From junior high school through college, I drifted from the church. But after college and before I was about to move out of state for graduate studies, I experienced a dramatic spiritual awakening.
Having been away from the Catholic Church for many years, I didn’t think it was possible for me to return, so I thought of joining another Christian church. But before I did, I decided to sit through at least one more Mass. I made my way to St. Peter’s Church in Portland, Maine, and took a spot in the back pew. All I did was listen—since I wasn’t comfortable being there, let alone joining in the responses.
But during the Prayers of the Faithful, the lector read a petition with words like these: “That all those distant from the church and desiring the sacraments may seek reconciliation, we pray to the Lord.” To which all the people responded, “Lord, hear our prayer.” That prayer provoked a deep response in me. I thought to myself, “These people have been praying for me all along, how can I question whether I can or should return?” And because of that one prayer, I became reconciled to the Catholic Church. Eventually, I even moved from the back pew at St. Peter’s to the presider’s chair.
Every celebration of the Eucharist draws us into a divine dialogue. God initiates it with his church, situated in time and the real world. It is a conversation that is by turns intimate, consoling, challenging, passionate, and life-giving. At Mass this conversation occurs all around us: in the pews, at the presider’s chair, in the pulpit, at the altar, and in the line for Holy Communion. These are the obvious places. But there are other sources of that divine conversation: in the newborn baby’s cry, the young child’s asking what a stained-glass window means, the newly married couple’s sense of blissful love, the recent college graduate’s insecurity about the future, the widow’s struggle to move on, the addict’s sense of being on the verge of despair, and the divided family’s experience of tension and struggle. All these are part of the divine dialogue. The more we come to know the people with whom we worship—their countless stories of joy and sadness—the more we realize the depth of God’s presence in the church, and the fact that we need to be part of one another’s stories.
When I was in the seminary, I would talk with some of my classmates about what the priesthood was going to be like. I remember being startled when someone said, “One of the hardships of ordination is that we become more apart from the people.” I did not know what that meant, or where it came from. It hadn’t been presented in any of our classes. I was repulsed by the idea but never discussed it with anyone.
The day of my first Mass, on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi twenty-five years ago, a mentor of mine preached the homily. “As a priest,” he said, “Michael will now be more a part of the people, not more apart from them.” His words brought me an amazing sense of consolation, and still do. In fact, they are a constant challenge and an abiding source of hope.
“When you begin preaching,” my late homiletics professor once remarked, “you should not be concerned whether your parishioners become better Catholics when you are finished. Nor should you be concerned that they become more knowledgeable, more virtuous, or even holier. When you are finished preaching, you should only hope that the people are a little more in love with the Lord Jesus Christ than when you began. If they are, everything will flow from that.”
It is this falling in love with the Risen Lord that opens our hearts. The deeper our love for God, the more we realize God’s passionate love for us, and the richer our journey of faith, hope, and love becomes. And when we gather together at the Eucharist and then begin to live the gospel in word and deed, we give one another hope. I have witnessed this reality in God’s people for twenty-five years. It has sustained me as a priest to this day, and is the source of my hope for the future.
