-He baptized me, taught me to be an altar boy and later introduced me to the seminary. Once I was ordained, I was lucky enough to return to work with him as a curate in his parish during his last years. Once I was ordained, I had the good fortune to work with him again as a vicar in his parish: right in his last years... Every conversation we had! One evening, while we were having black bean casserole for dinner, it occurred to me to ask him how he was celebrating the Mass with such devotion. Then the old parish priest looked at me with his head cocked to one side and sighed, "It wasn't always like this.""
My friend allowed a moment to swallow. Then he adopted a slower cadence and a deeper tone to better emulate the mentor's words: "At first I celebrated Mass with enthusiasm. However, little by little, and without realizing it, I was falling into mechanical movements, into reading without going into the meaning of the words. My youthful piety was growing cold".
-Anyone can have something like that happen to them, I guess," I said.
-But listen to how the story goes on: "That's how things were going. Until one day everything changed. I was celebrating Mass with a very poor rural community in a crowded house. After the consecration, a young boy with Down Syndrome He came out of the crowd and hopped over to the improvised altar. He stood very still beside me and for a few seconds stared at the consecrated host on the paten. I felt a little uncomfortable. Suddenly, without taking his eyes off the bread, the boy asked, "Father, what's in here that's so important?" Oops. It got to me. So I answered, as if it were someone else speaking in my place, "Here is God, who has come down from heaven." The child looked up to meet mine, smiled big and returned to his seat to kneel on the floor next to his parents."
-Wow.
-I was just as shocked as you were when I heard it. Then he explained to me: "Peter, this event had for me the value of a Eucharistic miracle. That day I resolved to renew my amazement before every Mass. And since then I always look at the crucifix in the sacristy for at least a minute and I remember that God will come to the altar, he will come down from heaven for love of mankind".
-Good story," I commented. It will be useful for my classes.
-Perhaps it was his way of leaving me an inheritance; by being so frank, I mean. And I have yet to add an ending. When I celebrated the funeral of my parish priest, I could not help thinking that on that day it was he who was going up from the altar to meet his God.
Lawyer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Licentiate in Theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome) and Doctorate in Theology from the University of Navarra (Spain).
