Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi (officially Tuesday). On the way to Mass, our youngest child asked to listen to her new favourite CD, Meatloaf’s greatest hits. I had forgotten the riotous, sloppy, irreverent joy of Meatloaf, the rambling, soaring guitar solos and singable melody hooks. We had a great time singing along to ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’ and Bat Out of Hell’!
At the end of mass the recessional hymn came back to me from years earlier when I was a postdoc at the University of Notre Dame:
———-

I am the Bread of life,
He who comes to Me shall not hunger,
He who believes in Me shall not thirst.
No one can come to Me
Unless the Father draw him.

And I will raise him up,
And I will raise him up,
And I will raise him up on the last day.
se him up on the last day.

And I will raise him up,
And I will raise him up,
And I will raise him up on the last day.

I am the Resurrection,
I am the Life,
He who believes in Me
Even if he die,
He shall live for ever.

And I will raise him up,
And I will raise him up,
And I will raise him up on the last day.

Somehow that beautiful, singable refrain brought together and brought home the vibrant textures of being together as a family at Mass on that sunny day: being together is so much more than just being together in some Disneyfied, sacrine, sentimental exaltation of family. It’s about those small details, the smallest people, the random lyrics on a song in the car, being more fully seen and experienced in all their depth and brightness. This is the gift of being in body.