Mass is good until the last drop

One of the frequently overlooked dimensions of the Mass – perhaps because some Mass-goers high-tail it to the parking lot immediately after receiving Communion – is the concluding rite, which is filled with graced opportunities to share and celebrate Christ, Kathy Hendricks, a consultant for William H. Sadlier, told the Johannes Hofinger Conference Jan. 14.

“Every liturgical celebration in the church ends with a blessing, and blessings are powerful,” Hendricks told the audience at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner. “We tend to take our sacred words for granted and stop hearing the power of the words. I’m so sorry that so many Catholics miss out on the blessing because they’re running out and don’t know what they’re running out for.”

Hendricks said her favorite words of dismissal in new Roman Missal are the following: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord with your life.”

“We are called to proclaim Christ in a world in need of healing and lots of loving kindness,” Hendricks said.

Hendricks used stories of her own life to explain the beauty of the post-Communion time, which ideally is silent reflection upon the mystery of the Eucharist.

An elderly role model

Hendricks recalled that when she was a child, an elderly woman named Mrs. Coughlin would come back from Communion and kneel in her pew with her eyes closed.

“She always had her head tilted and had a beautiful smile,” Hendricks said. “She had what I wanted, but not in an envious way. I wanted to see what she saw when she took Christ into her life.”

The elderly parishioner embodied for Hendricks the words, “The Lord be with you.”

Later in life, when she was an extraordinary minister of holy Communion, Hendricks was assigned to take Communion to about a dozen people in a nursing home. One day she was particularly tired but stopped at the room to give Communion to Amelia, who was suffering from dementia.

Imbedded prayer

“We prayed the Our Father,” Hendricks said. “No matter how much dementia a person has, they never forget that prayer. It is imbedded in their heads. Then we started chatting. She leaned forward and said, ‘You know what? I never noticed before how brown your eyes are. I like them.’”

That uplifting message from Amelia has resonated with Hendricks for years – it even calms her when she is driving and gets cut off in traffic.

“A question arose in my mind,” Hendricks said. “Who brought  Jesus to whom that day?”

Eucharistic ministers are called to be “couriers for Christ – and isn’t that symbolic of what we are all called to be?” Hendricks asked.

“We are called to share with those who are bedridden, aging, suffering the loss of their physical and mental capacities, fussy children, cranky coworkers, needy friends,” she said. “I didn’t want to be at that nursing home that day, yet Amelia drew me out of myself.”

The Hofinger Conference, which had as its theme “Do This in Memory of Me,” drew about 1,700 priests, religious, teachers and catechists.

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected]