Another View from the Back

With the building of our new church, we have multiple choices of seating. With 1200 seats our options present many views and perceptions. Most of us have a favorite place when we come to share in the Eucharist. There are the front row people. There is a light sprinkling through the vast middle benches. Then comes the majority of people who choose to sit nearer to the back pews. A mystery to most priest-presiders at Mass is a full ring of wall-clingers, no matter how many seats are available.

I learned my thoughts about church seating from an interior designer, aptly named the “Mentor.” The opinion of the Mentor was that in choosing chairs for your home diverse style, shape and size were essential. The reason was simple: people, on entering a room, will naturally choose a style and size for their personal comfort. In this theory, for example, there would be big people chairs and more petite for smaller folks. To follow would be tall people chairs and short-legged chairs for shorter people.

Whatever the reason folks sit where they choose in church, I also have a favorite place in the assembly place. While I certainly enjoy my Presider’s Chair in the sanctuary during celebrations, for personal prayer time I couldn’t sit further away from my “normal” place at Mass. My very favorite seat is the very last pew near the baptismal font.

Sunday Sun
My favorite seat comes with a favored time for use. Late on Sunday afternoons before the arrival of the evening Mass community, I take my place and make time for the Lord. There I am way back from the sanctuary; the stained glass windows are vibrant with color which dances onto the ceiling and soffits, the sanctuary light glows with its constant reminder of Christ’s presence within the Church.

Strangely, there are no people. The church space usually vibrant with people, music, and rituals is still. There’s that moment of Presence. The focus of the Presence is the tabernacle with its electric glow and with its beeswax candle. All of the liturgical documents since Vatican II come to make sense about the various presences of Christ within the worshiping assembly. Consistently, the documents on the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist end the same: “and for the adoration of the faithful.”

In the last almost 46 years since the first document of the Second Vatican Council, “The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” we have learned and celebrated much about the liturgy. We have come to know the Eucharist as “the source and summit” of Christian life. We are well practiced and motivated in “the full active participation” of the ministers and assembly when they come together. Our communal sense of celebration has grown in our embrace of our local community.

The view from the back of the church tells of another dimension of the Eucharist. As blessed as we are with our communal sense of the Presence of Christ in the people, in the Word, in the food of the Table, there is the constant contemplative experience of the Eucharist. The documents articulate well the long tradition of the Church when the final Presence of Christ is given as “…in the Reserved Sacrament for the sick and dying and the adoration of the faithful.”

Communion as Contemplation
The Eucharist is obviously about communion, not only received, but communion lived in relationship with the Lord. Our usual Sunday experience is that moment of communion with the Lord and his People. It is celebrated and held up. This relationship logically flows into relationship with our brothers and sisters through the world. Under the singing, the ritual actions, and the greetings is a whole other level of the Eucharistic presence to be explored. All of us are called to be in the Lord’s presence intimately and fully. In the contemplative moment, the Lord is ours and we are his.

Often the critique of the “new” liturgy is that there is no time to pray. Within the liturgy, people seek a quieter, more intimate moment with the Lord. The communion hymn offers an example of the seeming conflict between those communal and personal movements of grace. The choice is to sing and embrace the communal, or to step back and savor the communion moment as an individual believer.

My little place in the back row of the church comes with a long history, both personal and communal. Contemplation seems like a daunting experience, but in reality church life has been filled with such moments for ordinary people. Best remembered, but recently quickly forgotten, were the moments to “make a visit” to the Church. These quiet moments allow believers the opportunity to be with the Lord. There was no doing, just being in the Presence and allowing the Lord to embrace us.

A contrast of two perceptions of visiting a church may offer insight. On visiting a church, one can visit as a tourist or as a believer. A trip to Ireland several years ago showed one group can have both tourist and believer within. What else to do in Ireland but visit churches and monasteries! The larger number of us would walk right in to the church, up and down the aisles, taking in the art and architecture. One of our numbers, before joining us, would slip into a back pew, kneel down and pray, and then join us. Before “tour” days ended, we had discovered the quiet and glory of “pilgrimage.” Our friend had taught us that the Presence of Christ in our churches made the art and architecture more vibrant and wonderful. Contemplative communion led to genuine contemplation of art.

CDH