Communion: not just for Sunday! - Rector's Rambling for January 22, 2023

     You are present today at St. John’s for the most amazing and wonderful thing that can happen on this side of heaven!  Jesus Christ, the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity, God Himself, is feeding you under the species of bread and wine.  He becomes truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.  As it says in the catechism of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, it is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us; ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.”  And of course we all know that Jesus also tells us that “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.”  It is vitally important that we receive Communion, and do so regularly.

The Holy Communion isn’t just offered on Sunday.  We also have a scheduled Mass (another name for the Service) 4 more days a week.  It is the supreme offering of prayer of the church, and the supreme source of grace-filled help for the faithful.  And although often it is just me and a few others there, it is, in a microcosm, the prayer and offering of the entire Church at that moment in this place.

Weekday Masses are about 30 minutes long, with a short homily (usually a biography of a saint being remembered that day) and no music/hymns.  It is an opportunity to come if you could not make it on Sunday, and it is ALSO an opportunity even if you kept your obligation on Sunday.  And this parish would be the better for more people making their Communion more often per week!

Weekday Masses for now are Monday through Weds at 12:15, Thursday at 10:30.  In Lent we add one on Fridays at 11:15 AM before Stations of the Cross.  I hope to see more people at Mass on Sunday and weekdays as well.  We all as individuals and as a parish will be blessed by it!