If the basic game-plan for the spiritual life is monthly confession, weekly Mass (on Sundays, of course) and daily prayer, we find Mass not so much a second step in a list of three but a fulcrum on which the other two balance.
Mass is for us the source of our life. The human person has a few spheres of life intersecting with one another within us: our physical life, our intellectual life and spiritual life, and each of these have their appropriate sources of nourishment. Obviously are physical life is nourished by the various foods and proteins we eat throughout the day—generally there are no problems here. Our intellectual life is nourished by truth—this seems a bit tricky these days but that’s a conversation for another time. Our spiritual life is nourished most certainly and concretely by the Eucharist. Jesus says very clearly, “For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him….He who eats this bread will live forever” (Jn 6:55-58). The day will come for us all when our physical and intellectual life falters, flickering out like a candle in a mush of wax. Our spiritual life, however, will carry us on into eternity—eternal life if we’re spiritually alive or eternal death if we’re spiritually dead.
It is good for one’s life to be balanced, yes; but you have to ask yourself, just on what is my life balancing? Let it be upon the Eucharist—which is to say upon the Lord. You won’t be disappointed.
+ Br. Joseph Michael Fino, CFR
Yonkers, NY
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