Homily:
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Perhaps many of you will remember that last April I had the
happy opportunity to make a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to the Holy Land, where
I gave thanks to God that I have been free from cancer for five years. After my return many of you asked me what my
favorite part was. At the time, having
experienced so many powerful things, I couldn’t name any one experience that
stuck out. A few months removed, now, however,
one of the experiences has begun to stand out above the rest and that was our
visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
This Basilica is a relatively modern basilica in that
ancient land as the current church was built in the 1950’s. It is built over the place that tradition
holds was the home of Joachim and Ann and thus the place where Mary grew up and
received the life-changing visit from the archangel Gabriel. It is a magnificent structure that proves
that modern church architecture can be meaningful without being weird. It wasn’t the architecture that most impacted
me, however. Rather, it was the little
grotto in the lower portion of the Basilica.
Inside this grotto there is an altar built over the exact
place where, according to tradition, Mary received the message from the
archangel Gabriel: thus making it the exact place where the Holy Spirit “came
upon” Mary and Jesus was conceived in her womb.
In other words, in that humble little place—a peasant’s home in a town
nobody knew about—the Word, the Son
of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became flesh and dwelt among us.
I remember being overwhelmed by the absolute incomprehensibility of that
spot: that right there, in that spot, the entire fabric of the universe was
changed forever because God—the uncreated creator of all that exists—took on
the flesh of a creature.
My friends, if perhaps you are a little bit numb to this I
should point out that this is, in large part, what makes Christianity unique
among world religions. The fact that we
are monotheistic—that we believe in only one God—puts us in rare company
already, but that we believe that God—whose existence cannot be contained even
in the vast expanse of the universe—became a creature: that sets us apart from
every other religion. No other religion
would ever dare to say that their god became human: they believe that that
would be an insult of the highest order.
Yet we believe that God somehow made the fullness of His being dwell
inside the tiny cells of a human embryo, which grew into the fullness of
humanity so that He might be made a sacrifice for all humanity, restoring
humanity’s original glory through His resurrection and giving it a place of
honor at the Father’s right hand in heaven.
The full realization of this is what made my visit to the Basilica of
the Annunciation so powerful that all I could do was kneel before that place
and bow down before God, whose wisdom and mercy is so far beyond our own.
The absurdity of the Christian claim doesn’t end with the
simple fact of the Incarnation, however.
Jesus in today’s Gospel reading takes His humanity to its fullest
absurdity. The “Bread of Life” discourse
that we have been listening to over the past weeks is coming to its climax and
today we hear Jesus teach his followers to be cannibals. Yes, that’s right, I said cannibals. For those of you who may not know, a cannibal
is someone who eats human flesh.
Obviously that is repulsive to any of us, yet look at the words Jesus
says in the Gospel: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his
blood, you do not have life within you.”
On the surface, this appears to be crazy, doesn’t it? And it is!
Thus, we can understand the response of the Jews who were in the crowds
and argued among themselves, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to
eat?” Of course, we have to take
everything in the context of the bigger picture and so we now know that John
the Evangelist is using this to make clear what the Eucharist is, but we first
have to come to grips with what Jesus says; and what Jesus says makes him look
crazy!
Here’s where we have to make a decision. Because if we hear these words of Jesus and
think that he is crazy, well, then he’s crazy!
You know, we can’t have it half-way: either Jesus is who he says he
is—both fully God and fully man and the savior of mankind—or he’s a madman and
we should turn and run away from him right now.
In other words, if he’s crazy about something, then he’s crazy about
everything; but if he’s not crazy about everything, then he’s not crazy about
anything, and even these words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood
are real, rational statements that we have to give credence to.
The first clue that Jesus is talking about the Eucharist
(and, thus, moving away from the disgusting idea of actually eating what
appears to be human flesh) is what he says at the beginning of today’s
reading. Jesus says to the crowds: “I am
the living bread that came down from
heaven…” I don’t know about you, but
I’ve never seen living bread: all the
bread that I’ve ever eaten has been lifeless.
So how can Jesus be living bread? Simple.
It’s called transubstantiation,
and it’s what happens at the consecration of the bread and wine at the
altar. When I repeat Jesus’ words over
the bread and the wine, they truly become the Body and Blood of Jesus, in substance. Yes, they still look like bread and wine (I
mean, this isn’t a magic show), but substantially—that
is in their substance—they’ve changed
into the real flesh and blood of Jesus.
Now the flesh of Jesus is still living flesh, am I
right? I mean we believe that Jesus
still has a human body, am I right? A
glorified human body, of course, but a human body, nonetheless. And we believe that Jesus lives, right? I hope so!
Because as Paul says in one of his letters, “If Christ is still in the
tomb, then your faith is worthless!” So,
if Jesus still has flesh and if he still lives, then that would make the bread
that becomes his flesh, while still retaining the appearance of bread,
something living, wouldn’t it? This, therefore, is the living bread, his flesh that is true food, which we can eat so as
to live forever. And the cup that
contains his Precious Blood, while remaining under the appearance of wine, is
the cup of life: the true drink through which life enters into us. And this is amazing! A thing of true wonder and awe, no matter how
familiar it has become to us.
My brothers and sisters, Jesus came in the flesh in order
to give us life through it. Let us,
therefore, not waste the opportunity that we have been given to receive it: for
to receive it, but then to return to a life of debauchery is empty. To receive it, however, and thus to go forth
filled with the Spirit, giving thanks and praise to God always and in all ways,
is the abundant life that God desired for us when he spread this banquet before
us.
Mary, our Blessed Mother, could not have known the fullness
of this abundant life that awaited her when she said “yes” to the archangel
Gabriel. And her life was filled with
many sorrows following that day—so much so that it would have been
understandable if she had given up on it all—but yet she never failed in giving
thanks to God and in praising Him; and thus she now enjoys the fullness of this
abundant life—body and soul—in heaven.
May we follow her example in our lives so that the banquet that we
approach here at this altar may lead us to that same fullness of life in
heaven.
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