Communion with Christ brings us true comfort

Homily: 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

In my six-plus years as a priest, I’ve celebrated a good number of funerals.  It is a graced experience to walk with families who have lost loved ones and to help them say “goodbye” in a sacred way.  There is one thing, in particular, about celebrating funerals that has stood out to me as interesting: that as we mourn the death of a loved one and after we celebrate his or her life in the funeral liturgy, we gather to share a meal; and that this is somehow comforting to us.

Of course, there’s a perfectly good scientific explanation for this.  The death of a loved one is often stressful and full of negative feelings of loss and separation.  When we eat—especially when we eat warm food that we enjoy to eat—our body releases chemicals, called endorphins, that help relieve the stress our bodies have been under and help us to relax and so give us a feeling of comfort.  Yet, we are more than just bodily creatures.  Rather, we are also spiritual.  And so there has to be something more than just the biological to explain why eating provides comfort.  Indeed, there is.

Sharing a meal with others creates or renews spiritual bonds that last long after the food and the endorphins disappear.  Those feelings of comfort caused by eating become associated in our hearts with the presence of those with who shared the meal, and a bond, a relationship, perhaps we could even say a communion is formed.  And it is this sense of communion, I would argue, that causes our true comfort. ///

As we continue to reflect on the “Bread of Life” discourse in John’s Gospel, we come to face the notion that the Eucharist is a Sacred Meal.  Beyond—or, better yet, in tension with—the notion that the Eucharist is Sacrifice, Anamnesis, and Epiclesis, we must also hold that the Eucharist is a meal: a sacred meal in which the bonds of relationship are either forged or strengthened.

Every week, we gather around this object that is both the altar of sacrifice and the table of communion.  And every week, as we gather as a people set apart by God, we renew our relationship to one another as the People of God when we share in the meal we receive from this altar.  But this is not only a renewal of our relationships with each other.  For when we receive the meal offered on this table, we receive also Christ, who makes of himself the meal that we share, and so renew our relationship—our communion—with him, too.

The Church teaches us that this renewal of communion is actually the sole purpose of our gathering.  In the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says that “the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice is wholly directed toward the intimate union of the faithful with Christ through communion” (CCC 1382).  What this reveals is that the communion we receive in the Eucharist is first and foremost communion with Christ, and that it is through our communion with him that we experience communion with all those who likewise receive him. ///

As I mentioned last week, most of us struggle, to some degree or another, with believing that the bread and wine that we offer on this altar truly becomes the Body and Blood of Christ that we then receive in communion.  I also said that, if we have doubts, our responsibility is to bring those doubts to God in prayer and to ask him to reveal the truth about the Eucharist to us.  For those of you who heard my homily last week, hopefully you’ve been practicing that prayer.  If you didn’t (or if you haven’t been practicing it) our readings today invite you again to see the truth about what we receive from this altar

In the first reading, the author of the book of Proverbs describes a scene in which “Wisdom”-- who is the personification of the creative force of God by which he designed and ordered the world rightly (and who could be referred to equally as “Logos” or “The Word”, as in “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us...” in other words, an image of Jesus)--sets her table in order to invite those who are simple to come and receive from her the riches of wisdom.  “Come,” she says, “and partake at my table that we might be in communion with one another.”  For the ancient Jews who lived before Christ, “wisdom” was sought and valued as the way to live in communion with God.  To feast at Wisdom’s table, and, thus, to be in communion with her, was, therefore, to enter into that desired for communion with God.

In the Gospel reading we should immediately hear the connection: Jesus has set the table of his Flesh and Blood so that those who partake of it can be in communion with him: and, through him, with the Father in heaven with who he is eternally in communion.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”  In the Last Supper narratives Jesus will show us how he will give us his flesh to eat and blood to drink when he takes the bread and says “This is my Body, take and eat...” and the wine and says “This is my Blood, take and drink...”

My brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ presents us with this same offer today.  He desires greatly to be in communion with us and so he invites us to this table to partake of this “living bread that came down from heaven”: his Body and Blood.  And so, we should not be afraid to step forward even if we have some doubts.  Rather, we should let our “Amen” be shorthand for “Lord, I believe, please help my unbelief.”  If we can say even that much, then we can feel confident that we have the faith that we need to receive the communion that Christ so deeply desires to have with us. ///

Friends, in our grief over the scandals that continue to plague the Church we gather here in this sacred meal called the Eucharist to seek comfort in our pain.  May our communion with Christ and, through Christ, with one another provide us with the humility, courage, and fortitude to remain hopeful in the midst of darkness; and so continue to proclaim the Good News: that life beyond this life of suffering and pain is possible through Christ, the true Bread of Life.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral Parish: Lafayette, IN

August 18^th & 19th, 2018

Saved through our humanity: REJOICE!

Homily: Christmas (Vigil Mass) – Cycle B

          Believe it or not, this is now the sixth Christmas that I am celebrating with you all here at All Saints.  I have to say that I have been very blessed by my ministry here.  Of the many blessings, one unexpected blessing has been the richness that the cultural diversity of this community brings to my ministry.  Serving this community that combines Anglo and Latino cultures (as well as, to a lesser extent, Philippino, Vietnamese, and Burmese cultures among others) has given me a more profound experience of who we are as Church; and I know that many of you share that same appreciation.

          One of the things that I have noticed about Catholics here in the United States is that the way that we pray and worship is often very different than the way that Latinos and other cultures pray and worship.  Catholics in the United States have been heavily influenced by British Protestantism, in particular the British Puritans that first came and settled here in this land.  Protestants, inspired by teachers like Martin Luther, wanted to turn away from many of the medieval devotional practices that were common in the 16^th century (such as: praying rosaries, lighting candles before images of the saints, making novenas, and the like—all with the understanding that “more, for the sake of more, is better” whenever you do it).

          These practices (from the outside, at least) seemed like they were aimed at “earning” grace from God.  Martin Luther knew that we cannot “earn” grace from God, but rather that God freely gives it, and so he began to teach a different style of prayer and worship that focused less on these outwardly extravagant devotional practices and more on inner, spiritual practices: namely, the reading of and meditating on the Scriptures and listening to the Word of God proclaimed and explained in assembly together.

          And we see this influence on United States Catholicism here today.  Anglo celebrations of the Mass are often rather subdued.  The people sit quietly, respond reservedly, and otherwise try not to make a lot of noise.  From where I sit, I sometimes feel like I have an audience who are watching my show, instead of a congregation who is actively participating in it.

          I don’t often feel that way when I’m celebrating a Mass in Spanish with Latinos.  With them there is still a very profound sense that the spiritual is inseparably intertwined with the physical.  For them, it is simply not enough to close one’s eyes, fold one’s hands, and pray: “Lord please guard my coming and my going, my front and my back”, but rather one must also bless himself with holy water both on the front and the back sides of his body.  No, it isn’t enough for them to come together to sing songs to Mary before a simple image set up in the corner of the church and at a reasonable hour, such as eight o’clock in the morning; rather, in order to show their devotion to Our Lady, they set up an elaborate “altar” in the front of church and get up in the middle of the night to dress to the nine’s (and their kids, too!) so that they can come to sing her songs long before the sunrise.  Here at Mass, they are generally much more animated than the Anglos.  Their singing and their responses are much more enthusiastic, in general (often with animated clapping along with the rhythm of the music).  The music, itself, is louder and the Mass has more energy, overall.

          Of course, all of this energy and devotional spirit, much like Martin Luther observed in medieval times, can become extreme.  While I was studying Spanish in Guatemala, I observed, particularly at pilgrimage sites, people causing themselves great physical pain as they entered to make their prayer at the shrine.  For example, they would walk on their knees from outside and into the shrine as a sign of their absolute faith that the favor for which they are pleading could be granted.  These are people of great faith, no doubt, but perhaps a reminder about Jesus’ words that we only need faith the size of a mustard seed in order to be able to move mountains, might occasionally be necessary for them.  Nevertheless, I can’t help but appreciate how the Latino culture (and cultures like theirs in many other places around the world) has maintained its sense that the physical is inseparably linked to the spiritual.

          In many ways, today we celebrate this connection.  Today we celebrate the fact that God, who is wholly other, pure spirit, and outside and above our senses, takes on human flesh and makes his dwelling among us.  In doing so, we also celebrate the reason that he came to us: to suffer and to die and to rise again to save us from our sins; for every moment of Jesus’ life here on earth was a preparation for his Passion which won for us our salvation.  This is why we don’t cover up the crucifixes in our Church when we celebrate Christmas: because without the crucifixion, Christmas wouldn’t mean much.

          That notwithstanding, as we celebrate today his coming among us, we emphasize an important truth: that by taking on a human body, with all of its physical limitations, God wanted us to know that we can experience him through our senses.  In fact, what God revealed to us through the incarnation of his Son, and through his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, was that it is precisely through our human bodies that he wishes to save us.

          In the first centuries of the Church, a bishop named Athanasius proposed this simple, but profound truth: that God became man, so that man could become God.  You see, before Jesus, it was possible to make an argument that the body wasn’t necessary to find salvation.  This is because God had not yet revealed fully his plan for the redemption of mankind.  Therefore, it was still possible to believe that God would simply redeem his people by the power of his Almighty Word.  After Jesus’ coming, however, it is no longer possible to make this kind of argument.  Rather, now that Jesus has won salvation for us precisely through his human obedience in the flesh—flesh just like yours and mine!—God’s will that mankind be saved through our human bodies is clear.  And this is good news!  Good news that we are obliged to share.

          Saint Augustine, writing in the fourth century, said this: “[Mankind,] you would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time.  Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh.  You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness, had it not been for this mercy.  You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death.  You would have been lost if he had not hastened to your aid.  You would have perished, had he not come.

          “Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption.  Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time. …For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become a son of God?”

          My brothers and sisters, there are some people living around us who have not heard this good news (or, perhaps, have chosen to ignore it): that the All-Powerful God has taken on human flesh and come to save us so that we could become like him in our human flesh.  Just look around, none of them are here with us today.  Let us, then, be the ones who bring this message of great joy to them, making our feet “beautiful upon the mountain”, so that “all the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God”; the salvation that has been born to us this day.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 25^th, 2017

The Living Bread of the Abundant Life

Homily: 20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          Perhaps many of you will remember that last April I had the happy opportunity to make a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to the Holy Land, where I gave thanks to God that I have been free from cancer for five years.  After my return many of you asked me what my favorite part was.  At the time, having experienced so many powerful things, I couldn’t name any one experience that stuck out.  A few months removed, now, however, one of the experiences has begun to stand out above the rest and that was our visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

          This Basilica is a relatively modern basilica in that ancient land as the current church was built in the 1950’s.  It is built over the place that tradition holds was the home of Joachim and Ann and thus the place where Mary grew up and received the life-changing visit from the archangel Gabriel.  It is a magnificent structure that proves that modern church architecture can be meaningful without being weird.  It wasn’t the architecture that most impacted me, however.  Rather, it was the little grotto in the lower portion of the Basilica.

          Inside this grotto there is an altar built over the exact place where, according to tradition, Mary received the message from the archangel Gabriel: thus making it the exact place where the Holy Spirit “came upon” Mary and Jesus was conceived in her womb.  In other words, in that humble little place—a peasant’s home in a town nobody knew about—the Word, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became flesh and dwelt among us.  I remember being overwhelmed by the absolute incomprehensibility of that spot: that right there, in that spot, the entire fabric of the universe was changed forever because God—the uncreated creator of all that exists—took on the flesh of a creature.

          My friends, if perhaps you are a little bit numb to this I should point out that this is, in large part, what makes Christianity unique among world religions.  The fact that we are monotheistic—that we believe in only one God—puts us in rare company already, but that we believe that God—whose existence cannot be contained even in the vast expanse of the universe—became a creature: that sets us apart from every other religion.  No other religion would ever dare to say that their god became human: they believe that that would be an insult of the highest order.  Yet we believe that God somehow made the fullness of His being dwell inside the tiny cells of a human embryo, which grew into the fullness of humanity so that He might be made a sacrifice for all humanity, restoring humanity’s original glory through His resurrection and giving it a place of honor at the Father’s right hand in heaven.  The full realization of this is what made my visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation so powerful that all I could do was kneel before that place and bow down before God, whose wisdom and mercy is so far beyond our own.

          The absurdity of the Christian claim doesn’t end with the simple fact of the Incarnation, however.  Jesus in today’s Gospel reading takes His humanity to its fullest absurdity.  The “Bread of Life” discourse that we have been listening to over the past weeks is coming to its climax and today we hear Jesus teach his followers to be cannibals.  Yes, that’s right, I said cannibals.  For those of you who may not know, a cannibal is someone who eats human flesh.  Obviously that is repulsive to any of us, yet look at the words Jesus says in the Gospel: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”  On the surface, this appears to be crazy, doesn’t it?  And it is!  Thus, we can understand the response of the Jews who were in the crowds and argued among themselves, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  Of course, we have to take everything in the context of the bigger picture and so we now know that John the Evangelist is using this to make clear what the Eucharist is, but we first have to come to grips with what Jesus says; and what Jesus says makes him look crazy!

          Here’s where we have to make a decision.  Because if we hear these words of Jesus and think that he is crazy, well, then he’s crazy!  You know, we can’t have it half-way: either Jesus is who he says he is—both fully God and fully man and the savior of mankind—or he’s a madman and we should turn and run away from him right now.  In other words, if he’s crazy about something, then he’s crazy about everything; but if he’s not crazy about everything, then he’s not crazy about anything, and even these words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood are real, rational statements that we have to give credence to.

          The first clue that Jesus is talking about the Eucharist (and, thus, moving away from the disgusting idea of actually eating what appears to be human flesh) is what he says at the beginning of today’s reading.  Jesus says to the crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven…”  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen living bread: all the bread that I’ve ever eaten has been lifeless.  So how can Jesus be living bread?  Simple.  It’s called transubstantiation, and it’s what happens at the consecration of the bread and wine at the altar.  When I repeat Jesus’ words over the bread and the wine, they truly become the Body and Blood of Jesus, in substance.  Yes, they still look like bread and wine (I mean, this isn’t a magic show), but substantially—that is in their substance—they’ve changed into the real flesh and blood of Jesus.

          Now the flesh of Jesus is still living flesh, am I right?  I mean we believe that Jesus still has a human body, am I right?  A glorified human body, of course, but a human body, nonetheless.  And we believe that Jesus lives, right?  I hope so!  Because as Paul says in one of his letters, “If Christ is still in the tomb, then your faith is worthless!”  So, if Jesus still has flesh and if he still lives, then that would make the bread that becomes his flesh, while still retaining the appearance of bread, something living, wouldn’t it?  This, therefore, is the living bread, his flesh that is true food, which we can eat so as to live forever.  And the cup that contains his Precious Blood, while remaining under the appearance of wine, is the cup of life: the true drink through which life enters into us.  And this is amazing!  A thing of true wonder and awe, no matter how familiar it has become to us.

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus came in the flesh in order to give us life through it.  Let us, therefore, not waste the opportunity that we have been given to receive it: for to receive it, but then to return to a life of debauchery is empty.  To receive it, however, and thus to go forth filled with the Spirit, giving thanks and praise to God always and in all ways, is the abundant life that God desired for us when he spread this banquet before us.

          Mary, our Blessed Mother, could not have known the fullness of this abundant life that awaited her when she said “yes” to the archangel Gabriel.  And her life was filled with many sorrows following that day—so much so that it would have been understandable if she had given up on it all—but yet she never failed in giving thanks to God and in praising Him; and thus she now enjoys the fullness of this abundant life—body and soul—in heaven.  May we follow her example in our lives so that the banquet that we approach here at this altar may lead us to that same fullness of life in heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – August 15^th & 16^th, 2015