The Eucharist Remains The 'Source and Summit': An Interview with Brother Sixtus Roslevich, O.S.B.

 

We went to church a lot, and it helped that it was within walking distance from my home.  My first memories of the Eucharist are attending Mass before my First Holy Communion and watching people line up and then kneel at the communion rail.  This was pre-Vatican II, mind you, and the priest would place the host on their tongues.  This was mysterious and special—so special, in fact, that we were told years later in catechism class (two hours every Saturday morning) taught by sisters that, if the host even touched our teeth after receiving it, we would have to go to confession.  And we were never allowed to touch the host for any reason.  Nowadays (and I hear more and more older people using that word, “nowadays”) some folks receive the consecrated host in their hands.  The sisters also taught us to say, “My Lord and my God,” after receiving communion which was a sure sign that we were consuming the Body and Blood of Christ in the sacrament. 

 

My best friend and I began learning the Latin Mass by rote memory in order to serve at Mass.  It was 1959, we were 7, and communion was still mysterious and special.  We knew there was a miracle taking place on the altar halfway through the Mass, but ‘transubstantiation’ was a big word for 7-year-old boys.  I’m certain that we focused on remembering the Latin responses and pronouncing them correctly, knowing which altar step to kneel on, exactly when to retrieve the priest’s biretta from the predella, etc.  

Were there any particular people who helped develop your faith in the Eucharist?  

Our house was always decorated with holy pictures: in the kitchen, dining room, parlor, and our bedrooms.  There were a few statues around, too, and I credit my mother with those touches.  I always tell people that my mom was a true saint.  Not that she was canonized or beatified or anything official like that, but in my book, she was a saint.  My perception is probably aided by the fact that her name was Mary.  My father, not so much a saint.  Very often I felt a disconnect between what we learned in church and how life was lived in the home.  There were a lot of consecrated religious on my mom’s side of the family, both men and women, and although I can’t point specifically to memories of them modeling a uniquely Eucharistic faith for me, they were strong Catholic role models.  In retrospect, I learned more by how they lived rather than what they said.

 

Growing up, I participated in Adoration and Forty Hours Devotions, Benediction on Sunday nights at St. Francis.  Four years before I entered the monastery in 2005, I made the first of four (so far) trips to Chile to learn about a radical lay Benedictine movement, The Manquehue Apostolic Movement. “Manquehue,” as it is often called, maintains 3 excellent schools in and around Santiago.  Without question, Manquehue took me to another level of understanding of the Eucharist.  But it wasn’t until a few months before I entered Saint Louis Abbey that I experienced something I had never seen before.  

In late September 2004, I attended the Crossroads Catholic Music Festival in Steeleville, Missouri, in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, west of St. Louis.  I accompanied an English confrere, Fr. Ralph Wright OSB, who was to hear confessions and serve as the priest-on-site for the weekend.  One of the organizers was quoted by the Catholic News Agency as saying, “We hope people will make use of this chance to prepare for adoration in the evening, which is really the high-point and spiritual focus of the day.”  I rented a cabin for the two of us and we were joined also by a former university student of mine, Jim Butz, whose family members were the very Catholic owners and caretakers of the Eagle Hurst Ranch.  What astounded me that night was the sight of hundreds of young people who prostrated themselves in adoration on the macadam of the outdoor basketball court and any available areas surrounding it.  I had never seen anything like it.

Years later, in 2008 while living and studying in Italy, I chaperoned my parish group at Italy Youth Day in Loreto, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea.  Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass against the backdrop of the water with tenor Andrea Bocelli singing at the Mass, attended by a million people, according to official estimates.  The previous night I prayed at the largest gathering I had ever seen for Eucharistic Adoration anywhere, snug in my sacco a pelo (sleeping bag) under the stars of the Tuscan night sky.

 

As a monk, I often served early on at the altar as the acolyte for Mass.  Similar to my duties as that 7-year-old altar boy back in the 1950’s and later, I was able to be in close proximity to the celebrant as he fractured the host, said the prayers of consecration, and transformed the substance of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.  I continue to be in awe of what I am seeing, of what I am hearing, and ultimately of what I am still believing to this day.  It remains the “source and summit” for me.