To Live Is To Know Christ; To Know Christ Is to Live

Sankt Margareta Katholische Kirche, Gerresheim

Up until this morning at quarter after eleven, it had been tough. 

Upon arrival in Düsseldorf, strict schedules allowed me no time to attend Sunday Mass. 

The following Sunday I found myself at Mass with approximately only ten others, overwhelmingly all elderly women. 

Last Thursday for the Mass of the Ascension, I ran the empty streets of the city in hopes of making it to Mass on time, after receiving false information on Mass times for the holy day.

I was discouraged. It was no longer as easy as: hop in the car and go to Mass five minutes down the road, where there are only familiar faces, English language, many youth, and everything predictable.

It was here, at the breaking of the comfortable pattern, that I also needed to break myself.

A long lingering thought in my mind was reintroduced and planned to stay: Church in Germany is only for old people. I shouldn’t be here. Nope, I just didn’t feel like it. That’s what the past two weeks have been. I could no longer attend mass easily and in habit. It was time to actually mean it. That was my only choice.

Today, with a (finally) solid understanding of city directions and transit systems, I managed to make it to a local Church a half hour early. After triple checking the mass schedule posted near the entrance, I entered just as the rain and thunder made their long anticipated appearance.

And, silence. 

A mother and her son prayed at a side alter as I placed my host in the ciborium. The priest, in no hurry, prepared the Church for Mass, and a few people were scattered in pews in prayer. I took a song book from the back and took seat in a middle pew.

As Mass began, a procession of multiple alter servers and choir (all of whom were youth!) entered to the alter. The young girls choir sang the entrance hymn, one which was more traditionally beautiful than anything I’ve heard in a while.

I’ve just about mastered the Mass responses in German and with a full Church, responses echoed so beautifully. In addition, the priest’s homily, one which I understood nearly every word of, was pretty much everything I needed to hear.

Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. 

John 17

And it occurred to me. Knowing Christ is not always straight forward. It’s not always familiar or convenient. For a while, I just didn’t feel like it. But God was there the whole time, even when I wasn’t fully there myself.

When habit is broken, sincerity is necessary and only authenticity is possible.

I needed it to be difficult, otherwise it’d be all too easy to sink back into that comfortable pattern again.