Homily: 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
In
my six-plus years as a priest, I’ve celebrated a good number of funerals. It is a graced experience to walk with
families who have lost loved ones and to help them say “goodbye” in a sacred
way. There is one thing, in particular,
about celebrating funerals that has stood out to me as interesting: that as we
mourn the death of a loved one and after we celebrate his or her life in the
funeral liturgy, we gather to share a meal; and that this is somehow comforting
to us.
Of
course, there’s a perfectly good scientific explanation for this. The death of a loved one is often stressful
and full of negative feelings of loss and separation. When we eat—especially when we eat warm food
that we enjoy to eat—our body releases chemicals, called endorphins, that help
relieve the stress our bodies have been under and help us to relax and so give
us a feeling of comfort. Yet, we are
more than just bodily creatures. Rather,
we are also spiritual. And so there has
to be something more than just the biological to explain why eating provides
comfort. Indeed, there is.
Sharing
a meal with others creates or renews spiritual bonds that last long after the
food and the endorphins disappear. Those
feelings of comfort caused by eating become associated in our hearts with the
presence of those with who shared the meal, and a bond, a relationship,
perhaps we could even say a communion is formed. And it is this sense of communion, I would
argue, that causes our true comfort. ///
As
we continue to reflect on the “Bread of Life” discourse in John’s Gospel, we
come to face the notion that the Eucharist is a Sacred Meal. Beyond—or, better yet, in tension with—the
notion that the Eucharist is Sacrifice, Anamnesis, and Epiclesis, we must also
hold that the Eucharist is a meal: a sacred meal in which the bonds of
relationship are either forged or strengthened.
Every
week, we gather around this object that is both the altar of sacrifice and the
table of communion. And every week, as
we gather as a people set apart by God, we renew our relationship to one
another as the People of God when we share in the meal we receive from this
altar. But this is not only a renewal of
our relationships with each other. For
when we receive the meal offered on this table, we receive also Christ, who
makes of himself the meal that we share, and so renew our relationship—our
communion—with him, too.
The
Church teaches us that this renewal of communion is actually the sole purpose
of our gathering. In the Catechism of
the Catholic Church it says that “the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice
is wholly directed toward the intimate union of the faithful with Christ
through communion” (CCC 1382). What this
reveals is that the communion we receive in the Eucharist is first and foremost
communion with Christ, and that it is through our communion with him that we
experience communion with all those who likewise receive him. ///
As
I mentioned last week, most of us struggle, to some degree or another, with
believing that the bread and wine that we offer on this altar truly becomes the
Body and Blood of Christ that we then receive in communion. I also said that, if we have doubts, our
responsibility is to bring those doubts to God in prayer and to ask him to
reveal the truth about the Eucharist to us.
For those of you who heard my homily last week, hopefully you’ve been
practicing that prayer. If you didn’t
(or if you haven’t been practicing it) our readings today invite you again to
see the truth about what we receive from this altar
In
the first reading, the author of the book of Proverbs describes a scene in
which “Wisdom”-- who is the personification of the creative force of God by
which he designed and ordered the world rightly (and who could be referred to
equally as “Logos” or “The Word”, as in “The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us...” in other words, an image of Jesus)--sets her table in order to
invite those who are simple to come and receive from her the riches of wisdom. “Come,” she says, “and partake at my table
that we might be in communion with one another.” For the ancient Jews who lived before Christ,
“wisdom” was sought and valued as the way to live in communion with God. To feast at Wisdom’s table, and, thus, to be
in communion with her, was, therefore, to enter into that desired for communion
with God.
In
the Gospel reading we should immediately hear the connection: Jesus has set the
table of his Flesh and Blood so that those who partake of it can be in
communion with him: and, through him, with the Father in heaven with who he is
eternally in communion. “Whoever eats my
flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have
life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life
because of me.” In the Last Supper
narratives Jesus will show us how he will give us his flesh to eat and blood to
drink when he takes the bread and says “This is my Body, take and eat...” and
the wine and says “This is my Blood, take and drink...”
My
brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ presents us with this same offer today. He desires greatly to be in communion with us
and so he invites us to this table to partake of this “living bread that came
down from heaven”: his Body and Blood.
And so, we should not be afraid to step forward even if we have some
doubts. Rather, we should let our “Amen”
be shorthand for “Lord, I believe, please help my unbelief.” If we can say even that much, then we can
feel confident that we have the faith that we need to receive the communion
that Christ so deeply desires to have with us. ///
Friends,
in our grief over the scandals that continue to plague the Church we gather
here in this sacred meal called the Eucharist to seek comfort in our pain. May our communion with Christ and, through
Christ, with one another provide us with the humility, courage, and fortitude
to remain hopeful in the midst of darkness; and so continue to proclaim the
Good News: that life beyond this life of suffering and pain is possible through
Christ, the true Bread of Life.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral Parish:
Lafayette, IN
August 18th & 19th, 2018
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