feel it for a baby and adoration is a kind of affectionate
feeling that can grow as we say prayers of love for each other.
Twice a day in the liturgy of the Eucharist at the making
sacred of the bread and the wine we were reminded of Jesus’
incarnational love that went beyond atonement justice as
the Son of God became flesh that he might even suffer and die
for us to show us the love that loves all others even enemies
with a love that goes out to them as more important than ourself.
As we prayed with an adorational affection at the consecration
there was cultivated in our hearts an affection for everyone
even those who hurt us or disgusted us so that we could
see through any of their faults to the person for whom Jesus died.
The sacrifice of the mass at the consecration not only brought
forth the body and blood of Jesus into the bread and the wine
but also as they were separated there was a renewal of the
very sacrifice of Jesus as he died for us upon the cross.
From Jesus’ agapeic affection for us we learned to have that for others.
I,2.7 Nourishing Agapeic Friendship with the Eucharist’s History
The middle part of the liturgy of the Eucharist focused on Jesus
as present with us in the present moment there on the altar
when as the lamb of God he came to die for us again out of love.
As St. Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 11:26,
Until the Lord comes, therefore every time
you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you are proclaiming his death
and so anyone who eats the bread
or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily
will be behaving unworthily
toward the body and blood of the Lord.
Receiving Jesus in communion in his body, blood, soul, and divinity
was the highlight of our day and St. Paul called it the agape meal.
We came to the seminary that we might become priests and offer
the sacrifice of the mass for God’s people throughout our lives.
The whole purpose of the daily mass and communion was that we
might spend our lives growing in love for God with our whole
heart, mind, and soul and in loving all our neighbors as ourselves.
We learned from Jesus and the monks who taught us how to love
especially our enemies by praying for them even at communion.
In the seminary we were warned about the dangers of being
special friends with some to the exclusion of others and we learned
that as priests we had the common task of bringing the kingdom
of love to all humans that we might all live in communion.
In receiving communion together we became friends in the
common task of bringing communion to all the peoples of the earth.
God is the love or agape between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Human persons have an equal dignity like the persons of the Trinity
and deserve our agapeic affection and all persons belong to
the mystical body of Christ in a communal personhood and thus
we should have an agapeic friendship for every person.
I,2.8 Nourishing Agapeic Eros in the Eucharist’s Present
The liturgy of the Eucharist makes Jesus present in the past,
present, and future dimensions of his presence and nourishes
our love with a special kind of felt affection that is universal.
The third part of that liturgy, the communion, especially nourishes
an agapeic, affectionate friendship uniting all in bringing about
the kingdom of God’s agape so that all might be reconciled.
My special problem was eros or sexuality so that sometimes
in my sinfulness like a black sheep I could not receive communion.
Thus the offertory come to have a special meaning for me
as I offered myself up in all my sinfulness with the bread and
the wine praying that I might be transformed in the consecration
and become a sacred priest set apart to serve God and his people.
Whereas each part of the liturgy of the Eucharist had past,
present, and future dimensions the offertory made Jesus present
to me in a heartfelt way as I tried to imitate him in his celibacy.
As time went on I came to see that many women loved him and
he loved many women for there was the Samaritan woman who
had five husbands and Mary and Martha and Mary Magdalene.
I was especially struck by how after the resurrection Magdalene
recognized him by the way he said her name with a love
that let her know right away that it had to be her Lord.
Jesus had a sublimated eros that let him love each unique
woman in a very special way even in all of her female uniqueness.
Many women came to love him with that sublimated eros
that would give a special content to their agape and a universality
to their eros even as Father Heeren had that toward my mother
and she toward him and she named her youngest son, Tommy
Joe, after Father Thomas Heeren and her husband Joseph.
Could such a transubstantiation ever happen to me in which
my sinful habitual substance would become a sacred substance.
I prayed each morning to become a sacred, sacerdos priest.
I,2.9 Nourishing Agapeic Mourning in the Eucharist’s Future
The liturgy of the Eucharist is all about a love stronger than death.
It is about death and dying and a mourning process that can be
totally successful if one can live out the sorrowful mysteries
in light of the glorious mysteries to bring about the joyful mysteries.
In the sacrament of the sacrifice of the mass the sacred heart
of Jesus who is the high priest is slaughtered as the lamb of God.
He was born for us in his incarnation that he might be killed
for us in his crucifixion but then in the reliving of this in the mass
he lives on in us in communion in his glorious resurrection.
The glorious mysteries that began with the resurrection bring