These meditations are intended for before or after the Holy Eucharist and are meant to enhance and deepen our participation in the liturgy through prayerful and mindful reflection on various aspects of the worship experience.
The Church
While visiting Canada I noticed that people talked about going "to hospital" or "to university" in much the same way that Americans talk about going to church. The physical church is the first thing we see when arriving for the Eucharistic celebration. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with speaking of the church as a place, we must resist the temptation of looking at the church as merely a physical edifice. The physical church, the brick, wood, or steel structure, can serve as a mnemonic device to help us recall precisely what the church is. Perhaps we can even distinguish between small "c" church (the place) and big "C" Church (the metaphysical reality).
The word "church" as rendered in the New Testament comes from the Greek term ekklesia which is formed from two Greek words meaning "an assembly" and "to call out" or "called out ones." As such, the Church consists first and foremost as a body of believers, people, who have been called by God to live as his people under the authority of Jesus the Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23). The Church is made up of all those from every time and place who are vitally united to Christ, both living and deceased. One pastor I know likes to celebrate the Eucharist envisioning the live assembly of saints in front of him and the "cloud of witnesses," those who have passed to their eternal reward, behind him.
In summary the church is not a place, it is a people. As St. Peter puts it, "You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house." (1Peter 2:5). If one could imagine a building molded out of human persons rather than raw material, one would be closer to the truth of what the church is. Yet, the Church does not consist of discreet "living stones," rather, we are mystically and ontologically, although personally differentiated, united to one another.
"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body...Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."
So, as you arrive "at church" look left, look right, look in front, look behind and recognize that the Church is not a building but rather an integral and integrated relationship with God and with one another.
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