We have all been witnesses to the same thing. We are out and about of a weekend, and we catch sight of an entire family – father, mother, children – all sitting around a table in a food court or restaurant. And all are looking at their mobile phones.
I do not intent to repeat here the regular lamentations of media commentators on the breakdown of social engagement – though there is much to be said on that point. Instead, I wish to examine the same question through a eucharistic lens.
We believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. Yet surely our appreciation of that reality is weakened when we spend so much of our day-to-day life oblivious to the true presence of our own family members and loved ones?
A recent report by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference on the state of family life and ministry in Australia made a similar point.
“Devices, social media and constant online connection have changed the way many families and households operate and interact,” it said. “Families can be physically together while each person is absorbed in a separate digital world.”
This is painfully true – we have all seen it, and we have all experienced it.
Yet I am quite hopeful that this otherwise lamentable state of affairs might serve as an opportunity to help us all better appreciate the gift of the Eucharist and our own Catholic, sacramental world view.
After all, our families – parents and children – now spend a considerable amount of their time every day sitting (slouching) in silence, staring into another world, another “reality”.
Compare that with the “reality” of the Eucharist.
When we participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice on a given Sunday, we are given the opportunity to be physically and metaphysically present – to participate in a reality that incorporates all that we are as embodied souls.
We are present, communing with Christ and the disciples at the Last Supper on that fateful Thursday. We are present in grief, kneeling at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday. We are present in joy, staring in wonder at the empty tomb with the women on Easter Sunday.
Through the celebration of the Mass, we truly participate in those events in a metaphysical, sacramental way.
The Mass enables us to have an opportunity to be physically together as a family and a community of faith – as the Body of Christ – while experiencing the same metaphysical reality together.
Rather than us each being separately locked in our own worlds of screen-based entertainment, we are all caught up together in what the 20th century theologian Fr Hans Urz von Balthasar described as the “Theo-Drama” – our own active participation in the unfolding of the history of salvation.
Jesus is the hero of the story, but we are all called to play a unique part. And to play a part we must be present, both at Mass on Sunday and throughout our lives.
The Eucharist is our God-given opportunity to hone our appreciation of what “real presence” means and to carry that lived understanding into our homes, workplaces and communities.
Our Catholic sacramental worldview means that we are able to appreciate added layers of “reality” that are not otherwise apparent to our physical senses.
The Eucharist is the place in which all of that understanding comes together: spiritual insight and physical sight, time and eternity, humanity and divinity, spiritual nourishment, and physical nourishment.
And Christ himself is the ultimate expression of that reality in which we participate, simultaneously both priest and victim, with a human nature and a divine nature unified in one person.
And, frankly, that drama sounds far more engaging than anything I have ever seen on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook or any other social media platform.
Our presence at Mass is both the ultimate opportunity to participate in our reality and the one thing that will help guide us to a true appreciation of the “real presence” of our friends, family members and coworkers around us – the key to appreciating the mystery of life in all its richness and diversity.
The last line writes itself: come to Mass.
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