9th Day of Christmas: The church is our home… wherever we are.

Posted by Sean on January 2, 2009

In 2007 or 2008 my wife and I made a New Year’s resolution to attend Sunday Mass (and feast days) wherever we were and whatever we were doing. Prior to that we were faithful to going to mass every Sunday– except when we were traveling or attending weekend long music festivals or…

Since we have made this resolution, finding masses when we are traveling has become a pleasure and an adventure. Web resources like masstimes.org and diocesan websites make it easy to find the location and mass times of a church nearby to where we are staying. The website for our Archdiocese of Toronto allows you to search for the nearest parish by postal code, which is a very handy feature for travelers.

Today we attended mass for January 1, the feast of Mary the Mother of God at St. Justin the Martyr parish, a large suburban parish just north of Toronto. The homily focused on the apparitions of Mary at Guadalupe, Lourdes and Fatima. In each of these instances Mary appeared in a remote, unremarkable location and asked the visionaries to tell their bishops that She wished a church to be built on that location. The priest  pointed out that if these apparitions occurred in such remote locations that nobody should feel that their heart is too remote to ask Jesus to come live in it.

Another reason I love going to mass at churches away from home is that it helps me reflect upon the idea of the small ‘c’ meaning of ‘catholic’ meaning that we belong to a universal church. Wherever we attend mass we are a part of the sacrifice of Jesus in the Eucharist. The suburban parish we attended today is a very multicultural parish with members from many nations and cultures in the parish community. This also helps remind me that the church is worldwide and universal.   St. Justin’s is a modern church building and the artwork within it is a blend of contemporary and traditional styles. The stained glass windows contained portraits of many saints including my daughter’s favorite, Blessed Kateri Tekawitha and St. Maximillian Kolbe. Like many geeks I have adopted St. Maximillian as a kind of patron of the Internet because of his skillful use of all forms of media of his time to spread the Gospel (sort of like many of us are trying to do with new media).

Speaking of new media, I like many others, have found that the promise of podcasting and social media is in making connections between people and facilitating communities. Having been an active participant in several online community projects, in the podcasting community at large, and within the Catholic online community (or St. Blogs Parish as it were), I have noticed that the Catholic community online has a different and richer definition of community than other online community. This understanding of community is very much rooted in our understanding that we belong to a universal church and that we are united by the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist. Several times I have heard Catholic rocker Bryan Murdaugh refer to the celebration of the Eucharist as ‘The original social network’. For me it is enough to know that wherever I am, I can probably find a mass and that I will instantly be connected to the worldwide family of the Catholic Church. I’m told that I overuse the word ‘awesome’ but that is truly awesome!

Join us tomorrow for more reflections produced by great Catholic New Media personalities as we journey through the 12 Days of Christmas.

1. Send me your feedback on the blog at http://cc.ductapeguy.net by email at (catholicroundup@gmail.com) catholicroundup (at) gmail (dot) com or by calling 206-337-0611.

2. Go to the Catholic New Media Advent Calendar

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