These last two weeks I have been at a language school outside of Tegucigalpa. It has been a good experience learning to speak Spanish better, though it is very frustrated to recognize that I knew how at one point and then managed to forget.
The people here are absolutely incredible and we have been going to different activities with them almost every night. Baby showers, birthday parties, parish get-togethers etc. The local priest also took us to some of the aldeas (little villages) for Mass.
Going to Mass here makes me appreciate this tremendous gift so much more. Many of the parishes in the aldeas only celebrate Mass once a month and people will walk hours on difficult terrain to get there. There are so few priests here (Padre Danielo has 20 parishes) that even that larger towns are lucky to have Mass once a week.
In America we often times have the tremendous privilege of going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist more than once a week but there are so many little excuses we make to not go. I am just as guilty as the next person of taking the Eucharist for granted , but it needs to stop. As Catholics we believe the the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, nothing less than the Body and Blood of Christ.
The people here hunger for Christ, they know how important it is and will literally hike up mountains to get to Mass. Why do we, who often have the opportunity to go the Mass every day, not have this same conviction? What would have happened if the early Christians did not have this same conviction? The answer is somewhat scary because it carries implications for our own times.
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