Forgetting all else...
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When I first returned to the Church, many years ago now, I remember attending my first Mass at the most traditional church in town. My friends and I looked like hippies, long hair, beards, dressed in torn jeans, t-shirts and trinkets and amulets. I was so intent upon attending Mass I made my friends sit in the second or third row from the front. I was completely oblivious as to who else was there or how people were dressed, whether I fit in or not. I had recently become captivated with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament - my eyes were fixed, as it were, my heart burned. That day I went to communion, again oblivious to my surroundings and the people who were there. I was instantly convinced and understood that Jesus was truly and really present in the Eucharist.
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The next day I immediately began to go to daily Mass, and spent as much time as possible with the Blessed Sacrament in prayer. It seems to me all of my attention was upon Jesus. I never paid much attention to the priest, except as needed for confession, nor the people who attended Mass. I never involved myself in Church affairs, church gossip, criticism of priests or bishops or the way Mass was said, or anything like that. Nothing else mattered to me - I could easily recollect myself in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I was like that for a long, long time.
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And then I wrecked everything by trying to become a monk and getting involved in the controversies that infect the Church and religious life and the laity.
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I keep trying to figure out how to return to my early love... to let the dead bury their dead.
