Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: The Eucharist

  • The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Well, here we are.

    It’s been a whirlwind these last two months! First we emptied everything out of the church, and the pew refinishing company took apart the pews and shipped them to Nebraska so that they could be refinished. Then the painters moved in a couple of massive lifts that looked like some kind of alien spider that took them all the way up into the cupola so that they could paint. Our artist moved in and began painting the reredos, and later a sign company came in to install the Agnus Dei above the reredos, and the titles of Mary from the Litany of Loreto along the back wall of church. The staff cleaned and scrubbed and put all the furniture back. Perhaps the most herculean task was that of taking our massive Tabernacle off its altar and then putting it back on. I believe it weighs elevendy gazillion pounds. Renovating our church décor was certainly a labor of love, and we hope that you will love it!

    In renovating the church, we didn’t just want to slap a coat of paint on the walls and ceiling. When the church was built, that’s what had to be done because there wasn’t money to do much else. So in painting the church this time, we wanted to take the opportunity to do what art in the Church has always been used to do, and that is to catechize and evangelize. In the early days of the Church, most people could not read and write, so in order to teach the faith, people were taught to read the churches. So the artwork and the decoration of the church was meant to preach the Gospel and call people to repentance and salvation. We wanted to do the same here at Saint Mary’s.

    So we had two main themes that we wanted to convey. First and foremost, we wanted to express the truth that this is the holiest place on our campus, the place where heaven meets earth, the place where Jesus Christ dwells with us until the end of the age. During this Eucharistic Revival in our Church, no message could be more important. So the dome was painted as a night sky, complete with stars; the cupola was painted a light blue to allow natural light to reflect and illuminate the sanctuary; the Tabernacle was raised on a step, and placed on an altar with a stone top; and the reredos was painted with a stunning mural depicting the light of God coming down from heaven and enveloping us all as he calls us into his presence. And to make it very clear what we behold, the text on the upper border of the reredos reads, Agnus Dei Qui Tolis Pecatta Mundi; that is, Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

    The second theme we wanted to convey was that this particular parish church is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Immaculate Conception. So the deep blue which support the architectural features of the sanctuary, and the earthy green on the wings of the church proclaim that Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth. The golden rim around the “sky” above the sanctuary evokes her crown, and the gold rays in the ceiling of the nave symbolize her merciful love reaching out to the world.

    Along the back of the church, we have installed four “medallions” of the Blessed Virgin Mary, including one of the Miraculous Medal, which ask for her intercession for our parish, our families, and our community. The text along the back “ribbon” above the doors are selections from the Litany of Loreto: Mother of Mercy, Mother of the Church, Seat of Wisdom, Help of Christians, Queen of Peace, Cause of our Joy, Holy Mother of God, and Queen of Families. These have been presented in English, Spanish, Polish, and Tagalog, some of the languages spoken by our parish family. Finally, above the doors in the center aisle, the resurrected Jesus has been cleaned by our artist (who knew he was brass?), and the blue from the sky has been painted as a background. This evokes the Ascension of Our Lord, giving us a command as we leave the church: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

    It was our intention that the renovation of this church would help feed our spirits, which Jesus longs to do for all of us. In today’s Liturgy of the Word, we are invited to receive “bread for the Journey,” in Latin, “Viaticum.” Viaticum is usually one’s last Holy Communion, given when we are dying. But in today’s liturgy, we are shown that we always need bread for the journey so that we will have strength to complete the journey and do what God calls us to do.

    In the first reading, the prophet Elijah has had just about enough, thank you very much. Despite some successes in preaching the word of the Lord, he has felt that he is a failure. Today’s reading comes after Elijah, with God’s help, just defeated all the prophets of the false god Baal in a splendid display of pyrotechnics on Mount Carmel. It’s a wonderful story that you can find in chapter 18 of the first book of Kings, and your homework today is to go home and look it up! I promise, you’ll enjoy the story. Well after that outstanding success, one would expect Elijah to go about boasting of his victory. Instead, Jezebel, the king’s wife and the one who brought the prophets of Baal to Israel in the first place, pledges to take Elijah’s life. Today’s story, then, finds him sitting under a scraggly broom tree, which offered little if any shade, and praying for death. The Lord ignores his prayer and instead twice makes him get up and eat bread that God himself provides, so that he would be strengthened for the journey. In the story that follows, Elijah will come quite face-to-face with God, and be refreshed to go on. But he can’t do that if he starves to death under the broom tree. Sometimes God does not give us what we ask for, but exactly what we need.

    Our Gospel reading takes us back to Saint John’s “Bread of Life Discourse,” chapter six of his Gospel, which we are reading in this section of the Lectionary. We began two weeks ago with the feeding of the multitudes; then last week the multitudes sought Jesus out so they could get more of the same and Jesus sets out to feed their spirits. At the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus told them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, but rather God did; and then he made a very bold claim: “I am the bread of life.” So this week, the people are angry with Jesus for that claim, for saying that he came down from heaven. They murmured because they knew his family, and surmised that he couldn’t have descended from heaven. They didn’t yet understand the depth of who Jesus was. They were so hungry that they didn’t realize that the finest spiritual banquet stood right before them.

    The thing is, spiritual hunger is something we all face in one way or another. We all have very difficult journeys to face in our lives. Whether we’re feeling dejected and defeated like Elijah, or feeling cranky and irritable like the Ephesians, or whether we’re just feeling superior and murmuring like the Jews in today’s Gospel, spiritual hunger is something we all must face sometime in our lives. From time to time, we all discover in ourselves a hole that we try to fill with something. Maybe we try to fill that up with alcohol, or too much work, or too much ice cream, or the wrong kind of relationships, or whatever; and eventually we find that none of that fills up the hole in our lives. Soon we end up sitting under a scraggly old broom tree, wishing that God would take us now. If we’re honest, we’ve all been at that place at one time or another in our lives.

    We disciples know that there is only one thing – or rather one person – that can fill up that emptiness. And that person is Jesus Christ. Jesus knows our pains and sorrows and longs to be our Bread of Life, the only bread that can fill up that God-sized hole in our lives. We have to let him do that. But it’s not so easy for us to let God take over and do what he needs to do in us. We have to turn off the distractions around us, we have to stop trying to fill the hole with other things that never have any hope of satisfying us, and we have to turn to our Lord in trust that only he can give us strength for the journey. Jesus alone is the bread that came down from heaven, and only those who eat this bread will live forever, forever satisfied, forever strengthened. It is only this bread that will give us strength for the arduous journeys of our lives.

    We will come forward in a few minutes to receive this great gift around the Table of the Lord. As we continue our prayer today, let us remember the advice God gives to Elijah: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” Only then can we go and proclaim the Gospel of the Lord.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today's readings

    During World War II, the officers of the Third Reich's secret service forcefully recruited many 12- and 13-year-old boys into the Junior Gestapo. The harshly treated boys were given only inhumane jobs that they were to perform without rest or complaint.

    After the war ended, most had lost contact with their families and wandered aimlessly, without food or shelter. As part of an aid program to rebuild postwar Germany, many of these youths were housed in tent cities. There, doctors and nurses worked with them in an attempt to restore their physical, mental and emotional health.

    Many of the boys would awaken several times during the night screaming in terror. One doctor had an idea for handling their fears. After serving the boys a hearty meal, he'd tuck them into bed with a piece of bread in their hands that they were told to save until morning. The boys began to sleep soundly after that because, after so many years of hunger and uncertainty as to their next meal, they finally had the assurance of food for the next day.

    On the last day of my dad's life about a month ago, I gave him Holy Communion for what would be the last time. He was able to pray with us, and was so grateful to receive the Sacrament of Jesus' own body and blood. We call that last Communion Viaticum which in Latin means "bread for the journey." Like the former Junior Gestapo boys who slept soundly because they knew they had food for the next day, my dad was able to rest in Christ knowing that he would be able to eat at the heavenly banquet table.

    On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are called to take comfort in the many ways God feeds us. We know that when we pray "give us this day our daily bread," we will receive all that we need and more, because our God loves us and cares for us. But to really trust in God's care can sometimes be a bit of a scary moment.

    It was certainly scary for the disciples, who asked Jesus to "dismiss the crowds" so that they could go into the surrounding cities and get something to eat. They were afraid for the crowds because they had come to the desert, where there was nothing to eat or drink. They were afraid for the crowds because it would soon be dark and then it would be dangerous to travel into the surrounding cities to find refuge and sustenance. And, if they were to really admit it, they were afraid of the crowds, because all they had to offer them were five loaves of bread and two fish – hardly a meal for the Twelve, let alone five thousand.

    loaves fishBut Jesus isn't having any of that. Fear is no match for God's mercy and care and providence, so instead of dismissing the crowds, he tells the disciples to gather the people in groups of about fifty. Then he takes the disciples meager offering, with every intent of supplying whatever it lacked. He blesses their offerings, transforming them from an impoverished snack to a rich, nourishing meal. He breaks the bread, enabling all those present to partake of it, and finally he gives that meal to the crowd, filling their hungering bodies and souls with all that they need and then some. Caught in a deserted place with darkness encroaching and practically nothing to offer in the way of food, Jesus overcomes every obstacle and feeds the crowd with abundance. It's no wonder they followed him to this out of the way place.

    The disciples had to be amazed at this turn of events, and perhaps it was an occasion for them of coming to know Jesus and his ministry in a deeper way. They were fed not just physically by this meal, but they were fed in faith as well. In this miraculous meal, they came to know that their Jesus could be depended on to keep them from danger and to transform the bleakest of moments into the most joyous of all festivals. But even as their faith moved to a deeper level, the challenge of that faith was cranked up a notch as well. "You give them something to eat," Jesus said to them. Having been fed physically and spiritually by their Master, they were now charged with feeding others in the very same way.

    Christ has come to supply every need. In Jesus, nothing is lacking and no one suffers want. All the Lord asks of the five thousand is what he also asks of us each Sunday: to gather as a sacred assembly, to unite in offering worship with Jesus who is our High Priest, to receive Holy Communion, and to go forth to share the remaining abundance of our feast with others who have yet to be fed. After the crowd had eaten the meal, that was the time for them to go out into the surrounding villages and farms – not to find something to eat, but to share with everyone they met the abundance that they had been given. So it is for us. After we are fed in the Eucharist, we must then necessarily go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord by sharing our own abundance with every person we meet.

    You might do that by participating in a small faith community, sharing the Scriptures and our own living faith with your brothers and sisters. Maybe you would do that by becoming Eucharistic Ministers, and dedicating yourselves to the ministry of distributing the precious gift of the Lord's own Body and Blood each Sunday. But you could also do that by volunteering to serve a meal at Hesed House, or bringing food to Loaves and Fishes. Sharing our abundance of spiritual blessing doesn't have to be very elaborate. You might just bring a meal to a friend going through a hard time or visit a neighbor who is a shut-in. Jesus is the font of every blessing, and it is up to us to share that blessing with everyone in every way we can. We too must hear and answer those challenging words of Jesus: "You give them something to eat."

    What we celebrate today is that our God is dependable and that we can rely on him for our needs. Just as he was dependable to feed the vast crowd in that horrible, out-of the-way place, so he too can reach out to us, no matter where we are on the journey, and feed us beyond our wildest imaginings. Just as the Junior Gestapo boys were able to rest easy as they clutched that bread for the next day, so we too can rest easy, depending on our God to give us all that we need to meet the challenges of tomorrow and beyond. The challenge to give others something to eat need not be frightening because we know that the source of the food is not our own limited offerings, but the great abundance of God himself. We need not fear any kind of hunger – our own or that of others – because it's ultimately not about us or what we can offer, but what God can do in and through us.

    In our Eucharist today, the quiet time after Communion is our time to gather up the wicker baskets of our abundance, to reflect on what God has given us and done for us and done with us. We who receive the great meal of his own Body and Blood must be resolved to give from those wicker baskets in our day-to-day life, feeding all those people God has given us in our lives. We do all this in remembrance of Christ, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes again.

  • The 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time: Decide Today whom You will Serve

    The 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time: Decide Today whom You will Serve

    Today’s readings

    Canon law requires a retreat before a man is ordained as a deacon or a priest, so about this time last year, I made my diaconate retreat up at Bellarmine Retreat House in Barrington. It was one of the most important retreats I have ever made, with the possible exception of the retreat just before my priesthood ordination. I took the occasion of that retreat to meditate on the three promises I would be making to be sure I was ready to make them. Those promises, of course, are celibacy, obedience to the Bishop, and the promise to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day. At the end of the retreat, obviously, I decided I was indeed ready for that commitment, and I was able to approach my ordination as Deacon last November with great joy.

    I mention this because I think the making of a decision is an essential aspect of any retreat. No matter what kind of retreat you are on, the hope, I think is that at the end of it, you will have made some decision to approach your life, your vocation or your work with a renewal that will bring you joy. Many of you have been on Marriage Encounter retreats, and may have made a decision to approach your marriage with renewed appreciation for the love you share. A lot of you have made the ChRHP retreats and have made the decision to live your discipleship with a renewed energy and commitment to this parish. Some of the youth have made RPM or Reflections retreats and have made a decision to live your faith as you grow into young adulthood. Perhaps some have made personal retreats, and have made decisions that have strengthened your spiritual life. No matter what kind of retreat you may make, a decision is pretty standard fare at the end of it.

    Today marks the last Sunday of a retreat of sorts that we have been making as a Church. For the last five weeks, we have taken a bit of a break from our reading of the Gospel of Mark to look at chapter six of the Gospel of John, commonly known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.” So this retreat has been all about the Eucharist, its importance in our lives, and a renewal of our joy for receiving it. Back on July 31st, we heard about Jesus feeding the five thousand on just five barley loaves and two fish: this wonderful miracle showed us how Jesus notices our needs, makes up for what we lack, and feeds us physically and spiritually with food more wonderful than we could ever imagine. The next Sunday, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Transfiguration. We were able to catch a glimpse of Jesus’ resurrected body even before he suffered and died: we were challenged to each transfigure our own world for the better, not the worse; for good and not for evil. The following Sunday, we returned to John’s Gospel and heard about Jesus being the true bread come down from heaven. That day, if you were at one of the Masses I celebrated, we reviewed how to receive Communion with reverence, faithfulness and joy. And last Sunday, Jesus proclaimed that only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will live forever, that his body and blood are real food, come from heaven, to nourish all of us who believe. We dined at the rich table of Wisdom and the great banquet of the Lord and reflected on why the Eucharist and the sacraments are so important to us as Catholics.

    This retreat has been rich and nourishing. It has provided us the opportunity to reflect on the wonderful gift of the Eucharist, and the Real Presence of Christ in our midst. We have been challenged, and we have been fed, perhaps we have even been refreshed. Hopefully the Eucharist, the receiving of which can become a routine when we do it week after week or day after day, has become even more important and awesome to us as we have reflected on it in these last five weeks. This has been such a wonderful opportunity for us to give thanks for the great Paschal Mystery which is the lifeblood of our Church and our spiritual lives. God willing, this retreat will nourish us and feed our spiritual lives in the months to come.

    One of the hardest parts of any retreat is always the end of it. As wonderful as time away and time spent on our spiritual lives may be, we all have to go back to “real life” and all its responsibilities and demands. Back on Transfiguration Sunday a few weeks ago, Peter, James and John found the same to be true. They had experienced the Lord in an incredibly intimate way, but now they had to come down the mountain and live their lives. We have to come down a mountain of sorts every time we end a retreat, as we are doing today. And so as wonderful as our reflection on the Eucharist has been, we now have to come down the mountain into our lives as Christians. And for this retreat, it really is a coming down. From here on out, when we return to the Gospel of Mark, it’s all going to be about the Cross. Everything will be told from Mark’s point of view as a shadow of the suffering and death of Jesus. We will have to take the strength of the Eucharist upon which we’ve reflected in these last weeks into the real demands the Gospel and the Cross make of us as disciples.

    Today’s Liturgy demands a decision of us. Now that we have reflected on the Eucharist, what’s it going to be? Are we going to follow Christ or not? Who will be our God? And make no mistake, brothers and sisters in Christ: these are not frivolous questions about which we can make a flippant comment and let that be that. No, these questions are life and death questions that will define who we are as a people and define who we are in the sight of God. If you come up to receive Communion today, you will have publicly answered those questions for yourself, and the implication of those answers for your life will be absolutely irrevocable. We know how powerful this decision is because, in the very first verse of the next chapter of John, we are told: “After this, Jesus moved about within Galilee; but he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him.” There are no promises of glamour or grandeur here, brothers and sisters, because sometimes discipleship is just that serious.

    In today’s first reading, Joshua puts it very clearly to the Israelites: “Decide today whom you will serve.” They are told they can either serve the gods of their ancestors, a kind of ancestral spirit worship. Or they can serve the gods of the people whose land they have taken over. Those gods were based on worship to affect the richness of the land. Or, they could serve the LORD, whose mighty deeds and outstretched arm delivered them from their oppressors in Egypt and literally gave them the land in which they were now dwelling. Joshua then makes a declaration that has always inspired me, a decision that has echoed through the centuries ever since: “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” The decision he was asking them to make was one that would absolutely define who they were as a people. Either they would continue the ancestral worship of their fathers and mothers and be defined as individual clans, or they would worship the gods of the Amorites and be identified with the people they were supposed to be overcoming. Or they could worship the Lord and be defined as God’s people. They chose the latter, and that has defined them ever since, and it is the background of how we define ourselves as a people.

    In the Gospel reading, it is Jesus who demands the decision. People have just heard his Bread of Life discourse, and many found it troubling. Either they were angry that he was claiming to be “bread come down from heaven” when they knew his mother and father and where he was from, or they were put off by his teaching that they should eat his flesh and drink his blood. One claim was pure blasphemy, and the other was just plain gross. The drinking of blood was also specifically prohibited by the deuteronomic law. So for one reason or the other, many of those who had been eagerly following Jesus now turned away, murmuring as they went: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Jesus then turns to his disciples and very bluntly asks them, “Do you also want to leave?” His question makes no specific judgment but does demand a decision.

    It is Peter who answers, and not just for himself but for the other eleven too. He makes a beautiful profession of faith in three parts. First, he states that there is no one else to whom they can go, because nobody else preaches authentically as Jesus does. Second, he states that Jesus proclaims words of eternal life, words that really matter, words that are backed up by action, words that will lead them to the Kingdom of God. Finally, he professes faith in a Messianic identity of Jesus: he and the others are absolutely convinced that Jesus is the Holy One of God. Peter and the others have made their decision. Just as Joshua and the Israelites defined themselves as followers of the LORD, so Peter and the other disciples would define themselves as followers of Jesus. The implication of that decision for Peter and the other disciples (except for Judas) was martyrdom, as we know that they were later to suffer death for the faith they now professed.

    So the questions are poignant for us now, aren’t they? We have just heard the same discourse the disciples did. Do we also want to leave? Who will we serve? Who will be our God? What will our faith look like? How will we choose to live? What meaning does the Eucharist have in our lives? What are its implications? We have many ways that we can answer those questions. We have many opportunities to continue this retreat we have been enjoying these last five weeks. We can join a small Christian Community as we will be hearing about today. We can go to Hesed House and serve the poor as a way of feeding others as we have been fed. We can teach the faith to our children, junior high students, or youth as we have been asked the last few weeks. We can become lectors or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. And those are just to name a few. Perhaps some of us may even need to discern a call to priesthood, the diaconate or religious life.

    But all of these decisions begin with the one we will make in a few minutes. We will soon have the opportunity to come forward to receive the Eucharist about which we have been reflecting all these weeks. Receiving our Lord means we have decided who is our God and how we will live. As we receive the broken body and blood of our Lord, so we too have promised to lay down our lives for others. It’s that simple and that difficult, friends. Decide today whom you will serve.