Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.  Mk 14:26

This last sentence from the story of the Last Supper stuck with me, as perhaps the last line of a story is meant to do. The story told was of Jesus preparing and sharing the gift of the Holy Eucharist with his disciples and then asking them to do the same in his memory. Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.  For Jesus, this is where, as we might say in modern language, “the rubber met the road.”  His suffering and his future became very real to him. 

I was thinking how the same is true for all of us as well.  We gather together to pray, to break bread, to sing hymns, but we each must also journey out to our own Mount of Olives, to the place where we share in the suffering of Christ, where real life is lived out. We must take the Eucharistic nourishment with us as we leave the comfort of the table and we must take that which we have become, the Body of Christ, out into the world.  

You come onto your yoga mat to center your being on the Divine Mystery, to gather as the Body of Christ through embodied prayer.  There you are nourished with the Word of God, with the blessings of community, with the breath of God flowing through you. As we leave our mats and go out into our own community, it is this spiritual nourishment that we take with us.  We become witnesses to the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding and we become the Body of Christ in the world lived out through the body and spirit of each one of us. 

Final line to this story? 

Fully Alive Yoga has never been
just about becoming flexible.

Together we are the Tribe of Fully Alive Yoga.  
Together we are the Body of Christ.