Reading to Revive during a Revival

We are in the third year of a three-year Eucharistic Revival. Perhaps we haven’t attended any of the events, so what can we do to revive ourselves? As a musician who typically sits on the piano bench during Mass with my attention on sharps and flats, I need to enliven my devotion at Mass. Reading books, magazines, and even my old notes from liturgy classes at the University of Notre Dame is revving my spirit.

I recommend Praying the Scriptures by Demetrius Dumm who writes exquisitely about Eucharistic events in the New Testament. The author claims that “At the Last Supper Jesus summed up all his teaching and the meaning of his life as “Body-broken-for-them” and “Blood-poured-out-for-them.”  I think of those words at the time of consecration and again when receiving Holy Communion. I pray that I also may be body-broken and blood-poured.  But how will that happen in my ordinary day? The author writes “We commit ourselves to a life that is also ‘body-broken’ and ‘blood-poured out’ for others.” In other words, we aim for unselfish love in a life lived for others.

It’s sitting hours in a hospital room. It’s volunteering for a job no one else wants. It’s taking the last place or leaving the last piece. It’s not keeping track of whose turn. It’s thinking globally when buying groceries. It’s appreciating employees and noticing the little guy. Nothing major, I know. But it’s pouring ourselves out to become the Body of Christ.