Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16
Psalm 147.12-13, 14-15, 19-20 Resp. 12a
1 Corinthians 10.16-17
Lauda Sion
John 6.51-58
Manna is a kind of food that appeared on the ground each morning from the time that the Israelites left Egypt until the day that they ate the fruit of the promised land. Manna was free food: the only work was going out each morning to gather it up. Manna was abundant food: it fed 2 million people for forty years. Later generations of Israelites looked back on the time in the desert as a blessed time, depending entirely on providence for survival.
There were three lessons concerning manna. First, no one was to gather more than they needed. Each person was allotted one omer of manna a day, a little less than a gallon. When they went out to gather the manna, some people gathered a lot and others gathered a little, but everyone ended up with one omer per person. Whether this is the result of a miracle or if it means that those with too much shared with those who did not have enough, the lesson for us is the same: we should not take more of this world’s resources than we need. If we have too much, we should share with those who do not have enough to satisfy their needs.
The second lesson of the manna is that it must not be kept overnight. The Israelites had to trust that the manna would be out on the ground again the next morning. Those who tried to keep the manna overnight found that in the morning it was full of worms and smelled terrible. From this rule we should learn not to hoard the riches of this world. True, we are not wandering in the desert with manna appearing on the ground each day. It is very reasonable to save money: to save enough in case of a surprise car repair, to save enough in case you lose your job, but do not hoard money.
Some people collect money and property as if they only wanted to see how much they could have, as if they were competing in a game with the other rich people of this world. I do not refer only to millionaires and billionaires. Consider the very idea of collecting something. It is so acceptable in this culture to say, “I collect hippopotami”, but we Christians should look in horror at the idea of spending time and money, whether on ceramic doodads or unnecessary power tools. We are travelers in this world; pack lightly!
The third lesson of the manna is that on Friday the Israelites gathered enough for two days so that they would not go out on the Sabbath. This is a lesson we ought to take to heart. There is so little respect today for resting on the Lord’s Day. Six days a week have been given us to work; we must rest on the seventh day.
But how should we rest on Sundays? The usual forms of rest in our culture (ball games, shopping, and restaurants) involve someone else serving us. Should we sit home then and watch TV? A proper understanding of Sunday rest begins with what we all must do on Sundays: go to Mass. The point of Sunday is to worship God. Anything else we do is peripheral.
There is an old joke about a man who asked his pastor whether it was okay to smoke while he prayed. His pastor said, “Absolutely not! When you pray you should be completely devoted to prayer.” So the man went to another priest, but he changed his question, “Would it be okay to pray while I smoke?”
We Christians do not begin with a rule, because every rule has loopholes. We begin with the Holy Spirit. Our Sundays should be about praising God. Mass is not something to be fit in around a busy schedule. Mass comes first, everything else can be planned afterward. Those who work on Sunday should insist on having time to go to Mass, and they should take another day to praise God by resting.
Together, the three lessons of the manna teach us that we were not made for survival. The point of our lives cannot be getting through to tomorrow at any cost. We certainly were not made to succeed as the world sees success, with piles of money and stuff. Survival is secondary to praising God. As Moses puts it, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
The lessons of the manna were so important, so foundational to the Jewish religion that Moses took one omer of manna and placed it in the Ark of the Covenant, a box covered in gold. The Ark was placed at the center of worship. The Jewish Temple was merely a house for the Ark, and the Ark was a container for the manna. So really, the manna was at the center of Jewish worship, this special bread which God had given to his people.
Do you see where I am going with this? This temple, this church, is really just a house for that box right there. That box is the Ark of the Covenant, which is also called the tabernacle. Within the tabernacle, we place a portion of the bread. It is not ordinary bread that we put in the tabernacle. Indeed, it is not really bread at all. The bread is a symbol, which is to say, we see bread, we taste bread, but the meaning of the bread is something more. What is the something more? It is Jesus Christ, his Body, his Blood, his Soul, and his Divinity.
The bread is a sacrament, which is to say, it does not only symbolize this, but it in reality is Jesus Christ: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. When we receive the symbol of bread, we actually receive Jesus Christ. When we see bread and kneel down in worship, we are actually worshipping Jesus Christ. This is a mystery. It is not clear to us how something can have the accidents of bread, the sight, the smell, the taste of bread, the atoms and molecules of bread, but in reality be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. It is not clear to us, but that is not important. Jesus did not give us this sacrament and say, “Take and understand; this is my body.” No, he said “Take and eat; this is my body.”
We must believe that the bread is, as the Church tells us, as Jesus told the Church, actually his Body. We must believe that the wine is, as the Church tells us, as Jesus told the Church, actually his Blood. This belief is not a nice addition to our faith. We place the Eucharist at the very center of our worship, because it defines who we are.
Faith in the Eucharist is where we must begin. All other work in the Church is pointless unless we begin with the Eucharist. It is pointless to protest abortion unless the Eucharist is at the center of our work. It is pointless to give food to the hungry unless this food given to us by God is satisfying our hunger. We as a Church are not a gathering of people who like doing good things. We are a gathering of people around the Eucharist. The good things come later.
Christianity without the Eucharist would be like Judaism without manna, just a lot of laws. From the Eucharist we receive our mission from God and the spiritual energy to complete that mission. If we receive the Eucharist with faith in the mystery, and we receive it acknowledging that we want to serve God above all else, confessing every sin we have committed, rejecting any plans to commit sin in the future, then we will be transformed.
Jesus Christ came to earth to give his life for us and to us. He gave his life for us on the Cross. He gives his life to us in the Eucharist. When we receive the Eucharist, we hold the life of God in our hands. We eat the life of God. We become what we eat. Eventually we do not live anymore ourselves, but Christ lives in us. That is what the Eucharist is about.
Daily Homilies
Showing posts with label Eucharist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eucharist. Show all posts
December 3, 2012 - Monday of the First Week of Advent
Today's Readings
How marvelous that we have restored to us this verse from the Gospels. The centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” We repeat these words at every Mass, changing “servant” to “soul” because we are not asking for the healing of someone else but for our own healing.
Why do we repeat this at every Mass? It is because we are about to receive Communion, and it is most appropriate that we should say something signifying great faith, for we would not dare approach the sacred sacrifice without faith. Now we could say something like, “Jesus I believe in you” or “Jesus you are the Christ, the Son of God, God himself”, but we say this phrase instead. Why? Because Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith.” If Jesus considered these words to be the highest expression of faith that he found, why would we say anything else?
We should know what we are saying though, since simply pronouncing the words is not an act of faith unless we mean them. Jesus offers to come heal the centurion’s servant, as he had healed many people. We know that Jesus can heal without touch, even from a far way off. He is God. He can do everything. The centurion is telling Jesus that he knows that the actual coming to the house and laying on of hands is an unnecessary part of the healing. He is telling Jesus that he has faith in Jesus’ power and does not need the external helps to faith.
He is also asserting his faith by acknowledging that he is not worthy to have Jesus enter under his roof. The centurion was an officer in the Roman army. He was a great man as the world judges greatness, yet he judged that Jesus was greater yet. He sees in addition to the power some less definable characteristic: holiness.
In this one sentence the centurion states that Jesus, though he looks like an ordinary human, is nevertheless very powerful and very holy. No wonder then that Jesus praised the faith of this man. When we repeat his words at each Mass before receiving Communion, we acknowledge the same reality: what looks like bread and wine is nevertheless very powerful and very holy.
How marvelous that we have restored to us this verse from the Gospels. The centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” We repeat these words at every Mass, changing “servant” to “soul” because we are not asking for the healing of someone else but for our own healing.
Why do we repeat this at every Mass? It is because we are about to receive Communion, and it is most appropriate that we should say something signifying great faith, for we would not dare approach the sacred sacrifice without faith. Now we could say something like, “Jesus I believe in you” or “Jesus you are the Christ, the Son of God, God himself”, but we say this phrase instead. Why? Because Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith.” If Jesus considered these words to be the highest expression of faith that he found, why would we say anything else?
We should know what we are saying though, since simply pronouncing the words is not an act of faith unless we mean them. Jesus offers to come heal the centurion’s servant, as he had healed many people. We know that Jesus can heal without touch, even from a far way off. He is God. He can do everything. The centurion is telling Jesus that he knows that the actual coming to the house and laying on of hands is an unnecessary part of the healing. He is telling Jesus that he has faith in Jesus’ power and does not need the external helps to faith.
He is also asserting his faith by acknowledging that he is not worthy to have Jesus enter under his roof. The centurion was an officer in the Roman army. He was a great man as the world judges greatness, yet he judged that Jesus was greater yet. He sees in addition to the power some less definable characteristic: holiness.
In this one sentence the centurion states that Jesus, though he looks like an ordinary human, is nevertheless very powerful and very holy. No wonder then that Jesus praised the faith of this man. When we repeat his words at each Mass before receiving Communion, we acknowledge the same reality: what looks like bread and wine is nevertheless very powerful and very holy.
August 19, 2012 - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Proverbs 9:1-6
Psalm 34:2-7
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
All throughout the Old Testament, the theme of redemption through eating is present. We repeated in our psalm today, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Did the psalmist even what they meant when they wrote that? But eating leads to seeing the goodness of the Lord. In the first reading today, Wisdom has prepared a meal for us to eat: “Come, eat some of my bread. Drink some of the wine which I have mixed!” And these things were written almost a thousand years before Jesus Christ came and fulfilled them.
Have you ever noticed that the original sin was eating, and that the greatest sacrament is eating? It was by eating that we were kicked out of the garden. It is by eating that we are restored to heaven. The first words which it is recorded that God spoke to man were “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” Now Jesus says, “"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” This new meal will restore what that other meal took away.
After Adam and Eve ate the fruit they got kicked out of Eden. Why? God tells us why. There was another tree there, the tree of life. God said, “‘Now, lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...’ Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.” So God sent us out of Eden in order to save us from the curse of living forever. It would be a curse to live forever in this current state of sinfulness. We are so cruel to each other. Torture, war, and all the other evils we inflict on each other be so much worse without death to put an end to it.
Now, however, Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” This eternal life is not simply living forever; it is a participation in the life of God. It restores us to the blessed life before sin and even beyond that, for if 99 sheep stay in fold and 1 runs away and the shepherd goes and carries that 1 back on his shoulders, that 1 will be more in love with the shepherd than the 99 who never strayed.
The sin of Eden was so bad. We had everything we needed provided for us by the same one who gave us life itself, but we insisted on reaching out and taking more. Enough was not enough. We had everything we could ever want, but we insisted on wanting what we did not have. How ungrateful! So Jesus Christ, in order to restore us to grace, gave us the greatest gift that we could possibly have. What more could we want, now that we have God himself? But people doubt the gift. They say that the bread is nothing but bread and the wine is nothing but wine. We say that the bread is the Body of Christ and the wine is the Blood of Christ. We believe in the simplicity of taking Jesus at his word: “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” Trying to take that metaphorically requires a too complicated, convoluted way of thinking.
It is difficult to understand how what looks like bread is actually the Body of Christ. We have to choose to be humble and say that there are more things in this world than we know. I cannot say how it is that a piece of bread, while retaining the physical aspects of bread, is no longer bread but the Body of Christ, but Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, blessed it and said, “Take this all of you and eat it. This is my Body”, and who am I to doubt Jesus Christ?
I also want to also speak a little about the second reading today. The translation we have here is very unfortunate: trying to make things clearer, they made it more difficult to understand. What St. Paul actually says here is “watch carefully that you walk not as the foolish but as the wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” This line speaks to us today. Evil means empty, lacking in some good that should be there. When Jesus Christ redeemed us, we were lacking in something and he gave it to us. We were lacking life, and he gave us the life that he has with the Father and the Holy Spirit. So the days are evil, and St. Paul tells us that it is our responsibility to redeem them. These days are lacking something, and it is our responsibility to fill them.
It is possible in our culture to get obsessed with our rights and our freedom. People say, “I am free to do whatever I want. I have the right to do whatever I want.” But what about responsibility? Who cares what I have a right to do; what do I have a responsibility to do? What should I do with my time? We do not have a right to kill time. We have a responsibility to redeem it.
Please understand that this does not mean that we cannot rest. Real rest, a good night’s sleep, reading a good book, watching well written television is a necessary part of life. Real rest is one of the things lacking in our world. Real rest redeems the time. But, I tell you, Angry Birds?! I do not think that the time has ever been redeemed by Angry Birds. Facebook can redeem the time if it is building human relationships, but Farmville? If you do not know what any of these things are, congratulations. They are pointless games that waste hours upon hours, but we all have our own Angry Birds: certain books of no redeeming value, soap operas, game shows, endless hours of sports. It would be good to stop ourselves constantly and ask, “How is the thing I am doing right now redeeming the time?” If the answer is that it isn’t, stop doing it. It is not enough that we have a right to do whatever we want each day. Life only has a meaning if we redeem the time.
Psalm 34:2-7
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
All throughout the Old Testament, the theme of redemption through eating is present. We repeated in our psalm today, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Did the psalmist even what they meant when they wrote that? But eating leads to seeing the goodness of the Lord. In the first reading today, Wisdom has prepared a meal for us to eat: “Come, eat some of my bread. Drink some of the wine which I have mixed!” And these things were written almost a thousand years before Jesus Christ came and fulfilled them.
Have you ever noticed that the original sin was eating, and that the greatest sacrament is eating? It was by eating that we were kicked out of the garden. It is by eating that we are restored to heaven. The first words which it is recorded that God spoke to man were “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” Now Jesus says, “"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” This new meal will restore what that other meal took away.
After Adam and Eve ate the fruit they got kicked out of Eden. Why? God tells us why. There was another tree there, the tree of life. God said, “‘Now, lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...’ Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.” So God sent us out of Eden in order to save us from the curse of living forever. It would be a curse to live forever in this current state of sinfulness. We are so cruel to each other. Torture, war, and all the other evils we inflict on each other be so much worse without death to put an end to it.
Now, however, Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” This eternal life is not simply living forever; it is a participation in the life of God. It restores us to the blessed life before sin and even beyond that, for if 99 sheep stay in fold and 1 runs away and the shepherd goes and carries that 1 back on his shoulders, that 1 will be more in love with the shepherd than the 99 who never strayed.
The sin of Eden was so bad. We had everything we needed provided for us by the same one who gave us life itself, but we insisted on reaching out and taking more. Enough was not enough. We had everything we could ever want, but we insisted on wanting what we did not have. How ungrateful! So Jesus Christ, in order to restore us to grace, gave us the greatest gift that we could possibly have. What more could we want, now that we have God himself? But people doubt the gift. They say that the bread is nothing but bread and the wine is nothing but wine. We say that the bread is the Body of Christ and the wine is the Blood of Christ. We believe in the simplicity of taking Jesus at his word: “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” Trying to take that metaphorically requires a too complicated, convoluted way of thinking.
It is difficult to understand how what looks like bread is actually the Body of Christ. We have to choose to be humble and say that there are more things in this world than we know. I cannot say how it is that a piece of bread, while retaining the physical aspects of bread, is no longer bread but the Body of Christ, but Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, blessed it and said, “Take this all of you and eat it. This is my Body”, and who am I to doubt Jesus Christ?
I also want to also speak a little about the second reading today. The translation we have here is very unfortunate: trying to make things clearer, they made it more difficult to understand. What St. Paul actually says here is “watch carefully that you walk not as the foolish but as the wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” This line speaks to us today. Evil means empty, lacking in some good that should be there. When Jesus Christ redeemed us, we were lacking in something and he gave it to us. We were lacking life, and he gave us the life that he has with the Father and the Holy Spirit. So the days are evil, and St. Paul tells us that it is our responsibility to redeem them. These days are lacking something, and it is our responsibility to fill them.
It is possible in our culture to get obsessed with our rights and our freedom. People say, “I am free to do whatever I want. I have the right to do whatever I want.” But what about responsibility? Who cares what I have a right to do; what do I have a responsibility to do? What should I do with my time? We do not have a right to kill time. We have a responsibility to redeem it.
Please understand that this does not mean that we cannot rest. Real rest, a good night’s sleep, reading a good book, watching well written television is a necessary part of life. Real rest is one of the things lacking in our world. Real rest redeems the time. But, I tell you, Angry Birds?! I do not think that the time has ever been redeemed by Angry Birds. Facebook can redeem the time if it is building human relationships, but Farmville? If you do not know what any of these things are, congratulations. They are pointless games that waste hours upon hours, but we all have our own Angry Birds: certain books of no redeeming value, soap operas, game shows, endless hours of sports. It would be good to stop ourselves constantly and ask, “How is the thing I am doing right now redeeming the time?” If the answer is that it isn’t, stop doing it. It is not enough that we have a right to do whatever we want each day. Life only has a meaning if we redeem the time.
August 12, 2012 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalm 34:2-9
Ephesians 4:30-5:2
John 6:41-51
Nothing is impossible if God wants us to do it. God will provide what we need so that we can do what he wants us to do. He wanted the Israelites to wander in the desert for 40 years, so he provided bread that fell from the sky. He wanted Elijah to walk to Mount Horeb so he provided cake in the desert. The Israelites complained that the manna lacked variety after 40 years, but it was enough. The angel of God made sure that Elijah ate and drank enough for his journey. God has provided what we needed to do what he wants us to do.
Sometimes I think that I do not have enough time, but enough time for what? God has given us all the time in the world, 60 minutes every hour. It is enough time to do what God wants you to do. Perhaps I cannot impress in that amount of time, perhaps I cannot succeed at some self-appointed task in that amount of time, but it is plenty of time. What does God tell us to do? Love him and love our neighbor. How much time do we need to do that? None at all. We do that in the moment. We work at a task, maybe we finish, maybe not, but if we work with all our strength in the moment that is all we are responsible for.
Jesus tells us in another place that we ought to look to the flowers of the field that live in the moment and are provided for by God. They do not have bank accounts. They are not racing against time. They grow and then they die. In every moment they have enough to do what God wants them to do. We always have enough to do what God wants us to do. We might not see tomorrow’s sufficiency today, and we might not have enough to do what we want to do, and we certainly do not have enough to do what the world tells us we ought to do, but we do have enough right now to do what God wants us to do.
St. Paul tries to spell that out in the letter to the Ephesians today. Get rid of bitterness. Get rid of fury. Get rid of anger. Get rid of shouting. Get rid of mocking. Get rid of all evil desires. If we do that, we will be amazed at how much energy and time were consumed by them. Be kind to each other. Be compassionate. Forgive one another. Be imitators of God. So we have to ask ourselves whether, right now, in this moment, we have everything we need to do all that, and the answer is yes. Life is not easy. In fact, God promised Adam when he ate the fruit that it was going to be hard from now on and end in death. That is our lot. Heaven is our future. Right now we have enough to love other people.
So when God gives us something above and beyond our daily bread, our daily enough, we ought to respond by asking a simple question: “What is this for?” Is it just a little present to be enjoyed in the moment, to make us happy. Is it a gift for someone else that we are responsible for, given to us so that we can give it to another? Is it part of someone else’s daily bread?
And so what about the gift that Jesus gives today in the Gospel, or rather promises to give and then does give later? “The bread that I will give”, he says “is my flesh for the life of the world.” So he tells us what he is going to give, and then he tells us the purpose. He is going to give his flesh. And he gave his flesh, his Body and Blood. All of us are gathered here today to receive this gift. We could stay home and read the Bible, and we could listen to somebody preach on TV, and we could gather together at a park, and there are coffee and donuts at any number of fine restaurants in this city. The reason we are gathered here right now is to receive a gift: the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
And the purpose of this gift, according to Jesus, is the life of the world. What sort of life? Eternal life. When we eat this living Bread and drink this living Wine, the life is in us and we become alive. Normal bread and wine simply keeps us alive, staves off death another day, but this living Bread and living Wine imparts life to us that we previously lacked. It is the final piece of enough. Before we had enough to do what we could do, but, with this gift, we now have enough to do something more, to be imitators of God, to become like Christ.
An old proverb says: “when you sit down to eat a meal with a king, before you reach out your hand and take the food, observe carefully all the different dishes, the quality and the quantity, knowing that you will have to provide the same kind of meal.” We come to a meal provided by a king, our Lord Jesus Christ. Every day we approach the altar and partake of this meal. So, let us take a moment to consider the kind of meal before us, knowing that we will have to provide the same.
It seems to be just bread and wine, but in reality it is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Our king provides himself for the meal. He gave his Body and Blood on the Cross. Before we receive it, we ought to know that receiving obliges us to provide the same. He has given us his Body and Blood, so we must give him our body and blood, our very selves. Some Christians do this in martyrdom. Their blood is spilled and their bodies are beaten and they give themselves to Christ. There are some martyrs dying right now. Every day 500 Christians are martyred. Every day 500 Christians fulfill in their own bodies the suffering of Jesus Christ. Who knows if we will be called to be martyrs someday! In the meantime, we give ourselves completely according to the witness of the martyrs. We receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and every day we return the gift by using our strength, our time, our possessions, and everything we have been given to love God and serve him, to love other people and serve them.
Psalm 34:2-9
Ephesians 4:30-5:2
John 6:41-51
Nothing is impossible if God wants us to do it. God will provide what we need so that we can do what he wants us to do. He wanted the Israelites to wander in the desert for 40 years, so he provided bread that fell from the sky. He wanted Elijah to walk to Mount Horeb so he provided cake in the desert. The Israelites complained that the manna lacked variety after 40 years, but it was enough. The angel of God made sure that Elijah ate and drank enough for his journey. God has provided what we needed to do what he wants us to do.
Sometimes I think that I do not have enough time, but enough time for what? God has given us all the time in the world, 60 minutes every hour. It is enough time to do what God wants you to do. Perhaps I cannot impress in that amount of time, perhaps I cannot succeed at some self-appointed task in that amount of time, but it is plenty of time. What does God tell us to do? Love him and love our neighbor. How much time do we need to do that? None at all. We do that in the moment. We work at a task, maybe we finish, maybe not, but if we work with all our strength in the moment that is all we are responsible for.
Jesus tells us in another place that we ought to look to the flowers of the field that live in the moment and are provided for by God. They do not have bank accounts. They are not racing against time. They grow and then they die. In every moment they have enough to do what God wants them to do. We always have enough to do what God wants us to do. We might not see tomorrow’s sufficiency today, and we might not have enough to do what we want to do, and we certainly do not have enough to do what the world tells us we ought to do, but we do have enough right now to do what God wants us to do.
St. Paul tries to spell that out in the letter to the Ephesians today. Get rid of bitterness. Get rid of fury. Get rid of anger. Get rid of shouting. Get rid of mocking. Get rid of all evil desires. If we do that, we will be amazed at how much energy and time were consumed by them. Be kind to each other. Be compassionate. Forgive one another. Be imitators of God. So we have to ask ourselves whether, right now, in this moment, we have everything we need to do all that, and the answer is yes. Life is not easy. In fact, God promised Adam when he ate the fruit that it was going to be hard from now on and end in death. That is our lot. Heaven is our future. Right now we have enough to love other people.
So when God gives us something above and beyond our daily bread, our daily enough, we ought to respond by asking a simple question: “What is this for?” Is it just a little present to be enjoyed in the moment, to make us happy. Is it a gift for someone else that we are responsible for, given to us so that we can give it to another? Is it part of someone else’s daily bread?
And so what about the gift that Jesus gives today in the Gospel, or rather promises to give and then does give later? “The bread that I will give”, he says “is my flesh for the life of the world.” So he tells us what he is going to give, and then he tells us the purpose. He is going to give his flesh. And he gave his flesh, his Body and Blood. All of us are gathered here today to receive this gift. We could stay home and read the Bible, and we could listen to somebody preach on TV, and we could gather together at a park, and there are coffee and donuts at any number of fine restaurants in this city. The reason we are gathered here right now is to receive a gift: the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
And the purpose of this gift, according to Jesus, is the life of the world. What sort of life? Eternal life. When we eat this living Bread and drink this living Wine, the life is in us and we become alive. Normal bread and wine simply keeps us alive, staves off death another day, but this living Bread and living Wine imparts life to us that we previously lacked. It is the final piece of enough. Before we had enough to do what we could do, but, with this gift, we now have enough to do something more, to be imitators of God, to become like Christ.
An old proverb says: “when you sit down to eat a meal with a king, before you reach out your hand and take the food, observe carefully all the different dishes, the quality and the quantity, knowing that you will have to provide the same kind of meal.” We come to a meal provided by a king, our Lord Jesus Christ. Every day we approach the altar and partake of this meal. So, let us take a moment to consider the kind of meal before us, knowing that we will have to provide the same.
It seems to be just bread and wine, but in reality it is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Our king provides himself for the meal. He gave his Body and Blood on the Cross. Before we receive it, we ought to know that receiving obliges us to provide the same. He has given us his Body and Blood, so we must give him our body and blood, our very selves. Some Christians do this in martyrdom. Their blood is spilled and their bodies are beaten and they give themselves to Christ. There are some martyrs dying right now. Every day 500 Christians are martyred. Every day 500 Christians fulfill in their own bodies the suffering of Jesus Christ. Who knows if we will be called to be martyrs someday! In the meantime, we give ourselves completely according to the witness of the martyrs. We receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and every day we return the gift by using our strength, our time, our possessions, and everything we have been given to love God and serve him, to love other people and serve them.
July 29, 2012 - Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-11, 15-18
Ephesians 4:1-6
John 6:1-15
If someone were to go through the Old Testament and rank people according to how impressive the miracles they did were, the list would probably start with Moses, then Elijah, then Elisha. Elisha was the servant of Elijah, and when Elijah went up into heaven on a chariot of fire, he left Elisha a double portion of his spirit which allowed Elisha to work miracles like Elijah did.
So the contrast today between our first reading and our Gospel is very significant. Elisha fed 100 men with 20 barley loaves. Jesus fed 5000 men with 5 barley loaves, and he provided a fish side dish. He proves thereby that his is greater than Elisha, and not just a little bit greater. Elijah fed 3 people with a little flour and some oil for a couple years, which is impressive, but Jesus still has him beat with this miracle. Now Moses fed 2 million people with bread from heaven for over 40 years, but as we are going to hear over the next few weeks, Jesus has him beat too because he has fed billions of Christians with his Body and Blood for going on 2000 years now.
So Jesus is a bigger deal than anybody in the Old Testament. He is objectively a bigger deal than anybody ever. John Lennon once said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, but by any objective measure he was wrong. If the Beatles all came here to play next year’s block party, a lot of people would show up, but if Jesus were coming to town tomorrow, I can guarantee that he would draw a bigger crowd.
But we all know that Jesus is here. He comes every day in the Eucharist. And hundreds of millions of people come each week to find him, even though we cannot see him. And millions of people come every day to find him whom they cannot see. Because it is not about the miracles. The feeding is a symbol. Yes, Jesus can satisfy the hunger of a crowd, but that is not the point. The point is that Jesus can satisfy a desire deeper than hunger. If Jesus was just a free grocery store, we would not worship him. There is something greater here than loaves and fish.
We humans are just bundles of desire, looking all over the world for satisfaction. Our soul cries out like an infant, unable to put its desire into words. We try to quiet it with pacifiers. There are many pacifiers in this world: food, alcohol, sex, entertainment. Sometimes the pacifier works awhile, but then our soul begins crying out again. Some people try to keep up a variety of these pacifiers, switching whenever one has lost its power. Some people remain bored and unhappy as they continually go to the same pacifier looking for the satisfaction they have never found there.
We, however, know what our soul is crying out for. We want love, and not the imperfect love that any human being can give us. This too can be just another pacifier. We want the perfect love of God. Without a doubt, God does love us. He is love, and he created us. It is left for us to recognize his love.
Once we do, once our greatest desire is satisfied by the love of God, every other desire can fall into place. We will eat what is good for us. We will love other people and be loved by them. We will enjoy the world as God meant us to enjoy it. But so long as our deepest desire goes unsatisfied, our relationship with food and alcohol and other people can never be quite right. First things first and the second things fall into place.
The reason that Jesus is bigger than Moses, Elijah, or anyone else is that he is not providing food or entertainment or freedom. He can easily provide all of this, but what he is offering is so much greater. He is offering us himself. This is why we eat his Body and drink his Blood. What clearer way could he possibly use to express to us that he is giving us himself?
Can you imagine a universe without God? It is an illusion. The reality would be God without a universe. Reality needs a fundamental fact, the one thing that is just there, the essence of reality. The temptation is to think of empty, black space as the fundamental fact, but it is not. What is reality at its most basic? It is just God, existing.
God is not just another character in the play. He is the author whose existence does not depend on the play at all. The truth of reality is that God exists. That is just the way things are. Anything else could have been different, anything else at all, but the existence of God is the one fundamental fact. This is why it makes no sense to ask where God came from: he did not come; he just is the one who is.
This is what St. Paul means when he says “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Our relationship with God is not something we finish so that we can get back to real life. Our relationship with God is real life. Everything else either contributes to it or is a distraction from it.
It is not easy to live this way. Our surface desires call loudly, insisting that we want the little things. We can only hear our deep desire when we are quiet, when we let the turmoil of this life settle down, and we realize that half of those surface desires were for what we never really wanted anyway, and that there is something we wanted more than anything else.
You have heard the call of this desire. You know that God can offer you more than you can ask or imagine. Every single one of you is called to live forever with God. “Brothers and sisters, I urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love.” You don’t want money. You don’t want a double cheeseburger. You don’t want another drink. You want God, and he wants to give himself to you.
Psalm 145:10-11, 15-18
Ephesians 4:1-6
John 6:1-15
If someone were to go through the Old Testament and rank people according to how impressive the miracles they did were, the list would probably start with Moses, then Elijah, then Elisha. Elisha was the servant of Elijah, and when Elijah went up into heaven on a chariot of fire, he left Elisha a double portion of his spirit which allowed Elisha to work miracles like Elijah did.
So the contrast today between our first reading and our Gospel is very significant. Elisha fed 100 men with 20 barley loaves. Jesus fed 5000 men with 5 barley loaves, and he provided a fish side dish. He proves thereby that his is greater than Elisha, and not just a little bit greater. Elijah fed 3 people with a little flour and some oil for a couple years, which is impressive, but Jesus still has him beat with this miracle. Now Moses fed 2 million people with bread from heaven for over 40 years, but as we are going to hear over the next few weeks, Jesus has him beat too because he has fed billions of Christians with his Body and Blood for going on 2000 years now.
So Jesus is a bigger deal than anybody in the Old Testament. He is objectively a bigger deal than anybody ever. John Lennon once said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, but by any objective measure he was wrong. If the Beatles all came here to play next year’s block party, a lot of people would show up, but if Jesus were coming to town tomorrow, I can guarantee that he would draw a bigger crowd.
But we all know that Jesus is here. He comes every day in the Eucharist. And hundreds of millions of people come each week to find him, even though we cannot see him. And millions of people come every day to find him whom they cannot see. Because it is not about the miracles. The feeding is a symbol. Yes, Jesus can satisfy the hunger of a crowd, but that is not the point. The point is that Jesus can satisfy a desire deeper than hunger. If Jesus was just a free grocery store, we would not worship him. There is something greater here than loaves and fish.
We humans are just bundles of desire, looking all over the world for satisfaction. Our soul cries out like an infant, unable to put its desire into words. We try to quiet it with pacifiers. There are many pacifiers in this world: food, alcohol, sex, entertainment. Sometimes the pacifier works awhile, but then our soul begins crying out again. Some people try to keep up a variety of these pacifiers, switching whenever one has lost its power. Some people remain bored and unhappy as they continually go to the same pacifier looking for the satisfaction they have never found there.
We, however, know what our soul is crying out for. We want love, and not the imperfect love that any human being can give us. This too can be just another pacifier. We want the perfect love of God. Without a doubt, God does love us. He is love, and he created us. It is left for us to recognize his love.
Once we do, once our greatest desire is satisfied by the love of God, every other desire can fall into place. We will eat what is good for us. We will love other people and be loved by them. We will enjoy the world as God meant us to enjoy it. But so long as our deepest desire goes unsatisfied, our relationship with food and alcohol and other people can never be quite right. First things first and the second things fall into place.
The reason that Jesus is bigger than Moses, Elijah, or anyone else is that he is not providing food or entertainment or freedom. He can easily provide all of this, but what he is offering is so much greater. He is offering us himself. This is why we eat his Body and drink his Blood. What clearer way could he possibly use to express to us that he is giving us himself?
Can you imagine a universe without God? It is an illusion. The reality would be God without a universe. Reality needs a fundamental fact, the one thing that is just there, the essence of reality. The temptation is to think of empty, black space as the fundamental fact, but it is not. What is reality at its most basic? It is just God, existing.
God is not just another character in the play. He is the author whose existence does not depend on the play at all. The truth of reality is that God exists. That is just the way things are. Anything else could have been different, anything else at all, but the existence of God is the one fundamental fact. This is why it makes no sense to ask where God came from: he did not come; he just is the one who is.
This is what St. Paul means when he says “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Our relationship with God is not something we finish so that we can get back to real life. Our relationship with God is real life. Everything else either contributes to it or is a distraction from it.
It is not easy to live this way. Our surface desires call loudly, insisting that we want the little things. We can only hear our deep desire when we are quiet, when we let the turmoil of this life settle down, and we realize that half of those surface desires were for what we never really wanted anyway, and that there is something we wanted more than anything else.
You have heard the call of this desire. You know that God can offer you more than you can ask or imagine. Every single one of you is called to live forever with God. “Brothers and sisters, I urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love.” You don’t want money. You don’t want a double cheeseburger. You don’t want another drink. You want God, and he wants to give himself to you.
June 10, 2012 - The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Exodus 24:3-8
Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18
Hebrews 9:11-15
Mark 14:12-16, 22-26
We celebrate that Jesus Christ gave us his Body and Blood. This gift has two primary and contradictory qualities. On the one hand, it is the ultimate gift, the highest sign of love, the proof that Jesus was not willing to hold anything back. Though rich, he did not take from what he had and present us a gift. He gave us himself. He had already given us a planet to live on and a universe to look at. We demanded more, which is partially because we are ungrateful, and partially because God had made us for more, he had made us for himself, so no gift less than himself would satisfy us.
And so he gave us himself. Using the sacramental signs of bread and wine, he gave us his body and blood. The gift was not imaginary or pretend. Using his power as creator of the universe, he declared that whenever one of his Apostles imitated his actions which they saw at the Last Supper, the ordinary bread and wine which was prayed over would become truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. So it is that today we are in the presence of a man chosen by a successor of the Apostles to continue this sacramental action. We have ordinary bread and ordinary wine, but soon it will not be bread and it will not be wine. It will look and taste and otherwise seem like bread and wine, but things will not be what they seem. They will be the greatest gift we have ever received: God himself: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
On the other hand, this gift is repulsive. It is the body and blood of a man. We do not eat human flesh! We will not drink human blood! Such things are repulsive to us. To treat a human being, a person like us, as if they were no more than a meal for us is the ultimate moral depravity. What do we Christians sound like to others? “Unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man you do not have life within you.” If we heard someone say that, without knowing that it was Jesus, we would be sure that it was the ravings of an insane person.
We must not pass over this element because, if we do, we risk a weak faith in something that we will not look at directly. Many people, because of this factor, consider the Eucharist to be a strange symbol. For them it is just bread and wine, nothing more. And it does not even symbolize the Body and Blood of Christ, because to imagine human flesh and blood would be absurd to them. The Eucharist just becomes a symbol of acceptance. To refuse the Eucharist to someone is an act of the highest offense, equivalent to spitting in their face. So anyone who limits Communion is bad, because it is a piece of bread that symbolizes love, so to refuse it must mean that they hate the other person. So a priest is called very pastoral when he tells everyone to come receive Communion. So there was that Protestant minister who gave communion to a dog. He said that the dog seemed to really want it.
The Eucharist is not a piece of bread that symbolizes love. It is human flesh that symbolizes love. To invite someone to Communion is not to say, “I think you’re pretty good too.” It is to ask, “Will you eat this human body and drink his blood with me?” If someone asked you that question, how would you respond? You would be horrified. So we are afraid to ask it. They will think we are monsters. Until they find out that it is just bread and wine. Then they will say, “Oh what you said was just pretend.” But why would we pretend such a thing? If the reality is horrific, how could it be good to pretend?
We are going to eat a man’s flesh and drink his blood. We gather daily and weekly to repeat this action. Jesus said to do it in memory of him, but what a way to remember somebody! The author of Hebrews says that Jesus was carrying his blood like a priest of the old covenant carried the blood of the bulls and goats. In the first reading, we see Moses sprinkle the blood of bulls and goats all over the people like a priest sprinkles water sometimes these days. It is easy to believe that the blood of Jesus is greater than the blood of cattle, but why sprinkle blood at all? Because blood is life. A cow or goat might be bought or sold, but its life is without price. We cannot beat death; we can only delay sometimes. From the moment of conception we are destined to die. Without life, nothing else matters for us. The blood of the sacrifice was the life. The Israelites painted it on their door frames and sprinkled the people with it; they poured it out at the base of the altar and put some on the priests’ ear, thumb, and big toe, but all this was only a symbol of the blood that was coming.
The Body and Blood we receive is alive. Jesus rose from the dead, so his Body and Blood are alive. When we eat his flesh and drink his blood, his life is in us. We are marked with his death and his life. We eat his Body and drink his Blood in memory of him, not merely a memory in the imagination but of participation. When we eat his body and drink his blood, we die on the Cross with him and rise with him. The Eucharist changes us and nothing else could change us in this way. Because we have eaten the Body and Blood, and this Body and Blood has become our Body and Blood, we can say that we have died on the Cross and risen.
To receive the Body of Christ is a privilege beyond any other but it is also a fearful mystery. We hold in our hands the Body and Blood of a man who is God, and we eat it because he told us to. Above all the Eucharist teaches us that our life comes from God. We cannot hold onto it forever, so we must constantly receive life from God. We cannot take the life from him and then go off on our own, the way the prodigal son did. We can never sever the connection between God and us and become independent, the way Adam tried to with the fruit. All food is life for us. That is the purpose of eating. But every other meal is a symbol of this meal by which we receive life directly from God.
Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18
Hebrews 9:11-15
Mark 14:12-16, 22-26
We celebrate that Jesus Christ gave us his Body and Blood. This gift has two primary and contradictory qualities. On the one hand, it is the ultimate gift, the highest sign of love, the proof that Jesus was not willing to hold anything back. Though rich, he did not take from what he had and present us a gift. He gave us himself. He had already given us a planet to live on and a universe to look at. We demanded more, which is partially because we are ungrateful, and partially because God had made us for more, he had made us for himself, so no gift less than himself would satisfy us.
And so he gave us himself. Using the sacramental signs of bread and wine, he gave us his body and blood. The gift was not imaginary or pretend. Using his power as creator of the universe, he declared that whenever one of his Apostles imitated his actions which they saw at the Last Supper, the ordinary bread and wine which was prayed over would become truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. So it is that today we are in the presence of a man chosen by a successor of the Apostles to continue this sacramental action. We have ordinary bread and ordinary wine, but soon it will not be bread and it will not be wine. It will look and taste and otherwise seem like bread and wine, but things will not be what they seem. They will be the greatest gift we have ever received: God himself: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
On the other hand, this gift is repulsive. It is the body and blood of a man. We do not eat human flesh! We will not drink human blood! Such things are repulsive to us. To treat a human being, a person like us, as if they were no more than a meal for us is the ultimate moral depravity. What do we Christians sound like to others? “Unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man you do not have life within you.” If we heard someone say that, without knowing that it was Jesus, we would be sure that it was the ravings of an insane person.
We must not pass over this element because, if we do, we risk a weak faith in something that we will not look at directly. Many people, because of this factor, consider the Eucharist to be a strange symbol. For them it is just bread and wine, nothing more. And it does not even symbolize the Body and Blood of Christ, because to imagine human flesh and blood would be absurd to them. The Eucharist just becomes a symbol of acceptance. To refuse the Eucharist to someone is an act of the highest offense, equivalent to spitting in their face. So anyone who limits Communion is bad, because it is a piece of bread that symbolizes love, so to refuse it must mean that they hate the other person. So a priest is called very pastoral when he tells everyone to come receive Communion. So there was that Protestant minister who gave communion to a dog. He said that the dog seemed to really want it.
The Eucharist is not a piece of bread that symbolizes love. It is human flesh that symbolizes love. To invite someone to Communion is not to say, “I think you’re pretty good too.” It is to ask, “Will you eat this human body and drink his blood with me?” If someone asked you that question, how would you respond? You would be horrified. So we are afraid to ask it. They will think we are monsters. Until they find out that it is just bread and wine. Then they will say, “Oh what you said was just pretend.” But why would we pretend such a thing? If the reality is horrific, how could it be good to pretend?
We are going to eat a man’s flesh and drink his blood. We gather daily and weekly to repeat this action. Jesus said to do it in memory of him, but what a way to remember somebody! The author of Hebrews says that Jesus was carrying his blood like a priest of the old covenant carried the blood of the bulls and goats. In the first reading, we see Moses sprinkle the blood of bulls and goats all over the people like a priest sprinkles water sometimes these days. It is easy to believe that the blood of Jesus is greater than the blood of cattle, but why sprinkle blood at all? Because blood is life. A cow or goat might be bought or sold, but its life is without price. We cannot beat death; we can only delay sometimes. From the moment of conception we are destined to die. Without life, nothing else matters for us. The blood of the sacrifice was the life. The Israelites painted it on their door frames and sprinkled the people with it; they poured it out at the base of the altar and put some on the priests’ ear, thumb, and big toe, but all this was only a symbol of the blood that was coming.
The Body and Blood we receive is alive. Jesus rose from the dead, so his Body and Blood are alive. When we eat his flesh and drink his blood, his life is in us. We are marked with his death and his life. We eat his Body and drink his Blood in memory of him, not merely a memory in the imagination but of participation. When we eat his body and drink his blood, we die on the Cross with him and rise with him. The Eucharist changes us and nothing else could change us in this way. Because we have eaten the Body and Blood, and this Body and Blood has become our Body and Blood, we can say that we have died on the Cross and risen.
To receive the Body of Christ is a privilege beyond any other but it is also a fearful mystery. We hold in our hands the Body and Blood of a man who is God, and we eat it because he told us to. Above all the Eucharist teaches us that our life comes from God. We cannot hold onto it forever, so we must constantly receive life from God. We cannot take the life from him and then go off on our own, the way the prodigal son did. We can never sever the connection between God and us and become independent, the way Adam tried to with the fruit. All food is life for us. That is the purpose of eating. But every other meal is a symbol of this meal by which we receive life directly from God.
April 27, 2012 - Friday of the Third Week of Easter
Today's Readings
We might ask the same question as the Jews today: how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Each day we gather here and eat the flesh of Jesus Christ and drink his blood. How is this possible? This mystery has been with Christians since Jesus told us to do, in memory of him, what he did on the night before he died, when he took bread and said “This is my body” and took the cup and said “this is my blood.”
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Perhaps he only means this analogously. Perhaps it is a metaphor. Perhaps it is really just bread and wine, and we pretend that it is the flesh and blood of Jesus. Why though? That seems like a very strange thing to do. It may be difficult to understand why we eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus. We may not understand how Jesus can give us his flesh to eat. But it makes more sense than playing pretend.
If Jesus only meant what he was saying as a metaphor, he is not very helpful. The people he is talking to wanted to make him a king. They came to him as followers. Jesus does not quench the smoldering wick or break the bruised branch. If this were merely a metaphor, if Jesus were merely trying to teach the crowd that the bread we eat to keep us alive is not as important as the Word of God, he is phrasing all this in what seems to be an unnecessary difficult way.
On the other hand, if the bread we eat is not really bread but, in truth, the body of Jesus Christ, if the wine we drink is not really wine but, in truth, the blood of Jesus Christ, then it makes sense that Jesus would teach as he does today. When he says that “my flesh is true food” he means exactly that. When he says that “my blood is true drink” he is telling a truth to the crowd which is difficult to understand but is the truth nonetheless.
He tells us that “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” We do not understand fully. We do not know how Jesus Christ makes bread become his living flesh and wine become his living blood. That is okay. We eat and drink, knowing what we cannot understand.
We might ask the same question as the Jews today: how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Each day we gather here and eat the flesh of Jesus Christ and drink his blood. How is this possible? This mystery has been with Christians since Jesus told us to do, in memory of him, what he did on the night before he died, when he took bread and said “This is my body” and took the cup and said “this is my blood.”
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Perhaps he only means this analogously. Perhaps it is a metaphor. Perhaps it is really just bread and wine, and we pretend that it is the flesh and blood of Jesus. Why though? That seems like a very strange thing to do. It may be difficult to understand why we eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus. We may not understand how Jesus can give us his flesh to eat. But it makes more sense than playing pretend.
If Jesus only meant what he was saying as a metaphor, he is not very helpful. The people he is talking to wanted to make him a king. They came to him as followers. Jesus does not quench the smoldering wick or break the bruised branch. If this were merely a metaphor, if Jesus were merely trying to teach the crowd that the bread we eat to keep us alive is not as important as the Word of God, he is phrasing all this in what seems to be an unnecessary difficult way.
On the other hand, if the bread we eat is not really bread but, in truth, the body of Jesus Christ, if the wine we drink is not really wine but, in truth, the blood of Jesus Christ, then it makes sense that Jesus would teach as he does today. When he says that “my flesh is true food” he means exactly that. When he says that “my blood is true drink” he is telling a truth to the crowd which is difficult to understand but is the truth nonetheless.
He tells us that “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” We do not understand fully. We do not know how Jesus Christ makes bread become his living flesh and wine become his living blood. That is okay. We eat and drink, knowing what we cannot understand.
April 5, 2012 - Holy Thursday, Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Today's Readings
Tonight we recall how, on the night before his death, our Lord chose to eat a meal with his disciples. It was not an ordinary meal. It probably would have looked ordinary to the uninitiated: bread and wine, yet we know that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood. We know this because he said so, and he is the truth, and he cannot lie. “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.”
In the ancient law, the father of each family had to provide a lamb. This lamb was killed, and it became a sacrifice which prevented the angel of death from striking within that house. Under the new law, our Father in heaven has provided a lamb, the Lamb of God. If a family was not big enough for one lamb, two families came together and shared a lamb. The Lamb of God is sufficient for the whole world. This Lamb became a sacrifice which takes away the sins of the world. Because this Lamb still lives, even though he died, we will never need another. We are marked by the blood of this lamb, so death can pass over us. There is no reason to fear death so long as we have participated in this sacrifice. By this sacrifice we join in the death of Jesus Christ, so we have a sure hope of joining in his Resurrection.
Jesus is the Lamb of God, but this sacrifice was different than the sacrifice of the lambs. Soon after the meal, the disciples saw Jesus give his body and blood for the whole world. The lambs were eaten after they were killed, but Jesus was not constrained by time. Even before the sacrifice, he was able to present his body and blood. The body and blood that he presented to them is clearly the body and blood that he offered the next day; it is clearly the body and blood that rose from the dead on Easter. It is his Body and Blood. This bread and this cup are a participation in the death of Christ, “for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”
Jesus is the Lamb of God, but this sacrifice was different than the sacrifice of the lambs. The Israelites ate the body of the lamb, but they did not drink the blood. God had said that the blood of an animal is the life of that animal, so he forbid them from drinking blood. The life of an animal belonged to God, so the blood was poured out on the altar. In this sacrifice, we drink the blood because the life of Christ was poured out for us. The lifeblood of Christ belongs to us, since he has given it to us. Some of the lambs’ blood was used to mark the doorway as a symbol that the angel of death should pass over that house. So now we drink the blood of the Lamb of God so that this blood will mark our souls.
“A person should examine themself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on themself.” What we receive is not ordinary food. It is a real symbol, which is to say that it actually is what it symbolizes. It symbolizes the Body of Jesus Christ, so it actually is the Body of Jesus Christ. It symbolizes the Blood of Jesus Christ, so it actually is the Blood of Jesus Christ. By eating and drinking this Body and Blood, we symbolize our participation in the death of Jesus Christ, so we actually participate in his death.
Let no one be deceived and believe that it is your own thoughts or your own faith which makes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood. It is only the words of Jesus: “This is my Body.” “This is the cup of my Blood.”, spoken by one who has the authority to say the words, an authority that comes from the Apostles to whom Jesus said: “Do this in memory of me.” So let us examine ourselves and not eat and drink judgment on ourselves. We must receive the Body and Blood with faith, not because our faith makes it so, but because it is so and we should only receive if we believe.
When you are invited to dinner, consider carefully before you eat because you must provide the same sort of meal yourself in return. When we sit down to this sacrificial meal, we ought to consider carefully what is set before us, since we must provide the same kind of meal ourselves. When we eat the Body of Christ, we become willing to give up our own bodies. When we drink the Blood of Christ, we become willing to shed our own blood. When we eat this body and drink this blood, we proclaim his death until he comes in glory. This is not a verbal proclamation but proclamation of action. Truly, we proclaim his death when we eat the body and drink the blood which he gave up for us through his death, but this should not be the limit of our proclamation; it should be the beginning and the end, the source and the summit.
We are what we eat. If we eat the proclamation of the death of Christ, we must become the proclamation of the death of Christ. At the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and told them, “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” The washing of feet is a symbol. Everything that Jesus did for us, we are called to do for our brothers. Did he serve us? Then we should serve others. Did he love us? Then we should love others. Did he forgive us? Then we should forgive others. Did he die for us? Then we should die for others. Did he give us his body and blood? Then we should give our bodies and our blood for others.
We are what we eat. If we eat the Body of Christ, we become the Body of Christ. Someone here is the hand of Christ. Someone here is the feet of Christ. Someone here is the heart of Christ, beating with love. Together we are the Body of Christ, with Jesus Christ as our head. If we eat this body and drink this blood, anything we do, Christ does, since we are part of the Body of Christ. If we eat this body and drink this blood, we must act in a manner worthy of our call. If we eat this body and then sin, we have brought sin upon the Body of Christ. If we drink this blood and then hate someone, we have brought hatred into the Blood of Christ. No longer is any sin a small sin. No longer is any sin a private failing. If we have chosen to be part of the Body of Christ, we must also choose to be perfect. When we fall short of perfection, we must confess our sins and be forgiven.
Our Lord Jesus Christ borrowed from us humanity and took it to himself. Tonight he gives it back to us. If we participate in his humanity, entirely, we will be saved. His humanity is a life preserver thrown from heaven to us who are drowning. We must cling to it. There is nothing here on earth that can save us; we cannot save ourselves. We are saved not by imitation but by participation. If you try to be like Christ, you will fail. We must participate in his Body, by eating his Body and drinking his Blood. Then we will participate in the life of Christ, a life of service and self-giving. Then we can participate in the death of Christ, a perfect sacrifice. And only then can we participate in the Resurrection of Christ.
Tonight we recall how, on the night before his death, our Lord chose to eat a meal with his disciples. It was not an ordinary meal. It probably would have looked ordinary to the uninitiated: bread and wine, yet we know that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood. We know this because he said so, and he is the truth, and he cannot lie. “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.”
In the ancient law, the father of each family had to provide a lamb. This lamb was killed, and it became a sacrifice which prevented the angel of death from striking within that house. Under the new law, our Father in heaven has provided a lamb, the Lamb of God. If a family was not big enough for one lamb, two families came together and shared a lamb. The Lamb of God is sufficient for the whole world. This Lamb became a sacrifice which takes away the sins of the world. Because this Lamb still lives, even though he died, we will never need another. We are marked by the blood of this lamb, so death can pass over us. There is no reason to fear death so long as we have participated in this sacrifice. By this sacrifice we join in the death of Jesus Christ, so we have a sure hope of joining in his Resurrection.
Jesus is the Lamb of God, but this sacrifice was different than the sacrifice of the lambs. Soon after the meal, the disciples saw Jesus give his body and blood for the whole world. The lambs were eaten after they were killed, but Jesus was not constrained by time. Even before the sacrifice, he was able to present his body and blood. The body and blood that he presented to them is clearly the body and blood that he offered the next day; it is clearly the body and blood that rose from the dead on Easter. It is his Body and Blood. This bread and this cup are a participation in the death of Christ, “for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”
Jesus is the Lamb of God, but this sacrifice was different than the sacrifice of the lambs. The Israelites ate the body of the lamb, but they did not drink the blood. God had said that the blood of an animal is the life of that animal, so he forbid them from drinking blood. The life of an animal belonged to God, so the blood was poured out on the altar. In this sacrifice, we drink the blood because the life of Christ was poured out for us. The lifeblood of Christ belongs to us, since he has given it to us. Some of the lambs’ blood was used to mark the doorway as a symbol that the angel of death should pass over that house. So now we drink the blood of the Lamb of God so that this blood will mark our souls.
“A person should examine themself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on themself.” What we receive is not ordinary food. It is a real symbol, which is to say that it actually is what it symbolizes. It symbolizes the Body of Jesus Christ, so it actually is the Body of Jesus Christ. It symbolizes the Blood of Jesus Christ, so it actually is the Blood of Jesus Christ. By eating and drinking this Body and Blood, we symbolize our participation in the death of Jesus Christ, so we actually participate in his death.
Let no one be deceived and believe that it is your own thoughts or your own faith which makes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood. It is only the words of Jesus: “This is my Body.” “This is the cup of my Blood.”, spoken by one who has the authority to say the words, an authority that comes from the Apostles to whom Jesus said: “Do this in memory of me.” So let us examine ourselves and not eat and drink judgment on ourselves. We must receive the Body and Blood with faith, not because our faith makes it so, but because it is so and we should only receive if we believe.
When you are invited to dinner, consider carefully before you eat because you must provide the same sort of meal yourself in return. When we sit down to this sacrificial meal, we ought to consider carefully what is set before us, since we must provide the same kind of meal ourselves. When we eat the Body of Christ, we become willing to give up our own bodies. When we drink the Blood of Christ, we become willing to shed our own blood. When we eat this body and drink this blood, we proclaim his death until he comes in glory. This is not a verbal proclamation but proclamation of action. Truly, we proclaim his death when we eat the body and drink the blood which he gave up for us through his death, but this should not be the limit of our proclamation; it should be the beginning and the end, the source and the summit.
We are what we eat. If we eat the proclamation of the death of Christ, we must become the proclamation of the death of Christ. At the Last Supper, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and told them, “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” The washing of feet is a symbol. Everything that Jesus did for us, we are called to do for our brothers. Did he serve us? Then we should serve others. Did he love us? Then we should love others. Did he forgive us? Then we should forgive others. Did he die for us? Then we should die for others. Did he give us his body and blood? Then we should give our bodies and our blood for others.
We are what we eat. If we eat the Body of Christ, we become the Body of Christ. Someone here is the hand of Christ. Someone here is the feet of Christ. Someone here is the heart of Christ, beating with love. Together we are the Body of Christ, with Jesus Christ as our head. If we eat this body and drink this blood, anything we do, Christ does, since we are part of the Body of Christ. If we eat this body and drink this blood, we must act in a manner worthy of our call. If we eat this body and then sin, we have brought sin upon the Body of Christ. If we drink this blood and then hate someone, we have brought hatred into the Blood of Christ. No longer is any sin a small sin. No longer is any sin a private failing. If we have chosen to be part of the Body of Christ, we must also choose to be perfect. When we fall short of perfection, we must confess our sins and be forgiven.
Our Lord Jesus Christ borrowed from us humanity and took it to himself. Tonight he gives it back to us. If we participate in his humanity, entirely, we will be saved. His humanity is a life preserver thrown from heaven to us who are drowning. We must cling to it. There is nothing here on earth that can save us; we cannot save ourselves. We are saved not by imitation but by participation. If you try to be like Christ, you will fail. We must participate in his Body, by eating his Body and drinking his Blood. Then we will participate in the life of Christ, a life of service and self-giving. Then we can participate in the death of Christ, a perfect sacrifice. And only then can we participate in the Resurrection of Christ.
November 28, 2011 - Monday of the First Week of Advent
Today's Readings
How marvelous that we have restored to us this verse from the Gospels. The centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” We repeat these words at every mass, changing “servant” to “soul” because we are not asking for the healing of someone else but for our own healing.
Why do we repeat this at every mass? It is because we are about to receive Communion, and it is most appropriate that we should say something signifying great faith, for we would not dare approach the sacred sacrifice without faith. Now we could say something like, “Jesus I believe in you” or “Jesus you are the Christ, the Son of God, God himself”, but we say this phrase instead. Why? Because Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith.” If Jesus considered these words to be the highest expression of faith that he found, why would we say anything else?
We should know what we are saying though, since simply pronouncing the words is not an act of faith unless we mean them. Jesus offers to come heal the centurion’s servant, as he had healed many people. We know that Jesus can heal without touch, even from a far way off. He is God. He can do everything. The centurion is telling Jesus that he knows that the actually coming to the house and laying on of hands is an unnecessary part of the healing. He is telling Jesus that he has faith in Jesus’ power and does not need the external helps to faith.
He is also asserting his faith by acknowledging that he is not worthy to have Jesus enter under his roof. The centurion was an officer in the Roman army. He was a great man as the world judges greatness, yet he judged that Jesus was greater yet. He sees in addition to the power some less definable characteristic: holiness.
In this one sentence the centurion states that Jesus, though he looks like an ordinary human, is nevertheless very powerful and very holy. No wonder then that Jesus praised the faith of this man. When we repeat his words at each mass before receiving Communion, we acknowledge the same reality: what looks like bread and wine is nevertheless very powerful and very holy.
How marvelous that we have restored to us this verse from the Gospels. The centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” We repeat these words at every mass, changing “servant” to “soul” because we are not asking for the healing of someone else but for our own healing.
Why do we repeat this at every mass? It is because we are about to receive Communion, and it is most appropriate that we should say something signifying great faith, for we would not dare approach the sacred sacrifice without faith. Now we could say something like, “Jesus I believe in you” or “Jesus you are the Christ, the Son of God, God himself”, but we say this phrase instead. Why? Because Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith.” If Jesus considered these words to be the highest expression of faith that he found, why would we say anything else?
We should know what we are saying though, since simply pronouncing the words is not an act of faith unless we mean them. Jesus offers to come heal the centurion’s servant, as he had healed many people. We know that Jesus can heal without touch, even from a far way off. He is God. He can do everything. The centurion is telling Jesus that he knows that the actually coming to the house and laying on of hands is an unnecessary part of the healing. He is telling Jesus that he has faith in Jesus’ power and does not need the external helps to faith.
He is also asserting his faith by acknowledging that he is not worthy to have Jesus enter under his roof. The centurion was an officer in the Roman army. He was a great man as the world judges greatness, yet he judged that Jesus was greater yet. He sees in addition to the power some less definable characteristic: holiness.
In this one sentence the centurion states that Jesus, though he looks like an ordinary human, is nevertheless very powerful and very holy. No wonder then that Jesus praised the faith of this man. When we repeat his words at each mass before receiving Communion, we acknowledge the same reality: what looks like bread and wine is nevertheless very powerful and very holy.
November 24, 2011 - Thanksgiving Day
Today's Readings
How blessed are we to gather as a country each year and give thanks. This holiday transcends any political sentiments or particular religious belief, but, at the same time, it is central to all true religion. To give thanks is to acknowledge the existence of a Creator whom we can thank. We do not merely celebrate how much we have today; we celebrate how much we have been given. Given by whom? By the Creator of all.
Thanksgiving is the most important feast in the Catholic Church. It is more important than Christmas and more important than Easter. This is revealed to us if we say that word, “thanksgiving”, in Greek. The word is “Eucharist”. Every Sunday, indeed every day of the week, we gather in this Church and give thanks. On Christmas and Easter and every other feast day, we gather in the Church and celebrate the Eucharist; we celebrate Thanksgiving. Though our country celebrates Thanksgiving once a year, we celebrate it without end.
What is God looking for from us except thanks? Imagine how proud a parent is the first time they hear their child say, “Thank you, Mommy” or “Thank you, Daddy”. It is a sign that the child is maturing beyond the basic selfishness of infancy. It is impossible to be purely selfish and grateful at the same time. When we are perfectly grateful, we will be generous without fault. We cannot begrudge another what we ourselves received as gift.
To be perfectly grateful is to know our place in this world. We are creatures of God and loved by him. Everything we possess was a gift from God, even our own bodies and souls. Even our talents and abilities are reasons not for pride but for thankfulness.
There is no prayer more appropriate for us creatures. Prayers of petition are important, and prayers of praise are proper, but in the prayer of thanksgiving all the rest are summed up. When we give thanks to God we admit the truth: we are dependent on him. We can thank God for every gift he has given us. We can thank God for every struggle that he has not put in our way. We can thank God for the strength to endure the struggles that do confront us. We can thank God for his great glory. We thank God for everything; without him there would be nothing.
How blessed are we to gather as a country each year and give thanks. This holiday transcends any political sentiments or particular religious belief, but, at the same time, it is central to all true religion. To give thanks is to acknowledge the existence of a Creator whom we can thank. We do not merely celebrate how much we have today; we celebrate how much we have been given. Given by whom? By the Creator of all.
Thanksgiving is the most important feast in the Catholic Church. It is more important than Christmas and more important than Easter. This is revealed to us if we say that word, “thanksgiving”, in Greek. The word is “Eucharist”. Every Sunday, indeed every day of the week, we gather in this Church and give thanks. On Christmas and Easter and every other feast day, we gather in the Church and celebrate the Eucharist; we celebrate Thanksgiving. Though our country celebrates Thanksgiving once a year, we celebrate it without end.
What is God looking for from us except thanks? Imagine how proud a parent is the first time they hear their child say, “Thank you, Mommy” or “Thank you, Daddy”. It is a sign that the child is maturing beyond the basic selfishness of infancy. It is impossible to be purely selfish and grateful at the same time. When we are perfectly grateful, we will be generous without fault. We cannot begrudge another what we ourselves received as gift.
To be perfectly grateful is to know our place in this world. We are creatures of God and loved by him. Everything we possess was a gift from God, even our own bodies and souls. Even our talents and abilities are reasons not for pride but for thankfulness.
There is no prayer more appropriate for us creatures. Prayers of petition are important, and prayers of praise are proper, but in the prayer of thanksgiving all the rest are summed up. When we give thanks to God we admit the truth: we are dependent on him. We can thank God for every gift he has given us. We can thank God for every struggle that he has not put in our way. We can thank God for the strength to endure the struggles that do confront us. We can thank God for his great glory. We thank God for everything; without him there would be nothing.
July 28, 2011 - Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today's Readings
We can see how cautious the Lord is to prevent idol worship of any kind. Various cultures over the millennia set up statues in the shapes of animals or human beings and worshipped those statues, but the Lord had told his people that that would not be acceptable. These statues were attempts to see what cannot be seen, to make visible the invisible God. When the golden calf was made after leaving Egypt, it was supposed to be a statue of the Lord, but the Lord rejected any such symbols. He carefully taught his people that he is holy, entirely different from anything within their experience. No earthly image can capture his essence.
Now, a year after leaving Egypt, the Lord is giving his people a point a reference, a place to worship. So Moses, following the instructions of Lord, sets up the Dwelling Place. We see here the amazing wisdom of God. In order to teach the Israelites about the invisible, God has them build a tent. It is a very large tent, and, in the middle, there is a throne, but no one lives in the tent and no one sits on the throne. The Israelites carried this tent and this throne around the desert. When they stopped, this tent was placed in the middle of the camp. They were not worshipping a tent! The questions form in their minds: Who lives in that tent? Who sits on that throne? They already know the answer: the Lord, the Almighty, the invisible God, the One Who Is.
In the middle of all this, under the throne, there is a box. This box is an ordinary box, made of wood and covered in gold. It is called “The Ark of the Covenant”. Inside this box there were three things: the Ten Commandments written on stone, Aaron’s staff, and a jar of Manna, which is to say: the word of God, a symbol of the priesthood and the resurrection, and the bread from God. We too, in every church, have a box, an ordinary box covered in gold or silver or bronze. Whenever we enter or leave the Church, we genuflect toward the box. We worship toward the box. We are not worshipping a box! The questions should form in our minds: What is in there? Who is in there? We already know the answer: the Lord, the Almighty, the invisible God, the One Who Is.
We can see how cautious the Lord is to prevent idol worship of any kind. Various cultures over the millennia set up statues in the shapes of animals or human beings and worshipped those statues, but the Lord had told his people that that would not be acceptable. These statues were attempts to see what cannot be seen, to make visible the invisible God. When the golden calf was made after leaving Egypt, it was supposed to be a statue of the Lord, but the Lord rejected any such symbols. He carefully taught his people that he is holy, entirely different from anything within their experience. No earthly image can capture his essence.
Now, a year after leaving Egypt, the Lord is giving his people a point a reference, a place to worship. So Moses, following the instructions of Lord, sets up the Dwelling Place. We see here the amazing wisdom of God. In order to teach the Israelites about the invisible, God has them build a tent. It is a very large tent, and, in the middle, there is a throne, but no one lives in the tent and no one sits on the throne. The Israelites carried this tent and this throne around the desert. When they stopped, this tent was placed in the middle of the camp. They were not worshipping a tent! The questions form in their minds: Who lives in that tent? Who sits on that throne? They already know the answer: the Lord, the Almighty, the invisible God, the One Who Is.
In the middle of all this, under the throne, there is a box. This box is an ordinary box, made of wood and covered in gold. It is called “The Ark of the Covenant”. Inside this box there were three things: the Ten Commandments written on stone, Aaron’s staff, and a jar of Manna, which is to say: the word of God, a symbol of the priesthood and the resurrection, and the bread from God. We too, in every church, have a box, an ordinary box covered in gold or silver or bronze. Whenever we enter or leave the Church, we genuflect toward the box. We worship toward the box. We are not worshipping a box! The questions should form in our minds: What is in there? Who is in there? We already know the answer: the Lord, the Almighty, the invisible God, the One Who Is.
June 26, 2011 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Today's Readings
Manna is a kind of food that appeared on the ground each morning from the time that the Israelites left Egypt until the day that they ate the fruit of the promised land. Manna was free food: the only work was going out each morning to gather it up. Manna was abundant food: it fed 2 million people for forty years. Later generations of Israelites looked back on the time in the desert as a blessed time, depending entirely on providence for survival.
There were three lessons concerning manna. First, no one was to gather more than they needed. Each person was allotted one omer of manna a day, a little less than a gallon. When they went out to gather the manna, some people gathered a lot and others gathered a little, but everyone ended up with one omer per person. Whether this is the result of a miracle or if it means that those with too much shared with those who did not have enough, the lesson for us is the same: we should not take more of this world’s resources than we need. If we have too much, we should share with those who do not have enough to satisfy their needs.
The second lesson of the manna is that it must not be kept overnight. The Israelites had to trust that the manna would be out on the ground again the next morning. Those who tried to keep the manna overnight found that in the morning it was full of worms and smelled terrible. From this rule we should learn not to hoard the riches of this world. True, we are not wandering in the desert with manna appearing on the ground each day. It is very reasonable to save money: to save enough in case of a surprise car repair, to save enough in case you lose your job, but do not hoard money.
Some people collect money and property as if they only wanted to see how much they could have, as if they were competing in a game with the other rich people of this world. I do not refer only to millionaires and billionaires. Consider the very idea of collecting something. It is so acceptable in this culture to say, “I collect hippopotami”, but we Christians should look in horror at the idea of spending time and money, whether on ceramic doodads or unnecessary power tools. We are travelers in this world; pack lightly!
The third lesson of the manna is that on Friday the Israelites gathered enough for two days so that they would not go out on the Sabbath. This is a lesson we ought to take to heart. There is so little respect today for resting on the Lord’s Day. Six days a week have been given us to work; we must rest on the seventh day.
But how should we rest on Sundays? The usual forms of rest in our culture (ball games, shopping, and restaurants) involve someone else serving us. Should we sit home then and watch TV? A proper understanding of Sunday rest begins with what we all must do on Sundays: go to Mass. The point of Sunday is to worship God. Anything else we do is peripheral.
There is an old joke about a man who asked his pastor whether it was okay to smoke while he prayed. His pastor said, “Absolutely not! When you pray you should be completely devoted to prayer.” So the man went to another priest, but he changed his question, “Would it be okay to pray while I smoke?”
We Christians do not begin with a rule, because every rule has loopholes. We begin with the Holy Spirit. Our Sundays should be about praising God. Mass is not something to be fit in around a busy schedule. Mass comes first, everything else can be planned afterward. Those who work on Sunday should insist on having time to go to Mass, and they should take another day to praise God by resting.
Together, the three lessons of the manna teach us that we were not made for survival. The point of our lives cannot be getting through to tomorrow at any cost. We certainly were not made to succeed as the world sees success, with piles of money and stuff. Survival is secondary to praising God. As Moses puts it, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
The lessons of the manna were so important, so foundational to the Jewish religion that Moses took one omer of manna and placed it in the Ark of the Covenant, a box covered in gold. The Ark was placed at the center of worship. The Jewish Temple was merely a house for the Ark, and the Ark was a container for the manna. So really, the manna was at the center of Jewish worship, this special bread which God had given to his people.
Do you see where I am going with this? This temple, this church, is really just a house for that box right there. That box is the Ark of the Covenant, which is also called the tabernacle. Within the tabernacle, we place a portion of the bread. It is not ordinary bread that we put in the tabernacle. Indeed, it is not really bread at all. The bread is a symbol, which is to say, we see bread, we taste bread, but the meaning of the bread is something more. What is the something more? It is Jesus Christ, his Body, his Blood, his Soul, and his Divinity.
The bread is a sacrament, which is to say, it does not only symbolize this, but it in reality is Jesus Christ: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. When we receive the symbol of bread, we actually receive Jesus Christ. When we see bread and kneel down in worship, we are actually worshipping Jesus Christ. This is a mystery. It is not clear to us how something can have the accidents of bread, the sight, the smell, the taste of bread, the atoms and molecules of bread, but in reality be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. It is not clear to us, but that is not important. Jesus did not give us this sacrament and say, “Take and understand; this is my body.” No, he said “Take and eat; this is my body.”
We must believe that the bread is, as the Church tells us, as Jesus told the Church, actually his Body. We must believe that the wine is, as the Church tells us, as Jesus told the Church, actually his Blood. This belief is not a nice addition to our faith. We place the Eucharist at the very center of our worship, because it defines who we are.
Faith in the Eucharist is where we must begin. All other work in the Church is pointless unless we begin with the Eucharist. It is pointless to protest abortion unless the Eucharist is at the center of our work. It is pointless to give food to the hungry unless this food given to us by God is satisfying our hunger. We as a Church are not a gathering of people who like doing good things. We are a gathering of people around the Eucharist. The good things come later.
Christianity without the Eucharist would be like Judaism without manna, just a lot of laws. From the Eucharist we receive our mission from God and the spiritual energy to complete that mission. If we receive the Eucharist with faith in the mystery, and we receive it acknowledging that we want to serve God above all else, confessing every sin we have committed, rejecting any plans to commit sin in the future, then we will be transformed.
Jesus Christ came to earth to give his life for us and to us. He gave his life for us on the Cross. He gives his life to us in the Eucharist. When we receive the Eucharist, we hold the life of God in our hands. We eat the life of God. We become what we eat. Eventually we do not live anymore ourselves, but Christ lives in us. That is what the Eucharist is about.
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