AT St. John the Baptist in Baldwin Park, California, they do something big at the conclusion of the Holy Thursday liturgy. The priests and the parishioners transfer the Body of Christ in a huge monstrance to an elaborately decorated hall.
You should see the faces of the people as they do this—they are filled with piety.
The people, mostly Hispanics, respond to this elaborate celebration. And I believe that the reason for this passionate and zealous response is that they want to “see” and “feel” something much bigger and tangible. And so the bigger and elaborate the visible sign of the invisible grace is, the better it is for them.
I saw a similar response when I was the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in East Hollywood. My parishioners would applaud at seeing me pour buckets of baptismal water onto the heads of the catechumens on Easter Vigil and delight in smelling the strong fragrance of newly blessed oil during anointing.
“Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see me, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have. And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And they were incredulous for joy and were amazed.”
Touching and seeing; eating and drinking—these concrete, tangible and incredible ways of how Luke depicts the appearance of Jesus after his resurrection made the disciples believe and opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
This seems to be an effective way to evangelize people, to bring faith to them: to be elaborate, to be more tangible, to be big, not just in liturgical and devotional practices, but more so in the ways that we love, forgive, and are merciful to one another.
Luke, the one who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, shows the tangible and elaborate witness of the faith of the apostles and the first Christian community in the way that they would break bread and would share the cup with one another, in the way they were of one heart and mind, and how they had everything in common.
How tangible, elaborate, and concrete are we in the ways that we care for one another? How big are our smiles? How genuine are our embraces and conversations? How deep are our concerns for each other?
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From a Filipino immigrant family, Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas was ordained to the priesthood from St. John’s Seminary in 1991. He served as Associate Pastor at St. Augustine, Culver City (1991-1993); St. Martha, Valinda (1993-1999); and St. Joseph the Worker, Canoga Park (1999-2001). In 2001, he served as Administrator Pro Tem of St. John Neumann in Santa Maria, CA, until his appointment as pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary, Los Angeles, in 2002, which lasted 12 years. His term as Associate Director of Pastoral Field Education at St. John’s Seminary began in July 2014.
