Being Strengthened and Sent

Deacon Douglas McManaman

The Church that Christ established is a missionary Church. Each one of us is a missionary. We have been sent. In fact, the word “Mass” comes from the Latin missa, from mittere “to let go, send”. At the end of the Mass, we are sent out into the world for a specific purpose, and this happens just after “eating and drinking”, consuming the bread of life. 

This Eucharist is given to us for the purpose of strengthening us for our own unique mission. Recently, I visited a 93 year old woman in the hospital; I knew her from the retirement home that I regularly visited during the pandemic. She eventually moved away to live with her daughter and family–they made a little apartment for her in their basement. This woman has 16 great grandchildren. I thought 16 grandchildren would be impressive enough, but great-grandchildren? That is rather impressive. This woman was in the hospital because her heart rate was increasing to unusually high levels and she was having breathing problems. She told me that when she first arrived at the hospital, she was ready to give up and call it quits, like Elijah in the first reading. But she was renewed once again by the love of her family; she saw how much they loved her and needed her, and her health began to improve. I came to see her and to bring her communion. Her health began to improve because she could see that there was still work for her to do: her great grandchildren needed her, her grandchildren needed her, and her own children as well. 

But what did they need her for? She’s 93 years old. It’s not as if she can throw a baseball around or go out and watch her grandchildren play hockey. No, she can’t function like she used to. What they need is her. Her presence. Her very person. We think too much in terms of function. If an automobile can’t function, what is it good for? Nothing. Sell it to the junkyard for parts. Same thing for a computer, or any other utility. But a human person is not a utility. A human being is a presence. And only love discerns and recognizes personal presence, and only love experiences the need for a personal presence. To love a person for what he or she does for us is not love at all; genuine love is the love of another for that person’s sake, not for the sake of what that person can do for me in terms of function. That this person cannot function in the same way is not relevant; his or her presence is enough. 

The only one who is allowed to use us is God. He uses us. He has a mission for each person. Of course, God loved each one of us into existence for our own sake, not merely as an instrument to be used. But He calls us to love, to share in the work of ushering in the kingdom of God, and we do that by allowing God to give us our place in this world, and to consume the food he puts in front of us to strengthen us for that work, which is the bread of life, the Eucharist. And the Eucharist is him. It is Christ. No longer bread and wine as it was at the beginning of Mass, but changed into his very self. And that strengthens us, because it is a presence, a personal presence, and it is the presence of a person strengthens us. The Eucharist is the Personal presence of Christ, and it is given to us to consume, so that he may dwell within us, so that our presence to others is mingled with his presence.

During the pandemic I brought communion to one lady who was a parishioner at our Church for years and years, but she could no longer get to Mass, which is why we came to her. Her reaction after receiving communion was something to see; it was like she hadn’t eaten in 24 hours and had just finished a nice meal; it was like she had put down her knife and fork and then let out a sigh of satisfaction. And this was just a communion host, not a large meal, so this was not a physical satisfaction, but a spiritual one, and she was aware of her spiritual hunger for Christ’s presence in the sacrament, which is why upon receiving communion, one could see a sense of fulfillment on her face and in her physical reaction. That is precisely where we want to get to in the spiritual life, to the point where we hunger for the Eucharist, to the point where if we were to go more than a week without communion, we’d feel it, we’d be uncomfortable. When we are on holidays in a foreign country, city, or province, the first thing we will do, if we are at that point, is look up where the nearest Church is and find out Mass times. After all, the etymology of the word ‘holiday’ is holy day. It is a day set apart for rest, and genuine rest is always a resting in God. As St. Augustine says on the first page of his Confessions: “O Lord, you made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You”.