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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 20, 2023: Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters...

Even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters…

Are there limits to who may believe in Christ? 

    This week’s gospel is among the most challenging in Scripture. In it, Matthew recounts the story of Jesus’ visit with his disciples to the Gentile towns of Tyre and Sidon. There, Jesus is approached by a Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter who is tormented by a demon. Jesus’ response makes us profoundly uncomfortable: It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs, he tells her. Does he mean it as a racial insult, or is he merely echoing what would have been the common sentiments of his time? Or is he perhaps testing his disciples in order to provide them with a profound and important lesson? 

   What should amaze us in this story is the woman’s response: Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters. On her knees before the Lord, a position of homage, the woman is determined to find help, and her faith is stronger than their prejudice. She believes past any limitations; as a Gentile, she ostensibly has no claim on Jesus, and assumes a position of profound humility before him, a position that allows her to maintain her human dignity. There is no demand for equality; she would be content with mere scraps of assistance. She understands the equity of God’s rule; even the dogs eat scraps from God’s table, for God loves all he has made. Jesus will ultimately acknowledge her: O woman, great is your faith! 

   The Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel is one of the most profound figures in scripture, a perfect illustration of Isaiah’s admonition that the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him and loving his name, will be accepted in the presence of God. God’s house is indeed a house of prayer for all peoples. We may assume we know God’s mind; we set parameters believing they are God’s boundaries, when in fact they are only our own. Psalm 67 clearly echoes the Lord’s desire that his way be known upon earth, among all nations, Gentile or Jew, servant or free. 

   The fidelity of God’s people is crucial to bringing about salvation. Paul writes to the Romans because of reports that they are scoffing at the Jews for not believing in Jesus. To accept Jesus is to do the will of God, Paul reminds them, for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, and therefore they must remember their own disobedience and the mercy God showed them. Paul hopes that the conversion of the Gentiles – like that of the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel – will ultimately be the mechanism by which God brings the Jewish people, Paul’s own race, to belief in Christ. In the end, the second coming will arrive when all are united; this is the kingdom in its fullness. Salvation comes when all – you, I, all – participate in God’s justice; Christians are to allow their boundaries to be stretched and expanded, receiving all nations and serving as an inspiration to all nations, that they might find Christ. 

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 14, 2022: I have come to set the world on fire!

I have come to set the earth on fire! 

How willing are you to witness to God’s truth, 

even in the face of difficulty? 

   The prophet Jeremiah was not popular among the people to whom God sent him to prophesy, particularly because Jeremiah was to inform them of their city’s imminent destruction by the neo-Babylonian warrior-king Nebuchadnezzar. The princes of Judah tell King Zedekiah that Jeremiah ought to be put to death; he is demoralizing the soldiers and all the people, and so Jeremiah is thrown into a cistern where he sinks into the mud. One can well imagine Jeremiah praying Psalm 40: Lord, come to my aid! Finally, at the request of a court official, King Zedekiah has Jeremiah taken out of the cistern before he should die. Jeremiah is true to the word of God; he does not even speak throughout his ordeal because he is a necessary witness to the truth of what God reveals, even in the face of difficulty, and he will continue to give witness to that truth, no matter the personal cost. 

   Jesus likewise knows that his death and rising will create division among the people to whom he has come to reveal God’s truth: I have come to set the earth on fire, he tells his disciples in Luke's Gospel. Do you think that I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. And that division will be where we least expect it: a father will be divided against his son, and a son against his father. But the fire of which Jesus speaks is meant to destroy all that is unnecessary, anything that might compromise the truth he has come to proclaim. Jesus loves humankind profoundly; he longs for us to be purified of our sin and redeemed, so that we might rise with him. We, for our part, must be ready to stand behind the love that he came to reveal, no matter what division we must face to do so, no matter what transformation we must undergo, no matter what sin we must vanquish. 

    The persecuted community addressed in the Book of Hebrews is aware of this charge: Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us. It was hard to be a Christian in the early Church; Christians endured much opposition. Yet they had but to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus to see how he endured such opposition, so that they could have the strength to struggle against sin and persevere. We as a Christian community are called to no less. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 16, 2020: For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable...

For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable…

Is God’s love open and available to all?

  The people of Israel originally believed that some people had no access to God.  But the prophet Isaiah causes them to rethink this idea:  my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples, the Lord tells them, including foreigners who join themselves to the Lord.  Isaiah wants the people of Israel to change how they think of themselves and of their relationship with God; they need to start to think of the people of God in broader terms.  God is joyful as we draw closer to him, Isaiah says; God’s salvation is available to all.  And so the psalmist can sing in Psalm 67, O God, let all the nations praise you!  God wants salvation to be known upon earth, among all nations.

  Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman of Tyre and Sidon in Matthew's Gospel may make us momentarily question this truth, however.  When the woman approaches Jesus for help because her daughter is tormented by a demon, Jesus insults her:  It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs, he says!  This seems unconscionably harsh, but the woman is not, after all, a Jew, and Jesus claims at first that he has been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  But look at the end result of this apparent obstinacy on his part:  what he achieves is to get the woman to state her faith on a deeper level than many of the house of Israel have ever done, and with the utmost humility:  Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.  Ultimately, Jesus broadens his own disciples’ perspectives:  O woman, great is your faith!  Though he may challenge the more unlikely candidates, Jesus clearly offers salvation for all; he seeks hearts that are open to change, ready to receive and to respond to the love he has for them.  In his Letter to the Romans, Paul reminds the Gentiles that the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable; life from the dead—salvation— is open to all, Jews and Gentiles alike, so long as our hearts are open to the opportunity of life in Christ.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 18, 2019: I have come to set the earth on fire!

I have come to set the earth on fire!

How can we be saved?

  Having accurately prophesied that the Kingdom of Judah would fall to Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah has been rejected by the community.  When King Zedekiah allows the princes of Judah to lower Jeremiah into a cistern, the prophet sinks into the mud, threatened by death from famine.  One can imagine Jeremiah despondently praying Psalm 40, asking God for help:  Lord, come to my aid!  But the psalm is ultimately a song of praise:  God reaches in to draw his servant from the pit of destruction, the mud of the swamp.  Only through God’s action can Jeremiah be lifted out of his difficulty; only God can put a new song of praise and thanksgiving in the psalmist’s mouth.  Both Jeremiah and the psalmist must trust that salvation will come from the Lord.

  During the times of the persecutions, when both Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Hebrews were written, Jesus’ message was also a reminder that salvation can come only through God’s action.  I have come to set the earth on fire, he tells his disciples.  Once the fire of God’s love enflames the people’s hearts, they will not be able to go back to what they were used to, and chaos and division within families may result.  But Jesus’ death and rising – the baptism by which he must be baptized – will serve as a means of purification, destroying all that is harmful, washing away sin as he aligns our lives with his own.  The audience of the Book of Hebrews would need to be reminded that, throughout the persecutions, they must keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith, who knew that his death and rising would bring salvation to all.

  Our hearts are meant to be aflame with the salvific power of God’s love burning within us.  We must be stirred by love in the very depths of our being, for that is where love works – not on the surface but at our very core.  That love will draw us together, even when we are divided; that love alone, God’s gift, will bring us salvation.  We have but to trust and persevere.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com