Catholic Christian wor­ship has different names depending on our opinions about what the Church should be. 

        To some, this event will always be the Mass, an obligation that counts if we get there before the offertory.  (However, no one seems to be overly certain as to what it counts for.) 

        The term Liturgy puts this same event in a different light, giving us re­sponsibilities that we can share in the name of ministry in choirs, at communion stations or doing readings, but we do a job. (It is more than likely disconnected from every­thing else going on but it is our job and, therefore, more important than any­one else's; so there!)

        The Eucharist is another Greek word like Liturgy, but which, if used, indicates that God and people have done things together and that we are grateful. (The user is almost always a theology buff who does not know how to translate into English.)

        The Breaking of the Bread is still another term, probably older than any of the rest and indicating that someone may have read the Acts of the Apostles all the way through without stop­ping. (This user likes to see it done just the way it was the very first time.)

        What we celebrate on the weekend, the ceremony at the core of most funerals and wed-dings for us, the celebration we might, on occasion, carry out in someone's home, is sup­posed to be of one piece with a Christian's every day living.  However, if the people in the pews or the family gathered in a base­ment do not know what to answer or do, then it is really not Mass nor Liturgy nor Eucharist nor Breaking of Bread that is being ex­perienced.  It is some-thing else that has no relation­ship to any of these names since we cannot find our own place in it, not knowing where we might fit. 

        If we cannot grasp what we are doing in such a ritual or how we might participate, then something is radically wrong; to be identified as one or all of the above, our action must deepen, broaden or extend our own life as person, family or community.  It can do no more and should do no less since the active ingredient is not magic but the life of the Risen Christ shared equally by all, the source of our mission and ministry at every level of our daily human existence.  We hope to transform our world, not through religious cult, but by faithful living.  Our life is the only worship we offer God and God wants nothing less.

        In our history, whenever the Mass has become something else, the entire Church has suffered.  For a while, it was a splendid ceremony that spoke of bloody sacrifice and sang its music in eight part harmony but let no one ap­proach the table for com­munion since there was no table, only an altar to be touched by the few and consecrated.  Because of moral unworthiness, we could only look at the bread like punished chil­dren who are taken by par­ents to see other people's progeny eat ice cream.  And if we did not get enough of a look during the Mass, we could come back to look again through smoke and incense during benedic­tion.  In all this mystery, did it never occur to us that bread was not meant for viewing, but for eating?

        A clear conscience for communion was deter­mined, not by the communicant, but by a minister who as­sumed the right to question a person's conscience or integrity.  "Did you confess?  Are you married in Church?"  Perhaps the questions should be different because actually only sinners can share the Eucharist; only we who are sinners have some reason to be thankful. This is after all what we do in Eucharist: we thank God for life and forgiveness and possibilities.  Jesus is meant to be food for us in our good and bad moments, in our holi­ness and in our perversions. St. Augus-tine tells us that the Body and Blood of the Lord are medicine, not for the well but for the sick, and food, not for the fat and full, but for the thin and deprived.  All are called by God to eat and be nourished in our own life and in our own community.