The Pearl of Great Price
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - October 28, 2005
In his first trip outside the Vatican this past May, Pope Benedict visited Bari to celebrate with 300,000 Italian Catholics the feast of Corpus Christi. In his homily, Pope Benedict brought to the attention of Catholics throughout the world the Eucharistic witness of 49 Christians who were tortured and killed for the faith in 304 in Abitene, a small village in modern day Tunisia.
Their crime was to violate the emperor Diocletian's order that forbade Christians, under pain of death, from gathering on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist. When the pro-consul Anulinus asked them why on earth they had disobeyed the emperor's severe orders, one of them, named Emeritus, replied simply, "sine dominico non possumus," that is, without Sunday we cannot live.
For Emeritus and his Christian companions, Sunday Mass was worth dying for. They could not live without it.
This weekend the Year of the Eucharist draws to a close. It was dedicated toward actualizing the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Eucharist is "the source and the summit of the Christian life." For someone's life to be truly Christian, the Council taught, the Eucharist must be the starting point and the goal of everything that person is and does. Every Christian worthy of the name is called to say, with Emeritus, "without Sunday Mass we cannot survive."
This witness that Christ in the Eucharist is worth dying for is not a relic of ancient days. Still today in the Sudan, Catholics often have to risk deadly road-side ambushes by fundamentalist Muslims to walk for hours, in the dark of night, to celebrate Mass in secluded locations. In China, priests and faithful in the underground Church loyal to Rome risk long-term imprisonment for the celebration of the sacred mysteries. In third-world regions where there is a drastic shortage of priests, Catholics journey on foot for miles in rough terrain to attend a Mass that they hope will last hours. By their actions, they show that Christ's sacrifice, love and life — made present in the Eucharist — is worth their sacrifices, their love, and their lives.
Catholics in many areas of America are now starting to be asked to make greater sacrifices with respect to Sunday Mass. Because of the shortage of priests, some churches, where faithful have loved to attend Mass for years, are having to close. In other parishes, Mass schedules are being reduced. Last month in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Bishop Joseph Martino announced that, in order to prevent priestly burn out, he will begin to enforce church law that a priest should only celebrate one Mass a day and must not celebrate more than three on Sunday and two on any other day of the week. There is a policy in the Archdiocese of Hartford that, in order to strengthen community in parishes and prevent priestly exhaustion, Masses in which less than fifty percent of a parish church is filled are to be combined with other Masses. In most places, Mass attendance is becoming increasingly inconvenient with respect to the past. Paradoxically, however, this extra hassle may be a blessing in disguise.
In the days when there were enough priests to offer Masses almost every hour in upper and lower churches, it was easy to start taking the Mass for granted. Almost everyone's personal preferences were able to be accommodated — early or late, simple or solemn, short or long, with music or without, even with or without one's favorite parish priest. While this variety had its advantages, it was also true that the divine treasure of the Mass was often obscured by one's preferred wrapping paper. As priests and the Masses they're able to offer become fewer, that treasure will necessarily stand in greater relief, because priests will no longer be able to supply the variety of that gift wrap.
The truth is that Mass is probably not sufficiently appreciated until one is willing to go to any lengths to attend it. In America, thanks be to God, we do not risk imprisonment or martyrdom to make Mass. But we may need to learn from those who do that Jesus in the Eucharist is worth those sacrifices and more. He is "pearl of great price …worth selling all we have to obtain." Even if one needed to attend Mass at two o'clock in the morning in an ice-cold church with a priest celebrating Mass contrary to almost every one of our preferences, the opportunity — no, the privilege — to receive the nourishment of the God-man would still be worth it.
For without Sunday Mass, the Christian cannot live.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
