JV Life: Thursday Masses

We go to mass every weekend on Saturday night. But we have a second mass each week on Thursday night. This mass is a small community mass with the religious and the volunteers of Andahuaylillas. Usual mass attendees are:

• Padre Calilo
• Hermana Rosario
• The 2 Belgian volunteers
• The 5 Jvs
• Lucia, the volunteer from Spain
• The 3 Limeño volunteers who are working at the school until August

We take turns hosting the mass. Whoever is hosting has the option of selecting readings songs. That means that each mass feels a little different.

One of the more powerful moments of the Thursday masses comes at the homily. Everyone is invited to speak, either giving a reflection on the readings or on their experience in the past week. Usually about 3 people give some sort of reflection. It's a powerful moment because the priest is sharing his power with the lay people around him, he is recognizing that people other than priests have valuable things to say, that sometimes God speaks through the laity. It strikes me as a very democratic way of doing mass.

When we host the Thursday mass, I make the communion bread using a variation of a recipe my mother found.

It's nice to have homemade bread instead of factory made crackers for the communion. It feels righter to me. This recipe also tastes better than the usual wafer hosts. But that is as it should be, receiving Jesus should be an enjoyable experience. For these two reasons I began making the bread for mass. My mother makes the bread for the Holy Thursday mass at our parish and I wanted to replicate that feeling. If feels more personal when the sacred offerings were made by people of the community.

But I never considered what it is like to be the person that made the bread. For me, this is is the most powerful aspect of the Thursday masses. Padre Calilo takes the bread that I made hours earlier with my own hands, and he blesses it. God blesses it. And when it is passed to me, it is the body of Christ. Something plain and simple that I made has become something profoundly holy. It is humbling to realize this. It is also a reminder that whatever we give to God will come back to us greater.

After mass we have a dinner. The hosts cook. We usually make something pretty simple because of our budget, but Hermana Rosario and Padre Calilo usually serve up great meals. We sit and talk, sometimes for hours, before the party breaks up and everyone goes home to get some sleep before the end of the week.

PS- Two weeks ago we had a special guest, the provincial of the Jesuits of Peru. For those of you not versed in Jesuit terminology, it means he is the regional boss of all the Jesuits in Peru. He celebrated the mass with us and surprised us at dinner when he was familiar with each of our hometowns. 

The superior is the third from the left.