Corpus Christi

“I Love a Mystery” was a radio program I listened to as a young boy, long ago. It started, as all mysteries do, with something concealed. Someone, something was lost, someone was killed or was being hunted down and for the next half hour you would follow the various clues until the mystery was solved.

The Mass is a mystery too. A “mystery of faith,” we say, and it hides the treasures of our faith.

One of the earliest terms describing the Mass is “the Lord’s Supper,” referring of course to the supper that Jesus shared with his disciples the night before he died.  He spoke to them that night of his love and then gave himself to them under the signs of bread and wine. Then he said “Do this in memory of me.”

In every Catholic church we try to keep his command. Whether it’s St. Peter’s Basilica or a parish church or a small chapel off a busy city street, there’s an altar, a table, at the center of the place and the Lord’s Supper is celebrated here in memory of him.

Readings from the Old and New Testaments will be read here, because Jesus spoke from the scriptures to his disciples. Then the priest who represents Jesus takes bread and wine, gives thanks to God for the gifts of creation and life itself, then repeats the words of Jesus, “This is my body” “This is my Blood.” Then we all receive these gifts.

We gather around Jesus as his disciples did, not perfect disciples to be sure, but we’re among those “whom he loved till the end.” And he feeds us with his wisdom and life.

Our celebration of the Mass can be flawed by cold routine or lifeless participation. We who take part in the Mass–priest and people – may not bring the lively faith or spirit of thanksgiving that’s  “right and just” for this great act of worship. But still,  as a church we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We have been celebrating it from the time of Jesus till now, and we will continue till its signs are replaced by the reality of the Kingdom they signify.

Ordinary time is when the Holy Spirit acts. It’s also the time when we know Jesus Christ through the signs he has left us, particularly through the Holy Eucharist.

Reasoning to faith

I mentioned in my last blog how Elizabeth Seton came to believe in the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. She offers a an example of how ordinary reasoning leads to faith. “She thought of the Filicchis’s devotion and asked how God created her ‘ and how a hundred other things I know nothing about? I am a mother, so the mother’s thought came also. How was my God a little babe in the first stage of his mortal existence in Mary?’”

Three simple things influenced her: the Filicchis’s belief in the Eucharist, the many mysteries she found in her own life and could not explain, and finally the mystery of the Incarnation itself. Humbly, Jesus became flesh in the womb of Mary. Could not the One who “emptied himself and took on the form of a slave” choose to be really present in bread and wine?

Commentators say that the long narrative in the 6th chapter of John’s gospel on the miracle of the loaves and fish is meant to meet questions that arose in his church in the last decade of the 1st century. The first disciples and eyewitnesses are gone. Some Christians, probably influenced by Gnostic pessimism, questioned the Incarnation of Christ. Would God become human and part of our created world? The authors of John’s gospel use the miracle of the loaves and fish and Jesus’ words that he is “the bread of life” to assert that he works through creation. He is the Word made flesh.

Elizabeth was raised an Episcopalian and belonged to Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan. From my reading it seems that her church at the end of the 18th century was emerging from the heavy influence of the Enlightenment, which stressed a rational approach to religion. Then, Henry Hobart,a new ministerarrived and began to preach a biblical message based on the words and ministry of Jesus; Elizabeth responded warmly to his message.

I like best her simple reasoning for belief in Jesus present in the Eucharist: “I am a mother, so the mother’s thought came also. How was my God a little babe in the first stage of his mortal existence in Mary?”

Bread from Heaven

If you look at a Google satellite picture of Galilee today, you’ll see acres of lush green farmland around the Lake of Galilee, where the ministry of Jesus once took place. It’s a fertile land; it was like that in Jesus’ day. The lake, the Jordan River and the rich land of Galilee have been a major source of food and water for Israel and its neighbors for centuries.

Studies say that in Jesus’ time large quantities of grain and fish were shipped from Galilee to other parts of the Roman empire. Herod the Great and his son Herod Antipas, rulers of Galilee, were great builders; they were also great businessmen who created a network of roads and large cities like Caesarea Maritima, Tiberius, Sepphoris to export goods from Galilee to the rest of the world. From what we know, the economy was booming in Jesus’ time.

I mention this because I think it gives a perspective on the miracle of Jesus feeding the crowd bread and some fish. “I am the bread of life,” he said, “whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” I’m the source of all blessings, everything you have, Jesus says. It was a divine claim. God the creator is at work in me, Jesus says. I don’t ask for bread as Moses did for his people journeying from Egypt– “I am the bread of life.” “It wasn’t Moses who gave you bread from heaven; it was my Father who gives you true bread.” John’s gospel sees Jesus stating his divine identity in this miraculous sign.

The crowd whom Jesus fed on the other side of the Lake of Galilee and who followed him to Capernaum wants to make him king. (John 6, 15) That was a dangerous move. Herod Antipas and the Romans would crush that threat to their profitable kingdom immediately.

Spiritually too, they were reducing Jesus to someone who helps you get what you want, someone to go to when you run out of money or need a favor, someone who helps you on your own terms. You can hear Jesus correcting the crowd for small mindedness. Not only were they courting danger by proposing him to be king; they were making him too small by asking him for so little.

The early theologian Origen has a wonderful commentary on Jesus as the bread of life. He says when Jesus calls himself bread he means “nourishment of every kind.” It’s not just nourishment of our bodies; it’s also nourishment of our minds and our souls. When we say “Give us this day our daily bread,” we’re asking for everything that nourishes our “true humanity, which is made in the image of God.”

When we ask for our daily bread, we’re asking for everything that helps us “grow in the likeness of our creator.” (On Prayer 27,2) Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, we don’t know the nourishment we need, but God does. As “the true bread come down from heaven” God knows how to feed us.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” That’s our prayer as we approach the living bread come down from heaven.

The Bread of Life

The four gospels say that Jesus fed a crowd of people near the Sea of Galilee by multiplying a few loaves of bread and some fish. It’s one of his most important miracles, a reminder of the Exodus from Egypt when God fed his people with manna in the desert and kept them alive. “I am the living bread,” Jesus said. More than the other gospels, John dwells on this miracle and he sees it, not just as a sign of Jesus’ power, but as a test of faith.

The first tested are Jesus’ own disciples. “How are we to buy bread so that these people can eat?” Jesus asks Philip as crowds arrive at a mountain on the other side of the sea. We haven’t enough money, Philip answers, a typical reason to do nothing. The crowds want to make Jesus their king after eating a plentiful meal; a continual supply of food is on their mind more than “the true bread come down from heaven.”

The Sacrament of the Eucharist is always a testing ground for faith. “Because of it many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.” (John 6,66) Besides this radical step, others seem to have little appreciation for this great sign, John’s gospel indicates. What does our relationship reveal about our faith in Jesus Christ?

More than a test of faith, the Eucharist is also a powerful source of grace enabling us to recognize the Risen Christ and believe in him.

We enter a school of faith in the Easter season. The Risen Christ speaks to us in signs like water, bread and wine, words that promise a world beyond ours. May we find ourselves echoing the apostle Peter. “Where shall we go, you have the words of eternal life.”

Listening to Prayers

I hear people listening to the Eucharistic Prayers these last few weeks. Maybe I’m imagining it, but there’s a stillness in church during Mass that seems to indicate it, and that’s encouraging, because listening is an important way we pray at Mass. It’s vital to listen to the scriptures that are read and the homily that’s preached, but we also need to listen to the prayers we say as well. This is especially true of the Eucharistic prayer.

I recorded an audio file of the 2^nd Eucharistic Prayer for Various Needs and you can listen to it at the end of this blog, if you wish. Listen and reflect on the words. The Eucharistic prayers help us understand the mystery we celebrate.

Think about the words of the prayer and ask yourself what they mean. For example, take the dialogue that opens every Eucharistic prayer:

“The Lord be with you.

And with your spirit.

Lift us your hearts.

We have lifted them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.

It is right and just.”

The Lord is with you and me as we pray and and gives us the grace to lift up our hearts together and  enter God’s presence. It’s a presence that expands our vision of life and broadens our awareness of who we are.

What do we thank God for? Certainly for the personal blessings we encounter in our life at hand, but we don’t stop there. In God’s presence we become aware of  the blessings of creation and redemption given to us by God, our Father, through Jesus Christ.

The Eucharist calls us into a large world, infinitely larger than our own time and place. If fact, it brings us into the context of eternity. We’re in touch with the beginnings of our universe and reach out to the end of time, when God’s kingdom will come. We belong to this great world as children of God. We have been blessed with a promise far beyond our imagination.

We receive this promise through Jesus Christ whose love we recall in the gifts of bread and wine. He is present and tells us to remember him.

Here’s an audio of a Eucharistic Prayer

Is God Bread?

Today, the 20^th Sunday (B) of the year, we continue to explore the 6^th chapter of St. John’s gospel which centers around the important miracle of the Loaves and the Fish. Jesus says to the crowds that he himself is “living bread.”

When Jesus speaks, God speaks. When he says something, God says something, and in the gospel of John for this Sunday he says:

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;

whoever eats this bread will live forever;

and the bread that I will give

is my flesh for the life of the world.”

And so God says: “I am the living bread come down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.

God is bread, food for the hungry, for those who cannot live without food. That’s us, isn’t it? We can’t live without being fed.

God is our food,  not temporary food, but food enabling us to live forever. God doesn’t limit himself to giving bread that perishes; God gives us a daily food leading to eternal life, to sharing in God’s life.  So we say in the Our Father, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Bread is such a simple yet profound description of God! It describes God, not as remote or detached from this world and from us. He cares for us with a daily care and offers us day by day the promise of eternal life. God’s care is simple, like a small piece of bread; steady like the daily food we eat.

Taking the holy Bread from the altar, we commune with God who brings us life, daily life, eternal life. Jesus Christ makes this God known when he says, “I am the living bread come down from heaven.”

Is there something else we can learn from this, about ourselves? We‘re best when, like God, we’re bread. Giving, instead of receiving; nourishing others, rather than seeking nourishment.

Our society is called a consumer society. We consume, we take. But isn’t it better to feed others, like bread. Isn’t that also the message from today’s gospel?

Shall we learn this message? Our first reading today from the Book of Wisdom calls us to a banquet hall to feed on this wisdom. Listen to the invitation:

“Let whoever is simple turn in here;

To the one who lacks understanding, she says,

Come, eat of my food,

and drink of the wine I have mixed!

Forsake foolishness that you may live;

advance in the way of understanding.”

Grace Before Meals

“Not only in Israel, but among the ancient peoples generally, a meal was much more than a meal, understood as an occasion of eating and drinking. A meal was a sacred occasion, something that is hard for us to understand in these days of ‘fast food’, when eating is little more that  a biological function. Even a few decades ago, when  grace before meals was quite common in Western countries, there was some sense that eating and drinking are not merely biological occasions, but carry ( or may carry) many connotations.

The fact that grace before meals has become something of a rarity nowadays is symptomatic of the change that has taken place. Even when people sit down together at table they are often in a hurry to get away so that they can get to some other matter, whether business or pleasure, that seems to them more important. Even when graces are said nowadays, it is often on the least appropriate occasions, lavish banquets in city halls, colleges, or similar institutions.

But the point I want to make is that the disapperance of grace points to the fact that there has been a loss of any sense of the sacred ina meal, any sense of gratitude to God who has provided for the maintenance of life in his creation, or even to those human beings whose labor brought the fruitfulness of earth to a form in which it can nourish the human race.”

John Macquarrie, A Guide to the Sacraments, 102

 

Hunger

Manna in the Desert

The next five Sundays we’ll read from the 6^th chapter of St. John’s gospel, beginning this Sunday with the miracle of the loaves and the fish. All four gospels recall this miracle, Mark and Matthew report it twice. The miracle and Jesus’ words that follow it in John’s gospel are about the Holy Eucharist. Jesus, the Bread of Life, is the answer to our hunger.

The miracle takes place across the Sea of Galilee, in a “deserted place,’ as Matthew’s gospel describes it. There’s no place to buy food for a hungry crowd.

There’s only five barley loaves and two fish a small boy has. Barley loaves were the ordinary food for the poor.

Jesus initiates this miracle by pointing out to his disciples  a hunger in the crowd. They seem hardly aware of it and have no answer what to do, except to say “We don’t have enough!”  Taking what’s there, the five barley loaves and two fish, Jesus multiplies this food and feeds a multitude. John notes the Passover is near; it’s spring and green grass has grown up in this deserted place. Not only is it enough, but fragments are left over as the crowd has its fill.

Keep in mind the basic reality the miracle addresses: hunger. It’s bodily hunger, yes, but hunger of all kinds is addressed here. Like the disciples, we may be hardly aware of it. Humanity is hungry, this gospel says. Only God can fill its silent, hidden hunger, this miracle says. Only Jesus can.

Hunger

“I come among the peoples like a shadow,

I sit down by each man’s side,

None sees me,

but they look on one another and know that I am there

My silence is like the silence of the tide that buries the playground of children

Like the deepening of frost in the slow night, when birds are dead in the morning.

Armies travel, invade, destroy with guns roaring from earth and air.

I am more terrible than armies.

I am more feared than cannon, kings and chancellors

I give no command to any, but I am listened to more than kings

and more than passionate orators

I unswear words and undo deeds,

Naked things know me.

I am more the first and last to be felt of the living.

I am hunger. “

Lawrence Binyon

The Vine

Visiting Laurita Winery in New Egypt, New Jersey, reminds you why New Jersey is called the “Garden State.” Forget the long lines of oil and chemical refineries and warehouses along the New Jersey Turnpike; swathes of rich Jersey farmland  still survive.

Some of us wanted to see how wine was made and Ray Shea, one of the owners, and Nicholaas Opdam, the Oenologist or Vineyard Manager, gave four city visitors a thorough tour of their extensive vineyard a few days ago.

“ I am the vine,” Jesus says in this Sunday’s gospel. It was an image, like so many others, suggested to him by the rich landscape of Galilee he knew so well.  In its vineyards, Jesus recognized links between earth and heaven. “I am the vine; you are the branches.” He also knew how complex and subtle an image like this was. At the very least, the vine needs pruning. But there’s more.

Growing grapes is as challenging as sowing seed. Seed can fall by the wayside, or on hard ground, or among thorns. The birds of the air can eat it up.

Vines are similar. They depend on the right climate, they need the right amount of water, the soil in which they’re planted needs feeding and watchful adjusting. Blackbirds can swoop down on the ripening grapes. Better than protecting nets is a circling red-tailed hawk.

“We depend here at Laurita on weather and matters beyond our control,” says Ray Shea. Twice a year the vineyard is blessed, in the cold of January and during the harvest in October.

They’re using the latest technology and the wisdom of wine-makers from all over the world at this vineyard. Solar panels circling the fields harvest the energy of the sun and a man made lake collects vital water. Nicholaas hovers over it like a nursing mother.

Yet it’s no sure thing. No matter how much hard work and preparation go into the vineyard, no matter how skilled and up-to-date its operations, it’s subject to human limitations.

“I am the vine; you are the branches.” I must admit, I hardly gave a thought to the patience, the risk, the many dimensions of life behind this image, which is so richly incarnational.  A loaf of bread or a bottle of wine came to the table, from nowhere I thought.

Not so.

At the Eucharist, bread and wine just come to the table, from nowhere. Not so.

The Eucharist and the Environment

Catholics and Methodists in the United States have been holding official ecumenical dialogues for the last 40 years. This year, instead of looking at dogmatic differences between the churches, the dialogue turned to an issue of common concern ­–“the ecological crisis as a summons to an ecumenical response.”

The result is a document entitled “Heaven and Earth are Full of Your Glory: United Methodist and Roman Catholic” which discusses the way the two traditions see the environment through their traditions of prayer. Both churches believe in Christ who died, rose from the dead and is coming again; both churches recognize the role of the Eucharist in their prayer. A common appreciation offers an opportunity for a common witness.

The document looks to the mystery of creation. The signs of the times call for an “ecological conversion” as we face “climate destabilization, the destruction of the ozone layer and the loss of biodiversity,” and hear creation’s groaning.( Romans 8,22) The prayer traditions of both churches  proclaim the place of creation in the plan of God; they need to emphasize this insight more and more.

“Creation is God’s first gift. Creation is the first sign of God’s glory and love. For humans, the world is not simply a stage for human action; our relation to the world, to creation, is constitutive of our very identity as persons.” (8)

“We believe in one God who both creates and redeems.”  We have forgotten today  what the psalmist proclaimed long ago: “ Know that the Lord is God; he made us, we belong to him.” (Psalm 100) Forgetfulness can lead to a distorted understanding of the role given to us in the Book of Genesis, “to subdue the earth.” Rather than absolute power, we have received a “summons to responsibility” based on a humble realization of our dependence on God’s mercy and kindness.

Looking at creation in an inadequate way also “leads to a diminished sense of the salvific work of Christ.” (12)

We gather for the Eucharist on Sunday, the first day of the week, to celebrate creation as well as the resurrection of Jesus. Sunday, the 8^th day, is also the day creation is renewed in hope.

In the Eucharist, we praise God as the voice of all creation and acknowledge our common place before our Creator and Redeemer. We listen to the divine word in the scriptures, but we also listen to the witness of all creation.

The bread and wine are signs, both of creation and of human work. The Eucharistic prayers of both traditions recognize the blessings we have received from God through creation. It’s important to see the interconnectivity between the bread and wine and the reality of creation. The document offers a practical suggestion: if possible use locally produced wheat and grapes to make the sacramental bread and wine for the Eucharist celebrated by each church. (34)

A Christian response to the ecological crisis, to environmental degradation and environmental justices is adequate only if it is informed by a sense of wonder before God’s gift of creation. The Eucharist evokes that sense of wonder when we join with the choirs  of angels, the whole company of heaven, and indeed with all creation singing:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of  power and might.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory,

Hosanna in the highest.