A meal shared among friends (Fr. Greg Boyle)

   Jesus doesn’t lose any sleep that we will forget that the Eucharist is sacred. He is anxious that we might forget that it’s ordinary, that it’s a meal shared among friends, and that’s the incarnation, I think. 

--Fr. Greg Boyle, 

interviewed by
Krista Tippett 

for On Being (link below)

Image source: Sadao Watanabe, Last Supper, https://globalworship.tumblr.com/post/124862924200/visions-of-the-last-supper-art-set-1
Interview source

Teach me to be bread, God (Brother Isaiah)

You feed me with the finest wheat
Now milk and honey flowing deep inside me, inside me
You feed me with the finest, feed me with the finest
You feed me with your life, your love
You feed me with the finest wheat
Now milk and honey flowing deep inside me, inside me
You feed me with the finest, feed me with the finest
You feed me with your very self

And I will be bread, he said
Food for your soul and your pilgrim way
To give you hope and let you know I’ll never leave you alone (bis)

Refrain

Drink deep of my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And learn to live in me and find in me
That all you need you’ll find in me, oh child
Drink deep of my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And learn to live in me and come to see
That all you need you find in me, oh child
Drink deep from my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And come to learn to see
That all you need you’ll find in me, you’ll find in me, oh child
Drink deep from my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And learn to live in me and come to see
That all you need you find in me, oh child

Refrain

And teach me to be bread, God,
Food for hungry hearts and empty hands
Teach me to be bread, God,
To give my life away (bis)

Refrain

To hear Brother Isaiah perform Finest Wheat, click on the video below (or on the word video highlighted here). To purchase Brother Isaiah’s new CD Shade, click here. 

Image source: Master of the Brussels Initials, Initial N: The Last Supper (ca.1389-1404), https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/7-things-to-look-for-in-paintings-of-the-last-supper/

Video source

God enters into us (Br. Peter Martyr Jospeh Yungwirth OP)

   In the Eucharist, God has done something even more marvelous than speak from a burning bush or descend into a tabernacle in the wilderness. Now, God enters into us. 

--Br. Peter Martyr Joseph Yungwirth, OP 

Image source: https://www.indiancatholicmatters.org/sunday-homily-closer-to-him-in-the-eucharist/ 

Quotation source

 

Configured to Christ (Bishop Robert Barron)

   At the Last Supper, Jesus promises eternal life to those who eat his Flesh and drink his Blood. Many of the Church Fathers characterized the Eucharist as food that effectively immortalizes those who consume it. 

   They understood that if Christ is really present in the Eucharistic elements, the one who eats and drinks the Lord’s Body and Blood becomes configured to Christ in a far more than metaphorical way. The Eucharist Christifies and hence eternalizes. 

   If the Eucharist were no more than a symbol, this kind of language would be so much nonsense. But if the doctrine of the Real Presence is true, then this literal eternalization of the recipient of Communion must be maintained. 

   But what does this transformation practically entail? It implies that the whole of one’s life – body, psyche, emotions, spirit – becomes ordered to the realm of God. It means that one’s energies and interests, one’s purposes and plans, are lifted out of a purely temporal context and given an entirely new spiritual valence. 

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection 

for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ 

Image source: http://www.popefrancishomilies.com/eucharist

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 6, 2021: This is my blood of the covenant...

This is my blood of the covenant…

How are you transformed by Eucharist? 

   In the Book of Exodus, after he has recorded the commandments that God has given to him, Moses delivers the tablets to the people and prepares for a sacrifice by constructing an altar at the foot of the mountain. Taking the blood from the sacrifice, Moses sprinkles half of it on the people, stating, This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you. The blood, an essential life force and God’s gift to all, is representative of them as a people and serves as a peace offering between them and the Lord. The twelve pillars Moses erects will stand in perpetuity to represent their ongoing commitment to the covenant between God and God’s people; the blood represents the sacrifice of the people themselves to the Lord, and is meant to help them realize that it is their lives they are committing to God’s covenant. Psalm 116 speaks of a sacrifice of thanksgiving for all the good God has done for the psalmist; here, the psalmist gives public witness to this ongoing commitment to covenant.

   The Book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is mediator of a new covenant; having entered once for all into the sanctuary … with his own blood, his sacrifice establishes a covenant that is eternal, achieved through the gift of God’s own Son. At his Last Supper with the disciples, in Mark's Gospel, Jesus tries to give them a sense of this new covenant when he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and shares it with them – this covenant will endure because Jesus will offer himself as a sacrifice for all humankind. The disciples will soon understand that they can never go back; like the waters of the Red Sea that closed behind Moses and the people when they fled the land of Egypt, this new Passover sacrifice marks a change, a transformation that has occurred.

   When we participate in Eucharist, we bring to the altar all that we wish to be transformed. The bread and wine that become the body and blood of Christ represent us, and should come from us, from the midst of the congregation, carried by members of the assembly. Simultaneously, however, we bring ourselves forward for transformation; it is a covenant we must work to enter into ever more deeply at every celebration of Eucharist. Participating in Christ’s sacrifice through Eucharist purifies us from the dead works of sin. Eucharist should renew us in Christ, who died and rose for us, renew us in his presence and in his love – it is meant to keep transforming us, that we might continue to grow toward the perfection that we hope will someday be ours. 

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

All of humanity is being invited into the dance (Sharon Zaenglein Chipman)

   Our human clumsiness broke the heart of God, again and again. But God, being who God is, came even closer, and became humanly one of us, to show us more clearly the steps of the dance. We watch Jesus in his human walk, dance with God. If we listen well, we can hear the music of the Spirit, which is the love song between them.

   And as Jesus describes the dance, it’s all about being healed and made whole, because that is the meaning of being saved… Look around you – what is happening today in this world-wide crisis. All of humanity is being invited into the dance. The Ancients said that the kiss between the Creator and the Redeemer is the Holy Spirit. The kiss, the love I see in the world today, is so exquisite, so profound. 

--Sharon Zaenglein Chipman

Image source: Artwork by Fr. Patrick Michaels, whose explanation of the origins and genesis of this image, may be found here: http://mountcarmelmv.blogspot.com/2019/06/perichoresis-ring-dance-of-holy-trinity.html
Quotation source

God is like a looking glass (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton)

   God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to him by love, the nearer we are to those who belong to him.

--St. Elizabeth Ann Seton     

Image source: https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-two-mirrors-facing-each-other-produce-infinite-reflections/ 

Quotation source