Someone once said Catholicism is like a gourmet meal. It isn't fast food. It doesn't offer simple answers to life's questions or a magic wand to solve our heartaches. There is a lot to digest being a Catholic but it can nourish us on the ordinary days and on the dark nights. But many of us are still starving because our heart, mind and soul doesn't know how to digest the rich food of the Sacramental life.

What the Sacraments offer is strength for the weak, truth for the confused, solace for the heartbroken. The Mass offers a story of how love overcomes evil and assures us our God will see us through anything. When it seems dying is the end of the story it asserts, life in Christ is as everlasting as being loved is. I had gone to Mass thousands of times before I prayed with a tattered soul at my mom's funeral Mass. But it was there, in the fog of loss, I saw clearly that my mom had died but her love was a part of me and always would be.

The Mass is the meal of the food and drink of Christ's love in the form of Eucharist. It tells a love story in words, gestures, actions, songs and silences. Communion, it has been said, is a taste on earth of what will be the food of heaven.

You will see in this issue we are having a Teaching Mass. I hope you will join us as we explore the meaning of what we do every Sunday and learn more about how the meal is really the greatest banquet you can be invited to share.