Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear friend,

Last week I had the opportunity to say one of the midweek Masses. It was an occasion where all of the worshipers and celebrant were women, and though nothing was said explicitly about that, I think something about our prayers were different because of that. I could tell (and please forgive me if you were there and I read this wrong), that each was carrying a heavy burden and was praying fervently. It was a quiet, short Mass where I said most of the words, and perhaps because of that the words of the prayers echoed in my head afterward. Oh, that the world might be so, I kept thinking, in this room full of heavy hearts, oh that what we pray would be done. Oh, that what we say about Christ's redeeming work would be so, and now. Oh that those who need your comfort would receive it and to know it to be yours. Oh, that thy kingdom come.

The reading was one of the wonderful parables from Matthew-the kingdom is like this, a treasure traded for all else, a pearl, a net of fish with the choice ones plucked out. And how jarring it was to think of the ways in which the kingdom is so far from here. How far away we are from treating one another as a pearl, or even with the kind of dignity and care with which we treat the elements of a simple service-corporal, chalice, paten, water and wine and wafer, made blood and body.

I am assured in my heart that as surely as the bread is broken around the world each day, Christ's heart is broken with us. Broken enough to be shared for the salvation of the world. The words that echoed after the service, "Not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses;" "That we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us;" "We are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son;" echo not as an earworm but as a fervent hope that the promises of Christ and the faithful acts of his people would transform the world, our desire, our sin, into something that mends broken hearts.

In Christ,
Taylor