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May 23, 2023 1782 Erin Rybicki, USA
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The Holy Spirit, Ever Active

In the early days of the pandemic lockdown when the only way I could attend Mass was via live stream, I felt something missing…

The  Holy Spirit is ever at work in our hearts, so I should not have been surprised that, amid the worldwide turmoil of the early days of the Covid 19 pandemic, He opened my heart to a fuller experience of the mystical body of Christ.

When I heard the news that churches would be closed along with restaurants, shops, schools, and offices, I reacted in shock and utter disbelief. “How can this be?” Watching the Mass live streamed from our parish was familiar and disorienting at the same time. There was our pastor, proclaiming the Gospel, preaching his homily, consecrating the bread and wine, but the pews were empty. Our voices sounded feeble, and the responses were out of place in our living room. And no wonder. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that liturgy “engages the faithful in the new life of the community and involves the ‘conscious, active, and fruitful participation’ of everyone” (CCC 1071). We were participating as best we could, but the community, the everyone, was missing.

Kneeling beside the coffee table at communion time, I read the prayer for spiritual communion that was on the screen, but I was distracted and unsettled. I knew that the consecrated host truly is Jesus’ body and that consuming the Eucharist could unite me with Him and transform me. And I was certain this was not going to happen via live streaming in my living room. The Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus, was profoundly absent.

I knew nothing about making a spiritual communion. The Baltimore Catechism tells me that spiritual communion is for those who have a “real desire to go to Communion when it is impossible to receive sacramentally. The desire obtains for us the graces of Communion in proportion to the strength of the desire.” (Baltimore Catechism, 377) While it was painfully true that it was impossible to receive sacramental communion, I am sorry to say that my desire that morning was merely for the familiar routine. I was distracted, unsettled, and unsatisfied.

The first Sunday gave way to the second and the third, and then Holy Thursday and Good Friday. It had been a singularly dramatic Lent, with so many sacrifices imposed, sacrifices I would not have ever imagined. Sacrifices I accepted a bit too grudgingly. God is good, however, and even my imperfect sacrifices bore some fruit. Instead of focusing on all that was missing from these liturgies, I began thinking about the people who could not attend them even in “normal” times. Nursing home residents. Prisoners. The elderly, the sick, and the disabled were alone. People living in remote places with no priests. For those Catholics, viewing Mass virtually was probably a blessing, a link with Jesus and His Church. I looked forward to attending Mass again soon; they could not.

What was it like for these other Catholics, who could receive the sacraments only occasionally, if at all? They are members of the Church, of Christ’s mystical body, the same as me, yet more substantially separated from a parish community. As I began thinking more about them and less about my own disappointments, I also began praying for them. And during Mass, I began praying with them. In a way, they became my Sunday Mass community, the people surrounding me, at least in my thoughts. Finally, I could settle consciously and actively into the live-streamed Mass. United with the members of the mystical body of Christ, I truly desired union with Jesus, and spiritual Communion became a peaceful, fruitful moment of grace.

Weeks passed, and this new, but not normal, situation extended into the Easter season. One Sunday, after the live-streamed Mass, our pastor announced that a local food pantry was in desperate need. Food donations had been cut off when the churches closed their doors, yet the number of families needing food each week was multiplying. To help, our parish would hold a drive-up food collection on Friday. “The parish has been closed for six weeks,” I thought. “Will anyone come?”

They certainly did. I volunteered to help that Friday, and as I directed drivers to the drop-off site at the back of the parking lot, seeing familiar, grinning faces felt so good. Even better, seeing the donations stacking up, much more than anyone ever expected. Being a part of that food collection was exhilarating; the result, I believe, of the Holy Spirit at work. He had called our scattered parish community into action to be the living Body of Christ caring for those in need. Just as He stirred my personal prayer life to develop a greater unity with the mystical body of Christ, He had revealed Himself at work in our parish community, with a willingness to serve others in need, even when we couldn’t gather together.

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Erin Rybicki

Erin Rybicki is a wife, mother and epidemiologist. As a home educator with more than twenty-five years of experience, she has been a guest speaker at Michigan Catholic Home educators’ conference. She lives with her husband in Michigan, USA.

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