Justice (Reinhold Neibuhr)

Love is the motive,
but justice is the instrument. 

 --Reinhold Neibuhr 

Image source: http://www.upcwo.org/sermons/drdanssermon71518.html
Quotation source

Christianity (Richard Rohr)

   Christianity is a lifestyle – a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established ‘religion’ (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s ‘personal Lord and Savior’… The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great. 

--Richard Rohr, Yes, and…: Daily Meditations 

Image source: https://news.ucsb.edu/2022/020695/how-earth-changing
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 1, 2024: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me...

 

This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me…

How often do we trim Scripture to suit our own needs? 

    In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses’ instructions to the people are very clear: In your observance of the commandments, you shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it. Moses assures them that if they observe the commandments carefully, they will give evidence of their wisdom and intelligence to the nations. But human beings tend toward casuistry, using problematic reasoning to arrive at the conclusions we want. The people of Israel will wander for forty years in the desert because they do not follow the “ten words” (as the commandments were known), instead rewriting God’s law when it is convenient for them and bending the commandments so that they fit their own desires and make sense within their own parameters. Moses would much rather see them remain faithful to the Lord’s words, walking blamelessly and doing justice, as Psalm 15 suggests. The psalm offers a useful self-examination of one’s relationship to God’s laws and to God’s people. 

    By Jesus’ time, the commandments have been augmented by the Jewish leadership to a list of 613 laws that all Jewish people must observe. In Mark’s Gospel, we again see evidence of casuistry: the Jewish authorities are too caught up in the rules they have constructed to recall God’s original intent, which was to establish guidelines for relationship. The leaders want to maintain Jewish identity and culture while they are under the control of the Romans, but they are carried away by their own casuistry. And so, they ask Jesus questions like, Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands? The scribes and Pharisees are missing the point entirely; Jesus calls them hypocrites, all the while hoping that they will one day find their way back to the God of relationship again. 

    If only the scribes and the Pharisees themselves were paying attention to the lessons of Psalm 15, they might learn to do justice and thus live in the presence of the Lord. The psalmist knows that human beings must adhere to the truth in their heart, slander not, harm not their fellow man, or lend money at usury. These lessons of relationship are no less important in the Letter of James, which reminds us to conduct our own self-examination of our relationship to God’s laws and to God’s people: Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. Real religion, James concludes, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world. True, authentic faith that is faithful to Scripture involves a heart open and humble before God, with dedication to serve those most in need. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Heaven in our fingertips (St. Catherine of Siena / Fr. Patrick Michaels)

The path through heaven
lies through heaven,
and all the way to heaven is heaven.

--St. Catherine of Siena 

   In O’Brien Hall, over the holy water font, there is a wood cut (by R. F. McGovern) of Dorothy Day bringing bowls of soup to men in a soup kitchen. Dorothy Day was an incredible woman who dedicated her life to the service of others; she felt that any service done to anyone was a grace. She was the Mother Teresa of the United States. The title of the wood cut is illustrates her core belief: All the way to heaven is heaven. 

    Every kindness, every generous act, every compassion, every mercy, every forgiveness that you or I act upon, reveals heaven. Heaven is what we hope for, but heaven is revealed all along the way. Heaven is revealed in everything we do at the commission of the one who is the ruler of heaven and earth. 

   How can we be disciples going out to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand if the kingdom doesn’t rule our hearts? Yes, as Paul says, we are still working out salvation, one good deed after another. 

   But Dorothy Day had the right of it. All the way to heaven is heaven. Bring heaven to bear upon our broken earth, and see it bloom. Bring kindness to bear on people’s lives and see them lighten up. Bring mercy and forgiveness to bear in people’s lives, and see them shine. See how the world is transformed by heaven. Each of us has the capacity to do this. For we have been baptized into the Body of Christ Jesus, into his death and rising. We have heaven in our fingertips. All we have to do is reach out and touch our world. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels, Homily,
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley,
July 23, 2023

Image source: All the Way to Heaven is Heaven, which depicts Dorothy Day serving in a soup kitchen. This image is hanging in O'Brien Hall, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley. http://mountcarmelmv.blogspot.com/2023/10/compassion-as-covenant-fr-greg-boyle.html
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Lord, have mercy (Fr. Anthony Coniaris)

    The word mercy in English is the translation of the Greek word eleos. This word has the same ultimate root as the old Greek word for oil, or, more precisely, olive oil, which was poured onto wounds and gently massaged in, thus soothing, comforting, and making the injured part whole again. The Hebrew word, which is also translated as eleos and mercy, is hesed, which means steadfast love. 

  

    The Greek words for Lord, have mercy are Kyrie, eleison, meaning, Lord, soothe me, comfort me, take away my pain, show me your steadfast love. Thus, mercy does not refer so much to justice or acquittal, but to the infinite loving-kindness of God, and His compassion for His suffering children. 

--Fr. Anthony Coniaris 

 

Image source: Throne of Grace (also known as The Mercy Seat), alabaster sculpture, The Black Abbey in Kilkenny, Ireland,  https://dominicans.ie/100-objects/kilkennys-throne-of-grace/
Quotation source

I wash my hands for you (Jacques Verduin)

Be subordinate to one another
out of reverence for Christ.
(Ephesians 5:21)

     What if, after this virus is gone, we learned it had changed our DNA in such a way that it forever altered our ability to consider each other? Consider each other no longer just as strangers, but in a new way, as in closer to our hearts? 

I wash my hands for you.   
Every time I wash my hands,
I think of you, the other, as myself
And I smile.
My freedom is in your hands and yours is in mine.
Every bit of care I bring to this gesture,
I dedicate to the mystery of you, the other, who invites me to connect with you.
I reach out to hold you and rejoice in how the water blesses both of us in this practice.
I can no longer disregard you.
I can no longer wash my hands of you, and your fate.
I wash my hands for your fate;
My freedom is in your hands, exactly where it belongs. 

     We don’t control circumstance. That’s one thing we’re learning right now, for sure. But we do get to take our stance in the midst of circumstance, in the midst of everything that begs us to be considered, and reconsidered, in these rapidly changing times. May that be a calm, grounded and loving stance and may it help people find their stance, including those folks you have never even touched or met. 

     My willingness to consider your fate announces my ability to mature as a human being. It frees me. Perhaps redemption is not a process that happens after everything is painstakingly measured and the final tally is made up. Maybe it’s a quality of consideration that we enter into every moment, by choice and by choice alone. Every moment that offends me has in it the grace of redemption. All it requires is my willingness to find it. 

     We are all human beings, you and I. We are all human beings, searching to be safe and to come home to each other, and be forgiven now, already, for every trespass made and every pending failure yet to come. 

--Jacques Verduin

Image source: https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/03/20/heres-why-washing-your-hands-with-soap-for-20-seconds-protects-you-from-covid-19/
Quotation source

Radical servanthood (Henri Nouwen)

    Radical servanthood does not make sense unless we introduce a new level of understanding and see it as the way to encounter God. To be humble and persecuted cannot be desired unless we can find God in humility and persecution. When we begin to see God, the source of all our comfort and consolation, in the center of servanthood, compassion becomes much more than doing good for unfortunate people. 

   Radical servanthood, as the encounter with the compassionate God, takes us beyond the distinctions between wealth and poverty, success and failure, fortune and bad luck. Radical servanthood is not an enterprise in which we try to surround ourselves with as much misery as possible, but a joyful way of life in which our eyes are opened to the vision of the true God who chose to be revealed in servanthood. The poor are called blessed not because poverty is good, but because theirs is the kingdom of heaven; the mourners are called blessed not because mourning is good, but because they shall be comforted. 

    Here we are touching the profound spiritual truth that service is an expression of the search for God and not just of the desire to bring about individual or social change. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Mary Cassatt, The Child’s Bath (1893), https://one-hand-clapping.blogspot.com/2012/04/art-in-lent-washing-of-feet.html
Quotation source

Heavenly interference (Tony Evans)

Simply defined, 
prayer is earthly permission
for heavenly interference. 

--Tony Evans 

 

Image source 1: Jacob Lawrence, War Series: Prayer (1947), https://whitney.org/collection/works/348
Image source 2: Constantin Brancusi, The Prayer (1907), https://www.wikiart.org/en/constantin-brancusi/the-prayer-1907 Quotation source

The most important challenge of his life (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

    I often wonder how Jesus retained peace of mind, warmth in his heart, graciousness in his speech, joy in his life, resiliency in. his efforts, the capacity to be grateful, and a sense of humor in the face of misunderstanding, jealousy, hatred, and death threats. He did it by recognizing that this was the most important challenge of his life and mission, and under the weight of that imperative, by falling on his knees to ask for the help of the One who can do in us what we can’t do for ourselves. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,

Facebook, April 29, 2024

Image source: Caravaggio, Ecce Homo (ca. 1605), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecce_Homo-Caravaggio_%28c._1605%29.jpg

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 25, 2024: You have the words of eternal life...

You have the words of eternal life…

What does Eucharist give us access to? 

    When Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel at Shechem, he knows that, in spite of their previous promises to be faithful to God, they have brought the gods of the Amorites with them to the promised land. So, Joshua challenges them: Decide today whom you will serve. Thinking back on all they have seen God do, the great miracles he performed before their eyes and the protection he offered them along their entire journey, the people promise, We will serve the Lord, for he is our God. In so doing, they affirm their desire to worship the God of their fathers. Unfortunately, the people will not keep their promise, and will need to appeal to God’s mercy again and again; Psalm 34 reminds us that the Lord has eyes for the just and ears for their cry. God continually delivers God’s people. If only they could remember this always, and remain faithful, rather than being swayed by tangibles! 

    In John’s Gospel, the people are also becoming attached to the great miracles Jesus has performed in their midst, but they quickly become caught up in the tangible, resisting his invitation to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Their view is narrow. The Twelve, however, remain with Jesus, accepting the mystery of all that Jesus promises: You have the words of eternal life, Peter says. The Twelve know that, if they stay with Jesus, the mystery will unfold before them. Their faith is not dependent on what they hold in their hands, but on what Jesus has placed in their hearts. 

    To take Jesus into your life, to allow him to enter and become one with you, is so much greater than any tangible proof of his Real Presence can offer us. We are God’s children, essentially, and we can be joined to Christ because he is present essentially in the Eucharist. If we believe that Christ is at work in our community, in us, then Paul’s message to the Ephesians – Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ – is an invitation to our participation in his Presence and in his life. When we serve one another, we are allowing Christ to work in our lives. His Real Presence changes what we do, and what we choose to do for each other. Paul elevates marriage as a symbol of what it means to be church, and of what it means to be in relationship with Jesus himself. When we have faith and enter into Eucharist with a conscious awareness of all the Lord gives us, we will flourish as one Body, one spirit in Christ, devoted to lives of service, carrying the promise of a relationship that is eternal. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

The celebration of Eucharist (Fr. Robert P. Imbelli)

   I have long insisted that the richest theological event that we experience is the celebration of the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day. It is the matrix of all our Christian living and Christian thinking. At the beginning of the most solemn part of that celebration the priest admonishes the congregation: “Sursum corda!”—“Lift up your hearts!” Lift them up to the Lord who is both present and ever coming. And, lifting them up, let us widen them further by giving thanks to the Lord our God. Thanks, because all we have is gift. The gift of our very being. The gift of our redemption in Christ. The gift of everlasting life that is the communion of holy ones rejoicing in the vivifying presence of the Triune God—indeed, truly partaking in God’s glory. 

--Fr. Robert P. Imbelli 

Image source: Fr. Patrick Michaels celebrates Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, April 28, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=854994459999303&set=a.855001323331950
Quotation source

A food capable of making man divine (St. Thomas Aquinas)

   One eats [Christ’s] flesh and drinks his blood in a spiritual way if he is united to him through faith and love, so that one is transformed into him and becomes his member: for this food is not changed into the one who eats it, but it turns the one who takes it into itself, as we see in Augustine, when he says: ‘I am the food of the robust. Grow and you will eat me. Yet you will not change me into yourself, but you will be transformed into me.’ 

   And so this is a food capable of making man divine and inebriating him with divinity. The same is true in reference to the mystical body of Christ, which is only signified (and not contained), if one shares in the unity of the Church. Therefore, one who eats in these ways has eternal life …the unity of the Church is brought about by the Holy Spirit: ‘One body, one Spirit.' 

--St. Thomas Aquinas, 

Commentary on the Gospel of John 

Image source: John August Swanson, Last Supper (2009), with prints available for purchase at: https://johnaugustswanson.com/catalog/last-supper/
Quotation source

To take him into ourselves (Bishop Robert Barron)

 

   Why has the Incarnation been resisted from the very beginning? Why is the extension of the Incarnation, which is the Eucharist, still such a source of division? 

   I think it has to do with flesh. God became one of us, as close to us as blood and muscle and bone. It is no longer correct to say simply that God is in his heaven and we are on the earth. It is not correct to say simply that God is spirit and we are matter. Matter has been invaded by spirit. In Jesus, God became flesh, and, more to the point, he invites us to eat his Body and drink his Blood. But that means that he wants us to take him into ourselves. 

   "Now, wait a minute!" many people think. That’s a little too close for comfort, for it means that he wants to be Lord of my flesh and my bones, that he wants to move into every nook and cranny of my life. My work, my recreation, my sexual life, my life of play—all those fleshy things that I do—he wants to be Lord of all of that! That’s precisely right.” 

--Bishop Robert Barron, 
Gospel Reflection, May 10, 2019 

Image source: Matthias Stom, Le repas d’Emmaüs (17th c.), https://chnetwork.org/2015/12/10/unless-you-eat-my-body-and-drink-my-blood-there-is-no-life-in-you-symbolic-or-literal/

Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man (Thomas Tallis / St. John Paul II Schola Cantorum)

Verily, verily I say unto you,

except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man

and drink His blood, ye have not life in you.

Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life,

and I will raise him up at the last day (bis) 

For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood

dwelleth in me, and I in him. 

To hear the St. John Paul II Schola Cantorum sing Thomas Tallis’ "Verily, Verily I Say Unto You,” click here. 

Image source: https://www.sfcatholic.org/bishopsbulletin/is-jesus-really-asking-us-to-eat-his-flesh/
Video source

Why do we seek out religion? (C.S. Lewis)

   I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. 

    If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity. 

--C. S. Lewis,
God in the Dock 

Image source: Stefano di Giovanni, Institution of the Eucharist, https://sjvlaydivision.org/eucharistic-context/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 18, 2024: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood...

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood…

Why do we celebrate Eucharist,
and what does it call us to? 

    In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom personified invites all those who seek to understand the knowledge God makes available to them to her table for a feast of metaphorical food and wine, that they might be nurtured in God’s ways. To walk in the ways of God is wisdom; to walk in the way of evil is foolishness. Humankind, given free will, must learn to discern rightly; Wisdom invites all to forsake foolishness that we may live and advance in the way of understanding. As Psalm 34 recognizes, without God, we remain impoverished, but when the poor one calls out in his need, the Lord hears him and provides all that is required. The point of Wisdom is to understand this truth, that we might taste and see the goodness of the Lord. 

    The crowds surrounding Jesus in John’s Gospel are not so sure that they want to taste and see all that Jesus is offering them. I am the living bread that came down from heaven, he says; whoever eats this bread will live forever. But the crowds shocked, even disgusted by Jesus’ statement, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. They are unwilling to open to the transformation he is inviting them to through the very real sacrifice he will make of his flesh on the cross. 

    In Eucharist, bread and wine are essentially changed through the process of transubstantiation – going beyond (trans) substance to become essentially different. As we partake of Eucharist, as we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we ourselves are essentially changed as well, transformed for eternal life. Eucharist challenges us to recognize that all we have, including our lives, belongs to God. If we recognize our poverty without God, we will know how rich we are thanks to God’s presence in our lives. 

    We must therefore, as Paul encourages the Ephesians to do, watch carefully how we live, not as foolish persons but as wise, filled with the Spirit. To be wise is to remain in the Lord, to know the Lord, and to follow the Lord – no matter what. To trust in God is Wisdom itself; our participation in Eucharist allows us to remain connected to the source of all Wisdom. We gather to celebrate to give thanks for the salvation that we live because we live in him and he in us. We must focus on what God is calling us to: to choose something different, something radically different, that is, life in him made available to us through his flesh and his blood. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Worthy to be eternally with God (Karl Rahner)

   The Church proclaims in this truth concerning Mary, that the flesh is saved. The flesh is already saved. The beginning has already been made, in a woman, a human being of our race, who has wept, suffered, and died like the rest. The poor flesh that some hate and others worship, is already judged worthy to be eternally with God, eternally saved and acknowledged. Not only in the Son of the Father, who comes “from above,” but in one of our race who, like us, was from “here below.” 

   Flesh was created by the Father on high, redeemed by the Son, made holy by the Spirit, and it is already saved forever. The Church looks on high and greets in Mary her own type and model, her own future in the resurrection of the body. 

--Karl Rahner, Mary Mother of the Lord 

Today is the Solemnity of

the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary! 

Image source 1:  Tim Langenderfer, Assumption of Mary, 
https://melaniejeanjuneau.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/art-celebrates-the-assumption-of-mary/
Image source 2: Assumption of the Virgin, detail of the tympanum of the Porta della Mandorla, Duomo, Florence (1414-1421), 
https://www.wga.hu/html_m/n/nanni/banco/assumpti.html

Become what you receive (Lori Stanley)

    I have heard in Mass – ‘Receive who you are. Become what you receive: The Body of Christ.’ God is continually inviting us to participate in that becoming! 

    May we restore this sacred Body by dismantling vestiges of exclusivity that continue to diminish and marginalize one another at Christ’s table. 

    At which table do you find yourself sitting today? Who is excluded from that table? How many tables have you left feeling empty? 

--Lori Stanley, Refresh,

Lent 2024 Ignatian Solidarity Network 

Image source: Nicolas Poussin, The Institution of the Eucharist (1640), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_of_Christ#/media/File:Nicolas_Poussin_-_The_Institution_of_the_Eucharist_-_WGA18310.jpg
Quotation source

The hunger for authentic life (Pope Francis)

    All of us are familiar with the account of the multiplication of the loaves recorded in the Gospel of John. The people who witnessed this miracle came back to the Lord on the following day in hopes of seeing him perform another sign. Yet Christ desired to transform their hunger for material bread into a hunger for the bread of eternal life (cf. Jn 6:26-27). 

    For this reason, Jesus spoke of himself as the living bread which came down from heaven, the true bread that gives life to the world (cf. Jn 6:51). I thought a great deal about this while I was celebrating Mass this morning because it is this bread that gives us life. 

    Indeed, the Eucharist is God’s response to the deepest hunger of the human heart, the hunger for authentic life, for in the Eucharist Christ himself is truly in our midst, to nourish, console and sustain us on our journey." 

--Pope Francis, June 19, 2023 

Image source: https://www.amazon.com/OAOPIC-minimalist-Christian-Religious-Scripture/dp/B0C36BX8R7?th=1
Quotation source

The bread that gives life to the world (SALT Project)

   Jesus has another kind of nourishment in mind. He wants to draw us into a higher, deeper, more genuine form of human life and health, a life abiding in God, even as God abides in us. This is the life we are made for. This is the “true bread” for which we hunger and thirst, right down to our toes — and we sense, however dimly, our disconnection from this nourishment, this genuine form of human-life-in-God, of God-with-us, this companionship into which Jesus calls us every day. 

   For John, this is what “faith” is really all about: not merely intellectual assent to some particular set of claims, but rather a deeply relational, emotional, intellectual, existential trust in God, a bone-deep sense that God loves us and cares for us, and a consequent impulse to live with love, gratitude, and grace. To be companions with God (and remember, the “pan” in “companionship” means “bread”), an arrangement Jesus eventually calls “friendship” (John 15:15). 

   God gives us not only our “daily bread,” but also the bread of heaven, the bread of life itself. Humanity doesn’t live on physical bread alone. There’s another bread, another food that God provides, another manna in the wilderness. Hearing this, we might well say, with the crowds: Give us this bread always! And Jesus replies, I am that bread — come to me, and trust in me, and be fed, and thrive. For just as Jesus is God’s Word made flesh, he is also God’s love made tangible, the bread that “gives life to the world” (John 6:33). 

--SALT Project 

Image source: Sieger Köder, Jesus Eats with Tax Collectors, https://timehrhardt.com/2022/02/09/luke-527-32-included-through-hospitality/
Quotation source

You are the bread of life (Msgr. Paul Whitmore)

   The problem with believing in the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist is multi-layered. There is the first challenge in believing that God, in Christ, can inhabit the bread. That is profound and mind-blowing all by itself. That Christ would choose to associate himself with the simple and foundational food of physical sustenance is a mystery that theologians grapple with, and believers come face to face with every time we celebrate the Eucharist. 

   But the mystery and challenge does not end there. We are being asked to consider, and more importantly, believe, that God also inhabits US. This is one of the central quandaries over transcendence. We mostly believe in what we can see. Only what we see before us, right here, right now, in this very place and moment – only that can make sense to us. 

   The mystery of the Eucharist, with God in Christ announcing, “I am the bread of life,” gets down to brass tacks about what we believe and profess – that God wants to dwell in us. Our “Great” Amen at the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer and our individual “amens” that we utter when we approach the table affirms the amazing claim that God wants to inhabit us, to make us living, walking, breathing, and active tabernacles of faith. Our many “amens” are an affirmation and courageous assertion that we can say and sing: “Yes, you are our food and drink. You are the bread of life. You sustain us. I too am the bread of life and the cup of hope and promise.” Giving our assent to this action, not the Nicene Creed, is our true profession of faith. 

--Msgr. Paul Whitmore 

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.855001323331950&type=3

The secret of my day (St. Pope John Paul II)

    The Eucharist is the secret of my day. 
    It gives strength and meaning to all my activities of service to the Church and to the world. 

--St. Pope John Paul II

Image source: https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/timely-lessons-from-pope-john-paul-ii-remind-us-of-truths-about-work-and-family
Quotation source

Food for the journey (Bishop Robert Barron)

    For Thomas Aquinas, the great metaphor for the Eucharist is sustenance, food for the journey. The Eucharist is daily food, sustenance for the journey, nourishment to get us through the day to day. How effective would we be if we never ate, or ate only on special occasions and in a festive environment? Not very. So, in the spiritual life, we must eat and drink or we will not have strength. 

    Is this just meant in some vague symbolic way? No, rather in a vividly analogical way. For just as the body needs physical nourishment, the spirit needs spiritual nourishment, and there is no getting around this law. 

    “Well, it’s no big deal if I stay away from Mass and refrain from receiving Communion.” Think again!

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, June 19, 2022 

Image source:  https://www.kairoscanada.org/spirited-reflection-bread-journey 

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 11, 2024: I am the living bread that came down from heaven...

I am the living bread that came down from heaven…

How open are we to being fed by Christ’s presence in the Eucharist? 

    The people of Israel have a long tradition of being fed by the Lord God. From manna provided to the Israelites in the desert in Exodus to Elijah being fed by an angel in The First Book of Kings, examples abound of all of the ways the Lord provides for his people. Over and over again, when the afflicted man calls out, Psalm 34 reminds us, the Lord hears, and from all his distress, he saves him. Elijah doesn’t necessarily want to be saved. He prays for death, saying, This is enough, o Lord! Take my life… But rather than fulfilling Elijah’s wish, God sends an angel who touches him and orders him (twice!) to get up and eat. Elijah must be open to being fed by the Lord in order to endure the trials that lie ahead; he must learn to savor how good the Lord is to him, and be strengthened by his food for the journey. 

    Given all of these examples, one might imagine that when Jesus speaks of feeding the people, they will be open to this image. I am the bread that came down from heaven, he tells them in John's Gospel, I am the bread of life. Even more importantly, unlike those who ate the manna in the desert and lived but only for a normal lifespan, Jesus asserts that whoever eats this bread – Jesus himself, the living bread that came down from heaven – will live forever. Jesus is calling the people to union in him, but they murmur amongst themselves. To grasp what he is saying, they would need to step back from what they think they already know and open themselves to listening for something new. But they are set in their ways, firm in their pre-established parameters, hung up on their own ideas of how the world should be. 

    And when Jesus describes this bread as my flesh that I will give for the life of the world? That is when he really loses the crowd! They have no concept of the kind of sacrificial offering Paul describes to the Ephesians, the sacrifice of Christ who loved us and who handed himself over for us. We, however, who have the hindsight of experience, know that it is in fact Jesus’ very sacrifice and our participation in it that allows us to reveal the Father’s love for all, as we strive to be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven us in Christ. This is what it means to be fed by Christ’s presence in the Eucharist: filled with his love, we can become imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in that love. Taste and see! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Why we come to church (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

   What is truly sufficient for us to live our faith is to open our hearts and to love one another, to celebrate this love as a community. We don’t come to church because we have a rule telling us we have to. We come to church to be with one another, to spend time with one another, to celebrate a love that is within us, so that we can go out into that world and we can share that love much more broadly. Our world is alienated and it is alienating and we participate in that alienation when we close ourselves down. We were meant to be an access to God’s love. That’s what our baptism was about: to give people access. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels, Homily, May 5, 2024 

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=5858946197500087&set=a.5858947637499943

Living in the beauty of the presence of God (Frank Laubach)

    It is as much our duty to live in the beauty of the presence of God on some mount of transfiguration until we become white with Christ as it is for us to go down where the needy people grope and grovel, and groan and lift them to new life. 

--Frank Laubach 

Today we celebrate
the Feast of the Transfiguration!
Put on Christ! 

Image source: Duccio, The Transfiguration of Christ (1308-1311), https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duccio_di_Buoninsegna_-_Transfiguration_-_WGA06780.jpg
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Put on Christ (Dorothy Day / Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

We must be pruned to grow,
and cutting hurts the natural man. 
But if this corruption is to put on incorruption,
if one is to put on Christ, the new man,
pain of one kind or another is inevitable.
And how joyful a thought that in spite
of one’s dullness and lethargy
one is indeed growing in the spiritual life.

 --Dorothy Day

    John of the Cross, the great Spanish mystic, says we imitate Jesus when we try to imitate his motivation, when we try to do things for the same reason he did. For John, that is how one “puts on Christ.” 

    John of the Cross then offers some advice regarding how this can be done. We should begin, he says, by reading the scriptures and meditating the life on Jesus. Then we should pray to Christ and ask him to instill in us his desire, longing, and motivation. In essence, we should pray to Jesus and ask him to make us feel the way he felt while he was on earth. 

 --Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Image source: https://www.dougresler.com/main-blog/2022/12/12/1cvhd0vta961s9ye4n28iiasvvmbz1
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Our Eucharistic hunger (Bishop Robert Barron)

    The Church Fathers consistently taught that the Eucharist is sustenance for eternal life. They meant that in the measure that we internalize the Body and Blood of Jesus, we are readied for life with him in the next world. 

    If I might broaden the scope a bit, I would like to suggest that the Mass is, in its totality, the privileged point of encounter with Jesus Christ. During the Liturgy of the Word, we hear not simply human words crafted by poetic geniuses, but rather the words of the Word. In the readings, and especially in the Gospel, it is Christ who speaks to us. In our responses, we speak back to him, entering into conversation with the second person of the Trinity. Then, in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the same Jesus who has spoken his heart to us offers his Body and Blood for us to consume. There is simply, this side of heaven, no more intimate communion possible with the risen Lord. 

    Let your own Eucharistic hunger awaken an evangelical impulse in you. Bring in people from the highways and byways; invite your co-workers and family members; wake up the kids on Sunday morning; turn off your computers. Come back to Mass! 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: First Communion, April 28, 2024, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=854994856665930&set=a.855001323331950
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Eucharist is meant to nourish (Fr. John O'Malley / Pope Francis)

Lord, let me let you love me. 

--Fr. John O'Malley, SJ 

    Let us not forget that the Eucharist is meant to nourish those who are weary and hungry along the way. A Church of the pure and perfect is a room with no place for anyone. On the other hand, a Church with open doors, that gathers and celebrates around Christ, is a large room where everyone--everyone, the righteous and sinners--can enter. 

--Pope Francis, June 6, 2021 

Image source: https://www.massexplained.com/bread-of-life-discourse/
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To break bread with one another (Crystal Catalan)

   I don’t think we will ever know the true power of the sacred gift that God offers us in having the gift of one another, but l do believe it is worth finding out - more and more each and every day. And to live it, with faith, joy, and without expectation. But first, we have to show up - ready to take, give and receive our daily bread. And to be open to our God of surprises. 

   [Once we do, we] are able to break bread with one another through the Eucharist, and celebrate this sacred meal together. To offer peace to one another, and acknowledge that this bread is for all of us - regardless of the worst things we have each ever done. In that holy moment, communion is shared and Jesus is present. And that’s how I think it is with the Lord. We are gathered at table, and we are one in God. 

   And I think that is also where the invitation lies - to make space, regardless of the size of the room, to be with one another and to not only look for ways to be bread to one another, but to simply be there and show up when moments do arise. 

--Crystal Catalan 

Image source: https://positivepranic.com/breaking-bread-uniting-humanity-through-a-simple-act/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 4, 2024: What is this?

What is this?

Are we ever satisfied? 

    In the Book of Exodus, as their journey across the desert drags on, the people of Israel remember, ostensibly with fondness, the fleshpots and bread they were given to sustain them when they were slaves in Egypt. Anything is better than the hunger they are now experiencing! But, as always, God provides: I will now rain down bread from heaven for you, the Lord tells Moses; in addition to the quail God sends, the people can use the fine flakes of manna to make bread. Yet, although the Lord has fulfilled his promise, the people are not grateful. They have what they need, yet they are not satisfied. Only in hindsight will the psalmist commemorate this extraordinary gift in Psalm 78: Man ate the bread of angels, food the Lord sent them in abundance. While their desert trials last, however, the people of Israel remain discontented with all that God is doing in their lives. 

    Are Jesus’ disciples any different? In John’s gospel, impressed with the miracle of the loaves, the people seek out Jesus, but he advises them against food that perishes, insisting that he, the Son of Man, will give them food that endures for eternal life. It is not tangible food they need so much as God’s love, a love that will be expressed through sacrifice. It is to be fed by this intangible love that we come to Eucharist, to give thanks for all the wonders God has wrought in our lives, and to enter more fully into what God is accomplishing in and through us. Only this food truly satisfies. 

    What is the love of God producing in you right now? Where might your faith be? Paul tells the Ephesians that they must not live in the futility of their minds, but rather put away the old self and put on the new self, created in God’s way. To remain in futility is to be self-focused, self-centered, and thus darkened in understanding, alienated from the world, existing in the narrowness of view that shuts out the other. We, like the Ephesians, are called to put on the new self of other-centeredness, building one another up through faith, focused in the love that Christ has for us, that we might be his love revealed in our world. Will that satisfy us? You bet, so long as we come to Mass for that food that endures for eternal life, truly enter into his love, and build one another up in faith, sharing that love with our world. May we be grateful! 

This post is based on Fr Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com