BELIEVE

Today I share with my readers a story our priest, Father Mike, asked me to write for our weekly parish bulletin.  It recounts an actual incident which happened at 10:30 Mass a few weeks ago, written by my hand but punctuated by Sydney’s faith.

"Believe" is the song made popular from the Christmas movie “Polar Express.”  As a doubting boy boards a magical train headed to the North Pole, we hear the lyrics,

“Believe in what you feel inside
And give your dreams the wings to fly
You have everything you need
If you just believe.”

But what do we as Catholics think of when we hear that word?

On a recent Sunday an unusual event occurred during our 10:30 Children's Mass. A bit of consecrated wine was unintentionally spilled on the transfer of the chalice between the Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion and the communicant. Immediately our Liturgical Director Jean Sawyer (nearby, thank God), stepped onto the altar to take one of the altar linens (called a purificator), brought it to the spill, and reverentially blotted then covered it. When communion ended, the Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion started to pick up the cloth, but Jean and Father Mike simultaneously told her to "leave it."

What unfolded then was a living testimony of faith in action, as the congregation watched Father Mike kneel down at the site, wash it with water, and then take the water back (to be poured into the sacrarium in the sacristy).

My grand-niece Sydney had been singing in the choir, and she, like so many of us, was totally attentive to this intensely spiritual moment. After Mass, Sydney, who made her First Holy Communion here at St. Teresa of Avila just over a year ago, recounted what she had seen, especially impressed by the reverence with which Jean and Father Mike had handled the matter. I asked her why she thought such care was taken. Her response: "because it is the blood of Christ."  She did not say "because it is a symbol of the blood of Christ." She did not say "because we think it is the blood of Christ." She stated that it is the blood of Christ.

Out if the mouths of babes we hear the consummate representation of the foundation of our Catholic identity. At the consecration, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.

It is what we believe.