Communion

"You go down there looking for justice,

 

that's what you find,

 

just us..." 

 

-Richard Pryor sampled in GangStarr's "Alongwaytogo"

 

I am a cradle Catholic. I was born, baptized and have spent 100% of my life in the Roman Catholic Church. I am proud of my beliefs, and feel confident enough to test the limits of, not only my own personal beliefs, but the day-to-day Catholic teachings, as well as the institutional church I belong to. Yet, being here on Pohnpei has asked me to look deep into the historical significance of faith, missionaries, and the spread of religion to a people where it was formerly foreign and unknown.

Communion, as defined by a web dictionary, is 1)the act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings. 2)Religious or spiritual fellowship. 3)A body of Christians with a common religious faith who practice the same rites; a denomination, as well as 4)the sacrament of the Eucharist received by a congregation, the consecrated elements of the Eucharist, and the part of the Mass or a liturgy in which the Eucharist is received. 

The fact that Jesuit Volunteer International was a Catholic volunteer program greatly weighed on my decision to partake in its pillars for two years. Being a Catholic has shaped and molded many instances of my life; recently I was challenged as to why.

In the states I often looked past the Eucharist at mass. It always seemed to me a commonplace practice and ritual. I often went through the act without much cause, thought, or incite. Yet, at a recent spirituality night with the Jesuits, the Eucharist was the topic of discussion. I thought back to my First Communion at Our Lady Star of the Sea; I remembered my starched white shirt, my shined black shoes, and my tie with various sport paraphernalia on it, and I remember standing in a group of young Catholics to be, in anticipation for that wafer of initiation. At the time it seemed very magical, very surreal. From my young outsider perspective those who received were all members of the group, to receive meant to be a part of something, to belong. I rejoiced at the fact that soon I too would join "the line."

I then reflected on my late teens, when going to communion meant something much different. The week was filled with studies, sports, chores, and many other things. Church on Sunday offered a special time to sit back, reflect and enjoy the company of a community also worn out from a long week. I reflected on my enjoyment of the post-communion prayer, when I would kneel down and feel at ease with the church community I had grown up with and around; it was familiar, easy, and most of all comfortable. 

My first mass in Pohnpei I stood up at my introduction and looked around to foreign faces, names, and peoples. Amidst new languages, foods, customs, temperatures, and ways, the place I had always found ease and comfort, the church, was new and foreign as well. The reality of my new situation struck hard when after communion I did not recognize a single face, save the priest I had met minutes before mass. 

Slowly but surely things changed, the culture I was foreign to opened its most admirable feature frequent and often; hospitality to the outsider. With my work at the school faces became more recognizable, names became known, and encounters became hellos. Before I knew it, I had friends who I was looking forward to saying hello to before and after mass. It did not happen at some sudden moment, but gradually I was beginning to feel like a part of the community.

This last week I had the privilege of serving as Eucharistic Minister for our school mass. Neat the end of the line I watched as all of my students approached me for Communion. I looked each in the eye, served, then sat down fulfilled with the experience, there was no funny looks, no snickers, it was business as usual for all parties; once again I finally felt liked I was beginning to belong. 

I am by no means the most conservative of Catholics, and am apt to question as much dogma and faith based belief as I can. However, whether the work of the Eucharist or not, I find it to be a miracle that communion has continually had the ability to draw me in with groups of people. Yet, I have begun to question where the notion of community comes from, the community at large, or the group that gathers under the banner of the Eucharist?

This Christmas we traveled to Chuuk to spend the holiday with the volunteers working at the high schools on that island. In one of the rooms at Saramen Chuuk there were questions spanning multiple subjects written all over the walls. One question caught my eye and has had me thinking ever since. It read, “was God here before the missionaries?” The notion is simple, that if Micronesian’s had never been given God’s word and message, would they know God? Would they know his Son? If they never heard the word, Eucharist, would they still understand communion? Micronesian history is ripe with missionaries who came preaching a different way of life to locals than what they had known, aspects of the culture were kept, but many were denounced. As for now, one can not drive very far in Pohnpei without seeing a different religious order from some foreign place telling people the their way is the best way

So I pondered the question in conjunction with my experience with the Catholic Church and I came to a conclusion; I realized that it is of no consequence. That in life there is no clear-cut concrete way of life, instead people are at their best when they allow give and take from one another and start enjoying one another for who they truly are, not what they want them to be. It is only then when we can learn from one another, and then when we can truly see each other in communion, whether at church, at the store, in jail, developed, poor, rich, strong, weak, confident.

As well, below are some pictures of the PCS Christmas program (theme: Jesus was born in Pohnpei) as well as JVI Christmas in Chuuk.

                                          Pisar, in the Chuuk lagoon, the sight of our retreat
                                            Micro volunteers
                                           Lavin and Miller reunited, plus staches
                                            Pohnpei volunteers.

                                       Pohnpei Catholic School Christmas program
The gift bearers with the 8th graders in front.