Summer Festivals and the Eucharist

by Jim Noonan, Stittsville, ON (Corpus NCR)

  Canadians love summer festivals. Consider such events as the Fringe Theatre Festivals which take place across the country, the Stratford and Shaw festivals, which are the most notable of professional theatre festivals in North America, and the variety of music festivals from rock to folk to R&B to jazz to classical that draw large audiences wherever they are performed, even in the steamy weather and enclosed venues in which they are often held.
People crave the immediacy and community of live performances. There is something about performances in the here and now that make them special, and draw people to them who are not so attracted to film or television or videos. They leave these festivals exhilarated, excited, and enthused, and cannot wait until next year's festivals roll around.
As I attended some of these festivals this summer - notably the Ottawa Fringe Festival, the Stratford Festival, and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival - I reflected that the immediacy that makes these and other festivals so  popular is why the celebration of the Eucharist is so important in the Catholic experience. Like summer festivals, the Eucharist has an immediacy and sense of community that other religious experiences do not. It makes the sacrifice of Christ on the cross immediate in a way that no other prayer does.  For the Mass is a reenactment of that sacrifice of Christ, and not just a recounting or a film or a video of the event. It is the same offering that Christ made on Calvary, though it happened for the first time two thousand years ago. It is, as it were, a removing of the veil of time so we can experience again and again the love that Christ showed for us and for the Father and for all humankind on the cross. And it invites us to share with others in the graces He won for us in that original offering.
So when we consider these days the closing of parishes, the reduced number of priests in parishes, and the substitution of services of the word and communion services for the celebration of the Mass, we should be aware that in permitting all these things the Church leadership is downgrading the heart of its sacramental system. And realizing this we should be ready to challenge the law of compulsory celibacy on the grounds of what it deprives the Catholic people of - the living reenactment of Christ's sacrifice in our midst.
As members of Corpus Canada and other reform-minded people in the Church, we should shout loudly from the housetops: Do not take away what is most precious to us for the sake of a man-made law! Give us both celibate and married priests so we may celebrate the Eucharist with them regularly and conveniently and joyfully! Let us show that the celebration of the Eucharist is as important to us as theatre and music festivals are to Canadians across the country every summer.