With all the turmoil in the world the joy and blessing of beginning to celebrate public Mass again seems to be so minor for so many people that we can downplay the awe and wonder of once more joining together in worship and praise of our God. In truth, with the many restrictions, it feels a bit strange and odd on the human level but knowing the Divine mystery we are sharing these feelings of the experienced restrictions quickly disappear and the sacrifice of the Holy Mass breaks open the world to God’s mercy and love.
The strangest moments of the Mass are the looking out to masked faces, the chairs separated, the quietness and the noise…listening to the cars, trucks, motorcycles rumble by on Winchester Blvd make the experience out of the ordinary. And then there is the ordinary, the entrance, the readings, the prayers, the Eucharistic celebration of life, the movement beyond time and space in which we enter the Spirit of God’s presence.
This weekend as we celebrate our Sunday Liturgy in this limited way, we are also celebrating Father’s Day honoring all the Fathers in our community. This Father’s Day also falls on the 35th Anniversary of my own father’s death. I still remember that early Wednesday morning when I received the phone call from my brother Morris that my father had died. I was preparing to go to my work and it seemed like the world had come to a stop. It felt as if my heart was being torn in two as this reality broke into my mind.
There have been many moments since that day when I have missed the presence of my father. When I made the decision to go to college full time, I picked up the phone to call home and tell dad only realizing after one of my little sisters answered it was impossible task. There was the day of my graduation from Holy Names College, choosing to spend time in New Mexico on mission work, my first day of teaching at St. Lawrence the Martyr School, the decision to enter seminary and of course my ordination to the priesthood. And while these are the big moments there were the hundreds of small moments where his living presence was truly missed.
It is thinking back to the life without Dad that helps to put perspective in life in the strangeness of living without the communal celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. It is a missing filled with longing but also with the hopefulness of the memories of love to be fulfilled in the presence of God. It is the knowing we are not re-opening our churches because they have never been closed, rather we are re-entering the buildings because the presence of the Body of Christ never leaves the faithful and never abandons his people.
As we celebrate this day, don’t forget to give thanks to our Heavenly Father as we remember our fathers.
God Bless
Fr. Mark