The Eucharist is Cool

The word “cool” is in its renaissance. A few years ago, it was considered a “retro” word, which made us smile – if ever used at all – today it is back in fashion again. Interestingly in the last decade the word “cool” (along with its Hungarian version: “menő”) was revived, and the translation really gives back the original meaning.

In the last couple of days, I was struck by a lot of impulses in connection with the Eucharist, about which I thought without hesitation that “It is cool”.

It always touches me, the special version of feeling good touches my soul every time, whenever I meet Jesus and his message unexpectedly, in an unexpected place.

A few days ago, I was walking unsuspectingly towards the exit of the Western Railway Station in Budapest, when I suddenly encountered Jesus. To be precise I was moving toward Him – as earlier with my soul now physically, with my feet –, toward a railway carriage. Which was announcing the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress in a cool way, with its leading thought: Meet Jesus in Budapest!

This encounter happened unexpectedly in an unlikely place, after which I thought how cool it is, that this carriage goes round and round the country every day to announce the people the great meeting, which we all await.

The symbiosis of the Eucharist and the vehicles did not end when I saw and took a photo of the “Jesus-carriage”. A few days later in the series showing the NASA’s Apollo Program I arrived to the episode, when Neil Armstrong steps on the Moon as the first man and says the probably best-known sentence “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

A less known fact is that the fellow astronaut of Armstrong, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin a little sooner carried out the coolest liturgy in the world: he communed on the Moon, on board the Lunar Module, because before the launch he got special permission to take bread and wine with him. During this special liturgy he read a passage from John’s Gospel: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty, for cut off from me you can do nothing.”

Right before communing Aldrin sent the following thoughts to Earth via the radio of the Lunar Module: “This is the pilot of the Lunar Module. “I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way.”

In September 2020 during the week of the International Eucharistic Congress we also will have plenty of opportunities to give thanks for a lot of things. In our own individual way: with living faith, in Jesus. It’ll be cool.