| “Let me talk to you after Communion” |
| I tried to catch your attention this morning. Remember when you came back to your seat and closed your eyes and put your head reverently down and talked and talked to Me. I wanted you to listen. I wanted to tell you to open your eyes and look at My broken body all around you. I tried to catch your attention that time the toddler stood on the seat and spoke to you, but you gave Me a dirty look and humiliated Me and didn’t hear Me. I was the unmarried mother at the end of your seat, the old man in front of you, the family of seven children across the aisle from you – and I almost had the impression you disapproved of Me. I was the woman in the green coat whose husband left her this week and whose heart was being eaten out right through Mass and a friendly smile or word would have been a little support to Me. I am your wife who cooked and prepared and coped with the children and all the burdens of the house while you read the Sunday newspaper and then went out. I am your husband and your children and you stamped and huffed and gave us your cold silent treatment for three and a half long hours after Mass that blackened and deadened the whole atmosphere of our home. I am your mother and father and you have ignored and mocked and criticised and tortured Me as only a teenager knows how. I am your teenage son whom you’re lost belief in and your nagging is driving me crazy. I am your next door neighbour whom you spend so much time gossiping about and criticizing. I am your fellow parishioner whom you meet every day in the street and you ignore Me, busy about your own concerns. And it sickens me, all the coldness, all the squabbling and division and those endless running battles that scourge Me and crown Me with thorns. And then you pierce My side at Holy Communion with your empty words of love. If you love Me, feed My sheep, My starving sheep, and start in your own home. Please don’t keep Me at bay any longer. Don’t talk to Me. Listen. I don’t want you to go on loving My Spirit and ignoring My Body. I don’t want you to open your mouth to receive My Body and close your eyes and ears to shut it out. When will you understand that you cannot have Holy Communion with Me if you don’t have communion with your brothers and sisters in your own family and in your parish. Stop thinking of Me as some kind of spiritual being in the skies. I am one with these people and you cannot have Me without them. On the last day, I will simply ask you this: how have your family and neighbours fared? How have your spouse and children grown in love and faith? |
 |