In Ohio, public worship resumes for Catholics this weekend, and I have a confession to make: I haven’t missed receiving the Eucharist once since the pandemic began. I feel guilty even typing that, since so many folks have had to settle for “spiritual communion” during these long weeks and months of quarantine. A woman told me recently that not being able to receive Jesus has felt like a piece of her heart is missing. A liturgy scholar I know said receiving communion again recently, for the first time in months, was like celebrating his first communion all over again. I bet it was even better.
I am simply lucky – that’s why I’ve been at the Eucharistic table in a physical way during this time. I am lucky our Church decided to live-stream our Mass, when so many neighboring parishes simply – and with profound regret – closed their doors. I am lucky to have musical gifts that benefit our live-streamed Mass. I am lucky to have had parents who taught me to recognize my gifts as God-given, and return them to God, in service of the Church, whenever possible. I am lucky that my gifts are found useful by my parish community. I am lucky to be under 65 with no underlying health issues. I am lucky to have stayed well.
But I do not feel lucky when I look down from the choir loft at a nearly-empty Church, at an absent assembly. I just feel lonely. And liturgical loneliness is a difficult thing.
The last time I felt this way, I was a very young adult, and it was after the break-up of a relationship with another ardent Catholic. Throughout our relationship, he and I had especially enjoyed attending Mass together, each of us answering the other’s need for a friend in faith. But our relationship wasn’t meant to be, and that first Sunday at Mass without him was very, very difficult. I might have stopped attending Mass altogether after that experience, but something miraculous happened during the Sign of Peace. The presider came down from the sanctuary, while others were still shaking hands, walked up to me, smiled warmly, wished me peace, and added, “It’s really great to see you here!”
It was as if he could feel my pain, my loneliness, and he wanted me to know someone cared – someone here in this holy place. And it was like he wanted me to keep coming back. So I did, and joining the choir, I was never lonely in Church again.
Before I’d ever read the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy from Vatican II or books full of heady liturgical or sacramental theology, this simple yet miraculous experience as a young Catholic impressed upon me the communal nature of the sacraments we celebrate. I had come to Mass to receive Jesus, but as I sat there, alone and anonymous, I recognized – with great sorrow – that something important was missing. Since then, I have come to understand sacramental moments as not just about “me and Jesus” but as moments in which we who celebrate together in charity and love become the Body of Christ, formed and shaped as a place where the world may encounter God.
But these are strange times we live in.
On one hand, it makes my spirits soar to think that this coming Sunday, when I look over the choir loft rail, I will see fellow members of the Body and be able to share not only the Eucharist with them, but maybe even a brief, distanced and masked greeting after Mass. (My pastor probably wishes me to add that we will share this greeting from the parking lot. Let the Church be sanitized and say, “Amen!”)
On the other hand, I fear for our safety, and the safety of our society, and I implore anyone who has the slightest fear of coming to Mass to take advantage of dispensations and live-streams and stay home.
In the early weeks of quarantine, I cringed at the phrase “spiritual communion”. What are we teaching the faithful through the repetition of this notion? That if one prays sincerely, one can obtain the graces of the sacrament without physically receiving it? It struck me as difficult to reconcile with a distinctively Catholic theology of the Eucharist, and the sacramentality of our tradition more generally. A well-thought-out recent post on the wonderful Pray Tell blog has caused me to reconsider my distaste for this prayer and the notions it suggests. Even more, it is fear for the safety of our most vulnerable members that widens my heart to the idea of “spiritual communion” and convinces me in this time of “distance or die,” that spiritual communion is much, much better than the alternative. So in a sense, it is my communal understanding of the sacraments more generally that helps me see the wisdom in many people’s choice to remain home for the time being, despite parishes opening for public worship. We do it for each other’s sake.
There has been a strange silver lining to my liturgical loneliness during quarantine. As I prayed during Mass, looking down on those empty pews, I often tried to visualize you – the faithful friend even reading this now – down in your usual seat, praying, singing, glorifying God and becoming sanctified into his Body along with me. (Dear choir friends, I could not visualize you without prompting my own tears, so – forgive me! – I pushed you from my mind, lest I became unable to perform my ministry.) As I would visualize absent members of the Body, the Spirit would turn my mind from their happy faces to the shining faces within that great cloud of witness: the saints, the prophets, the angels, the heavenly hosts, and those beloved friends and family who have gone before us in faith, who stand with us every time we gather at table, pandemic or not. In these moments of profound comfort and connection, I could not be lonely. I could only be grateful to God, for giving us the means by which we become One Body, not just with friends on earth, but with friends above.
Please feel free to share your comments below. And be well!