Long story short: I had been living in the abandoned baptistry of an inner-city church. (I had always wanted to do this so that there would be a church open somewhere in the city day and night and a priest always available.)

That night, around 1 A.M., my door flew open and a voice cried out, "Father, there’s a guy just been shot in the parking lot!"

I put on some street clothes and rushed to the parking lot, which was across the street from a very dangerous neighborhood bar. There I went up to the only car in the lot. The door on the driver’s side was open, and a body was lying half in and half out of the car.

Almost simultaneously a patrol car was on the scene and, for the first time ever, I heard that word "Freeze!" And I knew that a police officer with a loaded gun was backing that word!

Thank God it didn’t take long to settle the situation. One of the officers knew who I was, and so did some of the neighbors who had already begun to gather.

That first police officer had done what he had to do, but I’ll never forget the chilling effect of that word at 1 a.m.. "Freeze!"

The second time in my life I heard that word, or something similar, was at the international charismatic gathering at Notre Dame University (in my home diocese) some time in the 1970s.

I had come to the gathering because I wanted the Spirit to do whatever the Spirit wanted to do. I was not, however, into waving my hands as a form of worship.

At one point in the event, caught up in what was happening, I started to lift high my arms. But as soon as I realized what I was doing, I began to sheepishly bring them back down again.

Suddenly in my heart it was like I heard, "Freeze! Put your hands back up!"

"But, Lord it’s…."

"Do it! Now!"

Long story short: that day the Spirit and I became very good friends—though I don’t ordinarily wave my hands over my head anymore.

The third and final "freeze!" thus far in my life was a bit different from the first two, but I can see now that all three of them worked together to bring me to the next moment I am going to tell you about.

For a long time, I had been offering Mass alone most of the time. I was living in poustinia and thus had no formal congregation.

This was not an easy thing for me to adjust to, since I had been so involved in the renewal (?) of Eucharistic life at the parish level.

In fact, it was so foreign for me to (quote) say Mass alone (unquote) that my spiritual director had to put me under obedience to do so. Little by little it had become more acceptable, but it still felt quite strange. I mean, what do you do after, "The Lord be with you" and there is nobody to answer, "and also with you"?

I knew the theology behind the Eucharistic celebration, and so I knew in some very real, though mystical fashion, that all the angels and saints were present, but theology and experience can be worlds apart. These two worlds had not yet come together for me in connection with saying Mass alone.

One night at Mass I closed my eyes and began to raise my arms to pray the Our Father. When they were about hip-high, suddenly I couldn’t raise them any higher. It felt like another "Freeze!" So I stopped.

Then all of a sudden it was as if someone on my right and someone else on my left put their hands into mine. It was really weird!

I opened my eyes and looked to the right and the left and "imagined" a whole crowd of people with hands joined. Some I knew and some I didn’t. Then we all closed our eyes and prayed the Our Father together.

When it came time for the Sign of Peace, there they were again! And at Holy Communion, it was like I was giving them Communion when I myself took the Sacred Host. Through the whole Mass we didn’t have to say anything to each other. We were all simply there in "communion."

And then I sensed a presence so immense I could not have put a number on it. Angels?

Long story short: I have never said Mass alone since. There are always lots of folk present. How so? Because at Mass the two worlds come together. The theology about the Communion of Angels and Saints and the Souls in Purgatory, all of us together at Mass, is real.

But the Holy Spirit had to put me under obedience ("Freeze!") to say Mass alone against all of my own pastoral intuitions and emotions ("Freeze!") before I could even begin to be aware of the presence of angels and saints and all my departed brothers and sisters right there with me to my right and left and all around me during Mass. And that sense has never left me.

Did I really hear the Holy Spirit tell me not to put my arms down at that gathering in Notre Dame? Did I really see those people in my little room at the Our Father, embrace them at the Sign of Peace, and see angels at Communion time? No! I’m not that "wholly" yet!

But were they all really present there in that room? Yes, indeed they were, they are, and it has nothing to do whatsoever with being holy!

We are never alone at Mass. That is precisely what we mean when we talk about the Communion of Angels and Saints and All Souls. This is one of the most endearing teachings of our Catholic Faith, a teaching which we celebrate in a special fashion during the month of November.

Part of the essence of that dogma is that we have to "freeze" our minds and emotions now and then in obedience to the Spirit so that he can open our hearts to things we cannot see with our eyes. And if we do not eventually see, then faith becomes very flat and very dull.

Then, for us, Mass is no longer about angels and Communion and saints, no longer about all those wonderful "heavenly" things going on side-by-side in every church throughout the world.

Mass becomes either a high-powered gathering of people who like to sing and praise or a gathering that is, at best, quite boring. Either of those, my friends, is a Eucharistic crime scene!

No wonder the Holy Spirit has to interrupt us: "Freeze!" "Stop!"

Stop at the holy water font and say the names of individual people who have also put their fingers into a holy water font, be they family, friends, ancestors or saints.

Stop for a moment as you say the Creed and imagine people—family, friends, ancestors, saints—who have also prayed that creed.

Stop for a moment as you take the Body of Christ into your hands and imagine people—family, friends, ancestors, or saints—who have also taken Communion.

Stop and imagine all the angels who Sacred Scripture tells us are present "at the altar of the Lamb" and listen for the song of the saints, all of them in communion with you personally, right now as you sing the Communion hymn.

Yes, we need to stop and let the Holy Spirit teach us, in the simplest ways possible, how to discover a whole new sense of the Communion of Saints, a whole new "congregation" present at every Mass with us, to say nothing of our own Guardian Angel and all of our deceased brothers and sisters.

But most of all we need to discover that what we think we are doing in our parish church to which the angels and saints are invited "theologically," is actually taking place in heaven. And, the fact is, they are inviting us to join them at Mass there! It’s not the other way around.

"I beg your pardon, Father! Would you run that one by me again?"

"Freeze!"