8/19/2012 – 20th Sunday – Proverbs 9:1-6, John 6:51-58

      We have been hearing Gospel readings these past four weeks from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, a chapter that help us better understand the Eucharist that we share together each Sunday around the Lord’s table.  Jesus tells us today that if we eat his flesh and drink his blood as the true food and the true drink, we will remain in him and he will remain in us.  As Jesus tells us he is the bread of life, maybe we can understand these statements to some extent, but in some way this will still remain a mystery of our faith.  Mystery is always a part of the way we celebrate our liturgies and the way we see God.  Since it is still difficult for us to comprehend the mysteries of the Eucharist as modern followers of Christ, imagine how shocking these statements were to those in ancient Israel who heard Jesus proclaim them for the first time. Even though this is a mystery of our faith, how can we better understand Jesus as the living bread in a way that brings meaning & significance to our lives?

         When I was having a discussion about the Eucharist with a youth group in one of the parishes in our diocese when I first became a priest, I remember very clearly one of the youth asking me, “Father Lincoln, can you seriously tell me that you really believe that the host that we receive during the mass is actually the body of Christ?”  After responding affirmatively to him, I tried to use an analogy of how I can still believe in something that remains at least partially a mystery to me.  I referred to all the technology we use in our modern world.  It amazes me how a couple hundred passengers can get on an airplane in one country & arrive in another part of the world mere hours later.  When I get on an airplane in Jackson, I believe that it will get me to Canada to see my friends later that afternoon, even though I am not a physicist or an engineer and have no clue about the laws of physics that allow an airplane to fly in the air to get us to the destination safely.  Likewise, I do not have to fully understand to principle of transubstantiation at work in the Eucharist we receive at the Lord’s Table to believe that I am truly receiving the body & blood of Christ, the bread of life.  We are to believe in our hearts, we are to believe in our intellect, we are to believe with all our being, that the Eucharist we receive is truly the body of Christ coming into our lives – to us as Catholics, that is what truly matters to us. 

         Our first reading from the book of Proverbs gives us some additional advice on how to approach Jesus as the bread of life.  The writer of Proverbs tells us to forsake foolishness, to advance in the way of understanding.  Wisdom has set a banquet table with a great feast of wine and meat that has been prepared for us.  The simple, those who are searching for the truth of God with sincerity of heart & the joyful enthusiasm of a child, are invited to partake of this feast. 

         The meat and wine that Wisdom prepares for us can be seen as a prophetic foreshadowing of the body and blood that Christ says we must eat in order to have true life within us.  The food we eat here on earth at our meals each day provides us nourishment and strength for our earthly existence. However, it is the Lord’s flesh and blood that we receive in the Eucharist that provide us spiritual nourishment beyond that natural order of things here on earth – it is food that feeds us for our spiritual journey. 

         As Christ tells us in today’s Gospel, when we take in his flesh and his blood, a marvelous and inexplicable union takes place, a union in which God is in us and we are in God.  What we receive in the Eucharist is not fully comprehended by our eyes or our teeth; rather, our union with Christ in the Eucharist contains a life-giving power that goes beyond any logical explanation our human understanding can give.  St. Ignatius of Loyola tells us that the very being and essence of God enters us when we receive the Eucharist.  This divine mystery of the Eucharist requires that we not only live the reality of Christ entering into our lives, but that we contemplate its depths of this reality and grow in what it demands of us.  I often tell our parishioners, just think about the host receive in the Eucharist – that it is really Christ entering our bodies & our lives in a very special way.  What impact does that have in our lives?  How does it influence the way we act, what we say and what we think, if we truly believe that the Eucharist is Christ present with us? 

         Christ tells us that he has life in the Father, that he draws life in the Father.   Just as Christ was born of the Father who is life, so those who eat of Christ will draw life from him and will be united in him.  As we are drawn into this new life, we will be transformed by Christ & into Christ. 

         How are you allowing Christ to transform you in a special way as he enters you in the Eucharist?  If Christ came to us this week and asked each one of us how we were allowing the Eucharist to transform and change us in our lives, how would we respond to him?  I think that would be a really great exercise for us - if we could all think of a way we could really live out the Eucharist this week, to show Jesus that it is truly making a difference in our lives and the way we live.   The Eucharist we receive should make a huge difference in our lives. How are we making that happen? 

8/12/2012 – Sunday of the 19th week of ordinary time; 1 Kings 19:4-8; John 6:41-51

         We continue our readings in the 16^th chapter of John’s Gospel this morning.  In the last few weeks, we’ve seen Jesus feed the hungry crowds by multiplying the loaves & the fish, we've heard him talk about how he is the bread of heaven that gives us eternal life.  Yet, even this week, the crowd is still murmuring with discontent about how this lowly carpenter's son thinks he can lecture them about having been sent from heaven by God, his father.  Today's readings give us an opportunity to think about what it really means for us to receive Christ as the bread of life in our day-to-day reality, how it can transform our lives.

         As we hear Jesus talk to the crowd about the bread of life in the midst of its grumbling, we see God feeding the prophet Elijah in equally exasperating circumstances that may seem applicable to our own lives.  Elijah's journey as God's prophet has led him to confront King Ahaz & Queen Jezebel for turning their backs on God in favor of the Phoenician God Baal.  Elijah has had the false prophets of Israel slain and now is threatened with death by Jezebel.  Elijah is distraught; he feels alone because no one is listening to his message.  In his despair, Elijah cries out to God.  He prays for his own death, resting underneath a broom tree in the middle of his journey through the desert. 

         How often do we feel desperate and distraught like Elijah during our own journeys of faith?  How often do we want to get closer to God, do we want to be nourished by his daily bread, but it is just not coming together for us?  I remember being a missionary in Ecuador, being frustrated by bouts with malaria & pneumonia that consumed all my energy, when I had to journey back to my mission site in the middle of the jungle after having spent 2 weeks in the hospital in the capital city of Quito.  I realized how much the El Nino storm system was affecting us there in Ecuador when our bus stopped in the middle of the jungle to see the road entirely washed out by a sea of mud.  We were on the beginning of the bus ride through the jungle; in optimal conditions, it took at least 4 hours by bus. At this point, somehow I was convinced by the other passengers that the smart thing to do was to take off on foot, that we would find a break in the mud & find transportation to continue our journey.  After trudging through mud that went past our knees for over 2 hours, then going about an hour in a pickup truck with a road crew, I found myself in the mud in the middle of the jungle in complete darkness as night had fallen.  As I became separated from the others in the group while my companions journeyed ahead of me, & I stopped dead in my tracks.  Like Elijah, I didn't know where to turn.  In my fear & despair, I started to cry.   I really didn't know what would happen to us.  Around this time, I heard the others yelling my name; I pulled myself together and eventually caught up with them.  We finally made it back to our village, but there were points along that journey when I thought I would have to knock on someone's door and ask to sleep on the floor. As I found the courage to continue my trek through the jungle, as I was fed by my faith and my missionary work, Elijah was awakened twice by the angel of the Lord to be fed in order to have the strength to continue on his journey. 

         Like Elijah, we probably all have experienced moments on our journeys of faith where all we want to do is give up.  That's what I felt like trudging through the mud in the jungle.  At such moments, it's easier to grumble and complain, rather than find the faith & courage to continue.  That's where we find the Jewish leaders in today's Gospel; rather than trying to understand what Jesus really means by saying that he is the new bread from heaven, they would rather complain & grumble.  They are confused, because they know Jesus & his parents. Who does he think he is saying he is bread from heaven?  The Jewish leaders were thinking: Isn't Jesus just human, fleshing and blood like us? 

         Think of the details of our own journey; we all have moments of despair and anxiety; we all have things we grumble about; we all have things, big and small , that can keep us from God, that can keep us from the daily bread that Jesus wants to give us on our journey.  Jesus presents himself as the bread of life, as the living bread from heaven that will allow us to live forever.  This bread feeds us here on earth, but it also transcends our earthly existence.  As such, Christ tells us that the sustenance of his life is to be made a part of our lives. Through the daily bread we receive, through the Eucharist we partake of in our community of faith, we receive Christ into our lives.  Christ's life and our lives are co-mingled in the holy communion in which we partake. 

         The message of today's Gospel is central to what we believe as Catholics: that Jesus is the life of the world given to us by the Father, that the salvation that Jesus gives to us as the bread of life is an extension of God's act of creation, as the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus ushers in a new time and a new creation for us as his followers.  We receive Christ as the bread of life through the initiative of the Father.  The bread of life we receive gives us the strength and sustenance to continue on our journey of faith here on earth, just as the bread the Lord provided to Elijah gave him sustenance, just as the manna of heaven allowed the Israelites to continue on their journey.  However, the bread of life in Christ that we receive also points to the fulfillment of God's kingdom that is to come, when a new heaven & a new earth will appear.  We live with faith in that promise of the kingdom to come. However, we also live sustained by the daily bread that allows us to proclaim the kingdom of God that is already present in our lives.