sharing life together in such a way that a spirit, and energy of gratitude and joy, flows out of that shared life. We are asked to do the same—to share our lives with one another in such a way that joy and gratitude flow out as an energy that nurtures others.

Jean-Paul Sartre once suggested that community is hell. On a given day, the tensions inherent within community life can certainly make that seem true. However, in our better moments, we all know that the reverse is the truth: alienation and alones are hell; shared life is heaven.

Something so great as the Eucharist makes me want to go forth and share God’s love with the world. This is why the Mass ends so quickly after we receive the Eucharist. Perhaps this is also why Mother Teresa requires her sisters to have a daily holy hour and Mass every day before they go forth and do their work and may be this is why they are able to change the world in the way that they have.