At their June meeting in Dallas, the U.S. bishops designated this Aug. 14 a day of prayer and fasting for themselves.

The object, they said, would be to do penance for their failures to prevent priests from sexually abusing minors.

That certainly makes next Wednesday an important day for all American Catholics. It wouldn't hurt any of us to fast with the bishops that day and to pray for them.

But Aug. 14 is significant for another reason as well — one that is far more encouraging and joyful. As the bishops offer their prayers of penance, Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez, archbishop of Santo Domingo and cardinal primate of the Americas, will celebrate Mass in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The sentence is a mouthfull. But it's worth saying, because the cardinal's Mass will be celebrated to mark the 500th anniversary of the very first Mass celebrated on the soil of the Americas.

The first American Mass was celebrated in Honduras in 1502, during the fourth and final voyage of Christopher Columbus to “the New World.” One presumes that Columbus himself was present at the Mass, but, as far as I have been able to learn, the name of the priest who celebrated that Mass is lost to history.

It seems worthwhile to reflect on the past 500 years from the perspective of this celebration. How many Masses have been celebrated in the Americas since that first one? Millions, certainly.

Countless priests have offered them. Some of these have been bishops, cardinals, even a couple of popes. Most, though, have been offered by simple priests. In parishes, in missions, in convents and monasteries — the great preponderance of Masses have been celebrated by priests as nameless to history as the one who offered that first Mass here 500 years ago.

Some of those millions of Masses have been celebrated by saints and heroes. One hundred and forty years after that first Mass in Honduras, Jesuit Fathers Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf celebrated Mass near Lake Superior, even as their very lives were threatened (and later taken) because of the work they did to make known the mystery they celebrated.

A little more than 300 years after that, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot in El Salvador while celebrating one of those millions of Masses, because what he celebrated daily in that sacrament compelled him to demand justice for the people entrusted to his care. Much more recently, Archbishop Isaias Duarte died in Colombia for similar reasons. He was leaving a church after celebrating a wedding Mass.

How many times has Communion been received, and by how many laity and religious, at all those millions of Masses? It is awesome to consider the grace that has been offered and received through the Masses celebrated here since that first one. Awesome, too, to consider what that grace has done in the lives of those it entered.

Martin de Porres was there in the pews in Peru. Juan Diego in Mexico. And Frances Xavier Cabrini in the United States. And many holy men and women unknown to just about everyone. Their sanctity, though hidden, has sustained the faith on this soil for five centuries.

Without a doubt, many sinners have offered Mass, too. And that is fitting as well. “Two sorts of people ought to go to Mass frequently,” said St. Francis de Sales. “The saints in order to remain so, and those who are not saints, in order to becomes saints.” I know which group I'm in. Thank God, then, for all those sinners at all those Masses.

The Mass celebrated by Cardinal Rodriguez in Honduras will be a remarkable occasion, and I wish I were able to be there. I'd like to think these thoughts and pray prayers of thanks for them “on location.” But there is no reason that a little city in Honduras should be the only place that the anniversary is commemorated.

At your local parish church this coming Wednesday, morning Mass will no doubt be offered in celebration of the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe. In 1502, of course, only God knew that Father Kolbe would one day exist.

Why not make it a point to attend Mass that day? Do it to join with our bishops in prayer but also to give thanks for the gift of the Mass, and for the gift of the faith in North and South America. Attend and receive the Communion that unites you to our Lord and to the people who make up his Church throughout the Americas and elsewhere — indeed, throughout the entire earth.

Attend, and then leave the Mass more determined than ever to make your own personal sojourn through life in your own little corner of the Americas something worthwhile — something that makes the love of God more present, the mercy of God more palpable, the glory of God more honored.

When they are one day celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of the first Mass offered in the Americas (presuming God does not call a close to history in the meantime), what will they remember of the Masses celebrated here and now? Who are the holy and courageous priests they'll remember as offering those Masses? Who are the laity who will end up heroes and saints from the grace received when they walked up in the Communion line?

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Barry Michaels writes from Blairsville, Pennsylvania.