What a privilege it was to serve Mass recently! It is something I have had the honor to do only 3 or 4 times in my adult life.
For someone who just recently received his Medicare card, today was both a day for gratitude and for awe – gratitude for the gift of life and awe for the privilege to be so close to the holy altar of sacrifice.
Who am I to have been privileged to unlock Jesus’ cell door this morning in anticipation of Father carrying Him out to be with those Whom He so dearly loves?
Or to have prayed with Father in the sacristy before we processed into the sanctuary and after we returned upon the completion of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?
I marvel at the undeserved honor given me this day to carry the chalice, paten and unconsecrated host to its altar home prior to Mass.
How can I ever explain the overwhelming sense of unworthiness and the simultaneous joyful awareness of being so privileged to kneel in the sanctuary just feet from the Last Supper and Calvary, surrounded by our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, all the saints, the heavenly angels and the souls of purgatory?
What an honor it was to hold a paten under the hands and mouths of those who came to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of their Risen Lord and Savior and to return the purified chalice, paten and corporal to its table.
I have known intellectually for some time that the Mass is the greatest event occurring on the face of this earth each day. Today, I was privileged to intimately live that Truth, up close and personal.
As I put out the candles and retrieved the chalice, paten, corporal and cruets from the table for return to the sacristy, I was prompted to glance over my shoulder. My loving Lord had yet one more gift for me this day.
There, as he frequently does, kneeling in the sanctuary, giving public, powerful but silent witness to his abiding love for the Eucharist, was my pastor – never too busy to spend time with His beloved Lord.
Thank you Lord for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!
Thank you Lord for Your holy and faithful priests!
Thank you for today!
