Eucharist as Your Heartbeat - Reflection by Susan Kaye

I remember the time I first experienced the Eucharist as Your Heartbeat. Communion becomes a still space. Even with all its movement, Communion always becomes a still space.

Eyes are closed – Heads are bowed – the guy beside me kneels - From the right, comes a song - a song that “I am here;” that “I am near.” And also from the right the hint of a breeze stirred by movement carried forward by footsteps. And on the left – Like a steady drumbeat

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

    

like a heartbeat

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

    

that draws us so close we touch it

         Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

    

and taste it

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

    

Not just me – but we -

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

There is a pause in the beat -- I look up. The Priest is blessing a baby and young child.

And, yes, Jesus becomes Lord and Savior again for me this night and again and again in every Eucharist.

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

                     Body of Christ

Someone once told me: Catholic Churches – they are all the same. I said: How can they all be the same?  When you moved here – the new parish – isn’t it different?

She said: Oh sure.  Different building.  Different people.  Different Priest.  But once you find Christ in the Eucharist, it is all the same.  It is good – but all the same.

And rocked in their song an infant of one hour's age, who was as old as God

Where the Pictures Came From

Sister Miriam Pollard, O.C.S.O.

Angels are seldom overheard. But try.

Go listen.

They might be remembering.

They might be whispering about the night

they seeded the sky with embers.

All over the place, the sky took fire.

Astronomers, on various corners of the earth,

reported a shower of burning embers.

This was the night - angels will tell you -

when they clambered over the poles

and raced each other through the tundra,

and swarm a hundred mountain lakes,

shaking the water off like seals,

and kept on going.

They knew they were wanted.

It had to be night, they’ll tell you,

because night is so simple, so all one thing,

even when burnt with embers.

And God had poured himself so flawlessly

into a human heart

that nothing less simple than night

could venture an explanation.

The angels got there, they will tell you.

They ran up the hill, singing a song the color of darkness,

chanting like sea bells

in places of no horizon.

They stood in a circle on the floor of a cave,

and drew pictures on its walls

to entertain the visitors.

And rocked in their song

an infant of one hour’s age,

who was as old as God.

Sister Miriam Pollare is a Cistercian nun at Santa Rita Abbey in Sonoita, Arizona

- Magnificat, p 352-353, Dec 24, 2013