Eucharist 6000 Miles Away

2020 will go down in the history as a defining year for mankind. After a gap of hundred years, human beings are forced to stay totally indoors with the fear of being annihilated by a microorganism, the likes of which the world has rarely seen from the time of inception. A similar incident was cited in 1920s in the form of Spanish Flu.

The day when I turned 39, I started working from home. Five months later, as I write this, sitting in Dubai, the practice still continues with the exception that I’ve started going to office once a week since the last couple of weeks.  

Covid-19 or Corona virus has redefined literally everything in our lives. Starting from grocery shopping to getting a car registration renewed is all done online. E-learning, from being an exceptional form of learning has become a norm for offices and more importantly schools. Business folks who vehemently insisted on the absolute necessity for face-to-face meetings happily conduct sessions online. The world has locked down itself within the perimeter of an electronic screen.

Spiritual wellbeing was equally impacted. Along with everything else, Churches and other places of worship were all shut down. Being a part of the Holy Mass and receiving Eucharist was no longer possible. The Holy Week also was not spared as it came in between the lockdown period. Churches across the world made arrangements for live streaming of Holy events so that people could be a part of it. We started following the routine of taking part in the Holy Mass on TV, something that was never practiced in our lives before. Even with all these, something was still missing.

While we tried to be a part of the Holy Mass on TV from various churches, we truly felt a gap in experiencing Christ. That’s when it happened. One day we chanced upon the Daily TV Mass from the historic Loretto Abbey Chapel in Toronto, Canada. Father Michael J Coutts celebrated the Holy Mass that day. It was magical! He took us to experience the divine feeling of being one with God in that short period of time we were in front of the TV. We didn’t even realize that we were not in a Church. Through his beautiful homily and the prayers that directly touched our hearts along with the lovely songs from the Church choir team, we truly celebrated the Holy Mass as though we were doing it right in the presence of Christ our Lord himself!

It is indeed a blessing to share the experience of having someone holding your hands while standing at an Altar more than 6000 Miles away and still elevate you to be one with the Spirit of the Lord. This we believe is indeed a God sent gift and we all look forward to the days when we could join Fr Michael and share the happiness of Eucharist with the Miles no longer separating us!

We also have a dream that one day when this crazy pandemic ends we would love to visit the chapel and share the bliss we experienced with Fr Michael himself and even celebrate a Holy Mass along with him engulfed in the holiness omnipresent in that historic chapel.