FILLING THE SPACE

 

This past Tuesday, the Solemnity of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we celebrated the Eucharist with our students from grades 6 through 12. Because of COVID we decided to gather the almost 600 kids for mass outdoors, on our soccer field. Under the warm sun we sang and prayed and listened to the Word of God being proclaimed. 

Six hundred kids at mass.

We instruct the students that when they're reading in public they need to "command the space" or "fill the space with your voice." While this is good advice for speaking in the gym or the auditorium, it becomes curiously challenging when you're outdoors. How do you "fill the space" when you're standing under a clear blue sky? I thought of this as I took in the beautiful scene from my vantage point, my concelebrant's chair. How do we "fill the space" with our celebration of mass? The answer came immediately -- it was the visionary thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest. My post for August 21 is good background for this post. In it I wrote:

If you know a little about Chardin then you won't be surprised that when he was celebrating mass, he would elevate the consecrated host or the cup and see the power radiating from them not just to the faithful attending that mass but to every human being, all members of Christ, and then further into every living thing, and then to the atoms and molecules that compose every speck of matter in the farthest reaches of the universe.

So as Fr. Edwin, the Headmaster, raised the consecrated host against the vast sky, with the sound of a helicopter and a few trucks as background music, I sensed the power of the Universal Christ radiating from the consecrated bread in every direction, extending farther and farther, past our fences, past the county courthouse and the colleges down the street, past the tall buildings of  Newark's skyline, and radiating instantly to the entire planet and to our galaxy and out beyond the farthest reaches of the stars. Talk about filling the space!

 Here's a quotation from Fr. Chardin's journal, entitled "Mass on the World," which also formed part of my vision that morning:

“To interpret adequately the fundamental position of the Eucharist in the economy of the world . . . it is, I think, necessary that Christian thought and Christian prayer should give great importance to the real and physical extensions of the Eucharistic Presence. . . As we properly use the term “our bodies” to signify the localized center of our spiritual radiations . . ., so it must be said that in its initial and primary meaning the term “Body of Christ” is limited, in this context, to the consecrated species of Bread and Wine. But. . .the host is comparable to a blazing fire whose flames spread out like rays all round it.”

(Photos courtesy of Graybee Ministry)

I hope that we'll be able to have mass outdoors again soon. Maybe including the little ones from our Elementary Division, which would make a thousand voices singing the praise of the Universal Christ who is transforming the world at every instant everywhere in creation. We, as Eucharistic People, are able to participate in the mysterious and beautiful way that Christ in the Eucharist "fills the space" of the entire universe. Starting from our soccer field in downtown Newark.