"Welcome Home" June 4, 2021

It is through the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, that we are sustained with the lifegiving nourishment of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Due to the essential spiritual need we have for weekly physical participation in Sunday Mass, the tremendous gift and spiritual nourishment of physically receiving our Lord in Holy Communion is critically important for our spiritual growth and is very much needed right now.

Therefore, in consultation with various officials, Archbishop Aymond believes now is the appropriate time to remove the dispensation previously granted to Catholics in the Archdiocese of New Orleans in March 2020, from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass and Holy Days of Obligation. Therefore, effective June 6, 2021, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the obligation for Catholics to attend Sunday Mass and Holy Days of Obligation is reinstated for all Catholics in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

This past year has brought us to a dangerous crossroad. Catholicism is a sacramental religion, i.e., one that involves the physical. COVID is a particularly apt disease for our gnostic-tinged age: it treats the physical as suspect, dirty, contaminated. Governments that have imposed stringent lockdowns on religious assemblies have – whether they acknowledge it or not – struck hard at Christian churches where sacramentality is central, as well as at religions (e.g., Judaism) where communal quotas (e.g., minyins) are regarded as essential to a proper religious service. Governments that suggest we “can worship in the privacy of the home” are governments implicitly advancing a Protestant theology of “Jesus as my personal Savior,” for which the church is a nice but ultimately an unnecessary accessory.

But the problem cuts both ways. While Catholicism may be sacramental, a proper understanding of the essential element of sacramentality has long eluded today’s Catholics. The 2019 Pew survey that found a lack of understanding of the Eucharistic Real Presence is only the tip of the iceberg. The real danger lies in the lost understanding of all seven sacraments as the ordinary way of God’s interaction with His People, not optional extras. The sacraments are not audio-visual aids to underscore what is really important: they are an intrinsic part of that really important. One subtle shift: I’ve recently noted some places changing the Prayer for Spiritual Communion’s “since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart” by dropping the “at least.” With an already attenuated understanding of the Real Presence and a year-long Mass moratorium, how do we protect against Catholics becoming de facto Zwinglians when it comes to the Eucharist (it’s nice to have bread and wine but it’s not really needed)?

So, yes, it’s time to get Catholics back to church. But it’s also time to rethink how we get them back to church not only post-COVID but in light of the loss of a sacramental sense. We delude ourselves thinking that rescinding universal dispensations absent a spiritual transition back and a plan for effective religious instruction at Mass will be effective: we neither can nor should not pretend we can pick up where we left off a year ago.

At Divine Mercy Parish, we are preparing for a 12 week “Eucharistic Journey” to commence in August to help reignite the Eucharistic amazement of our parish family and bring us closer to the heart of our Eucharistic Lord. It will include spiritual preparations, catechesis, music, worship, and a call to repentance and conversion as we encounter Jesus in the Eucharist. While the pandemic has brought much hardship and suffering, it has also cultivated a great spiritual hunger among our parishioners. May we all join together and sing to the Lord a new song: “Welcome Home!”      

Rev. Fr. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor
Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School