Does This Shock You?

21st SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Josh 24, 1-2, 15-18 / Eph 5, 2a,25-32 / John 6, 60-69

School is starting up, so we know the summer holiday is coming to an end.  And with today’s gospel we have come to the end of a month-long reflection on the sixth chapter of John’s gospel.  Now Jesus wants a response from us – a decision.  It’s much like what we heard in the first reading when Joshua puts it to the people: “Decide today whom you will serve!”  Like them – we have a decision to make.

In the gospel Jesus’ call for decision meets with strong resistance – from people who think themselves his disciples.  They say: “What you say to us, Jesus, is hard to accept.  But Jesus doesn’t relent.  He pushes the question: “Does what I have said shock you?”  But why should they be shocked?  Why should we be shocked?  What shocking thing is Jesus saying?

Many take Jesus’ words about himself as the Bread of Life in a very physical sense.  So the shock comes in Jesus telling us to actually eat his body.  “Take and eat!”  Yet in the gospel of John Jesus warns us about such an overly fleshy reading of his words.  He says: “It is the spirit that gives life, while flesh of itself is of no avail.  The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.”

Jesus is telling us: what we are to take and eat is his own Spirit and life.  When we take into ourselves Jesus’ Spirit and life – feed on Jesus’ way and values – his vision and style of life – then Jesus really is becoming our Bread of Life – the Bread for our Living.

We cannot talk about Eucharist without talking about change and transformation.  We talk about bread and wine being changed into Jesus’ real presence among us.  That is deeply true.  But we dare not put limits to God’s work.  God’s work of transformation has not only to do with bread and wine.  It has everything to do with us.  As we make Jesus our real Bread of Life by taking on his Spirit and life, then we are changed.  We are transformed.

We will experience our own transformation.  We will find ourselves living more self-forgetfully and loving more generously.  We will be shocked to recognize Jesus in who we are becoming.  We will be shocked to recognize in ourselves the Living Lord, the Risen Lord.

Jesus’ words change things.  “This is my body” changes bread and wine – changes us into “Body of Christ”.  And the words change the neighbor – fellow parishioner, fellow citizen – into “Body of Christ”.  But also the neighbor from afar – the refugee, the immigrant, the illegal – “Body of Christ”.  And the unacknowledged neighbor – the un-allowed, unwelcome neighbor:  the people kept on the margins of our society and our church – “Body of Christ”.  And finally the always unrecognized, unmentioned neighbor:  the enemy – whomever we fear or been told we should fear – “Body of Christ”.

Does what Jesus says shock us?  I think our shock shows we have understood what he is saying to us.

We have a phrase: “being a practicing Catholic”.  Jesus is telling us:  being a good, practicing Catholic requires we approach ourselves and the neighbor – the neighbor of every kind and degree – with the same reverence with which we come to the altar to receive Jesus’ Body and Blood.

Let our communion here in church this morning ready us for our communion in the streets tomorrow.

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
 

Becoming What We Eat

20^th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Pr 9, 1-6 / Eph 5, 15-20 / John6, 51-58

For four Sundays straight we have been reflecting on the sixth chapter of John’s gospel.  Today’s reading really amounts to the centerpiece of the chapter.  Here Jesus says: I am the living bread… whoever eats this bread will live forever… will have eternal life.  What Jesus is saying here anticipates what he will say and do at the Last Supper.  And it also anticipates what we will say and do at this Eucharist today.  Take and eat – my body.  Take and drink – my blood.  He could not be more clear or graphic.  Eat!  Drink!  Basic things.  What is Jesus saying to us?  What does he want for us?

Eating and drinking involve tasting and taking in.  They require chewing, swallowing, digesting.  Jesus is saying to us:  you take me in by taking into yourself my way of life, my lifestyle, my values.  And when you have chewed on my ways and digested my values, then eventually you will assimilate my vision of life – my understanding of what it means to be a human being.  And that’s when I become truly your bread of life – the bread for your living.  Elsewhere in John’s gospel Jesus says the very same thing but puts it this way:  I become your way, your truth and your life.

So what happens here at our Sunday Eucharist?  What are we doing here?  What happens is that we are fed the bread for our living in the word of God proclaimed and preached and in the sacramental signs of bread and wine.  Through these we have communion with the “Lord of our lives”.  And we make our commitment to let him become our way, our truth and our life in the journey ahead of us.

But – and this is a crucially important “but” – it’s what happens after our Sunday Eucharist that is the main event in our lives.  The main event is our daily lives – our real lives!  It’s on that journey that we really digest the bread of life.  It’s on that daily journey that Jesus really becomes our way, our truth and our life.

 

An example.  We say to one another here in church at the Eucharist: “the peace of Christ”.  What we say must become what we do for one another and for our world.  Our world is so easily fascinated by conflict, so easily convinced of the value of violent actions and words.  Our world, and yes, at times our church – seem so ready to reply with power’s answer – not love’s.  Power seeks its own advantage.  Love gives itself away.  To this world and this church we must bring and nurture Jesus’ peace, Jesus’ Shalom.  Our holiness must happen in the streets.  There is where Jesus will detox our unpeaceful imaginations and set us free from our self-absorbed dream of a loveless lifestyle.

We will know ourselves detoxed – know ourselves saved – know ourselves feeding on the bread of life – when we begin to sense from within us an honest joy in our making decisions that are love-giving – for others – decisions that are life-giving – for others.  Then, like Jesus, we will be living for the life of the world.  And therein will be our joy.

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ

Getting on with the Summer Picnic

18^th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Ex 16, 2-4, 12-15 / Eph 4, 17,20-24 / John 6, 24-35

Last Sunday we began a picnic – a picnic in Galilee with Jesus as our host.  On this picnic we will be hearing the good news from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John.  In fact we will be hearing from that same chapter through to the last Sunday in August.  That’s five consecutive Sundays with the same chapter!  The sixth chapter begins with the story of the multiplication of loaves – which we heard last Sunday.  And then John moves us into a profound and prolonged reflection on the Eucharist and on Jesus as the Bread of Life – the Bread of our lives.  We are beginning that reflection today.

The whole thrust of this chapter – and really the thrust of the whole gospel of John – is to help us become aware of God’s presence – God’s closeness – in our lives.  Jesus will use signs to help us become aware.  For any Jew – for Jesus – as well as for John, the author of the gospel – a sign is any word or gesture – any concrete thing that helps us become aware of God’s transforming presence in my life.  For Jesus – we always become of aware of God as the God who is changing us – the God who is renewing, reshaping, recreating us.

When Jesus says in today’s gospel:  I am the bread of life. – he is using sign-language to bring us to awareness of God’s presence to us.  He is making himself the sign – the concrete reality that points to God’s presence.  What does the sign say?  What is Jesus saying to us?

I am the bread of life.  The image he is using is food, and we eat food.  Eating is tasting and taking in; it’s digesting and assimilating.  When we eat something, then what had been outside of us, other than us becomes part of us.  We become what we eat, the saying goes.  Just so, Jesus is telling us this:  you take me in – you consume me – and you will know God’s transforming presence in your life.  You take me in – you feed on me – by tasting and taking into yourself my way – my values – my teaching – my style of life.  Live, as I live!  Love, as I love!  When my values – my vision of life actually become your own, then I become truly the bread of life for you – then I become living bread for you.

At this Eucharist Jesus continues to say to us:  when you have tasted, digested and assimilated me as your bread of life – your living bread, then you will experience God.  But how does that really happen – experiencing God?  You will experience God as changing your love – changing your affections.  We will find ourselves becoming less self-concerned and more self-forgetful – less self-promoting and more large-hearted, more open-handed.  And we will experience growing within us a magnanimity – a grand and generous spirit – that will make us friend and soul-mate to Jesus.  Gratefully, we will recognize Jesus in who we are becoming.  We will recognize the living Lord in ourselves.

And then – then we will be empowered – empowered to let go of being the center of our own lives.  We will be free with the freedom God wants and works for us.

On July 31^st, we celebrated the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.  I’d like to conclude these thoughts on Jesus as our bread of life by sharing with you some reflections from Karl Rahner, a famous German Jesuit theologian.  Once he was asked why any sensible modern man like himself would think to remain or become a Jesuit?  His reply was quite simply that he found among his Jesuit brothers the living spirit of Jesus.  But listen to how he describes how that living spirit is concretely lived.  Listen to his words.

“I think of Jesuit brothers whom I myself have known.  I think of one who in a village in India that is unknown to Indian intellectuals helps poor people to dig their wells.  I think of one who for long hours in the confessional listens to the pain and torment of unimportant people who are far more complex than they appear on the surface.  I think of one who is beaten by police along with his students without the satisfaction of even being a revolutionary.  I think of my Jesuit brother who in his prison ministry must proclaim over and over again the message of the Gospel with never a token of gratitude, who is more appreciated for the handout of cigarettes than for the words of the Good News he brings.  I think of the one who with difficulty and without any clear evidence of success plods away at the task of awakening in just a few people a small spark of faith, of hope and of charity.”

I think Rahner is describing for us the concrete shape our freedom will take on when we let Jesus empower us with his love and his life – when we let Jesus become our living Lord, our Bread of Life.  Then with Jesus we will say to our world:  Take and eat, my life for you.  Take and drink in, my love for you.

 Fr. Pat Earl, SJ

On Picnics & Signs

17^th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

2Kgs 4, 42-44 / Eph 4, 1-6 / John6, 1-15 

How about going on a picnic?  With today’s gospel reading from John, the Church is inviting us to begin a kind of summer picnic.  The picnic will be in Galilee and our host will be Jesus.  Till the fourth Sunday of August [August 26] – for five consecutive Sundays – we will be hearing the good news from one, single chapter of John’s gospel – the sixth chapter.  The chapter begins with the multiplication of loaves – what we have just heard.  John then uses the story to introduce a profound and extended reflection on the Eucharist and on Jesus as the Bread of Life.

We’re going to be hearing lots of food imagery on the picnic.  Food, in fact, is the most common of all biblical images.  God’s goodness is described as a feast, God’s displeasure as a famine and our penitence as a fasting.  Israel is described in the Bible not as some picturesque spot but as a land flowing with milk and honey.  Jesus was born in Bethlehem which translated means “house of bread” [beit-le-hem].  And Jesus calls on us as disciples to be salt – giving flavor to the food of life.  So the Scriptures and the food network share much.

Since we’re going to be on this picnic for some time, I think it would be good for us to adjust some of our expectations.  For example, it would be wrong to expect Chippendale chairs and fine china on a picnic.  On picnics we sit on the ground and make due with paper plates.  In just the same way it would be good for us to get to know the thought and language John will use in chapter six.  Then we will be able to hear with better understanding and will come to have the right expectations.  We won’t be expecting Chippendale chairs when Jesus is inviting us to sit on the grass.

A critically important idea throughout John’s gospel, and especially in the sixth chapter, is the word sign.  John tells us the crowds are following Jesus because of the signs he is performing.  The multiplication of loaves is described by John as a sign.  So we need to understand what a sign is if we’re going to understand what Jesus is doing in the multiplication of loaves.

What’s a sign?  For the Jews, as for John, a sign is any sensible reality – something concrete – which makes present to me a transforming experience of God’s presence.  Through the sign God’s real presence becomes accessible, available to me – in the change, in the transformation I experience myself undergoing.  I come to experience/know God as the God-who-is-changing/transforming-me.  And I come to experience/know myself as where God is actively at work.

Through concrete things like bread and wine, like spoken words and body gestures – God becomes present to me as actually reshaping me, renewing me, recreating me.  And that is what miracle means in the Bible.  Miracle literally means “to bring to wonder and awe.”  A miracle happens when we experience wonder and awe at God’s powerful, transforming presence in life – in my life and in the lives of others.

It’s very important to emphasize that miracle is not magic.  I say very important in order to understand the gospel of John but also very important in order to understand what we do here at Eucharist every Sunday.  Magic affects the surface of things.  Miracle transforms what is innermost.  Magic entertains – is cheap entertainment – and costs us nothing.  We watch and are amused.  Miracle engages us – is costly engagement – and costs us dearly.  We take part and are changed.  Unless it costs, it isn’t a miracle.  In sign and miracle I encounter the intimate yet insistently challenging presence of the Living God.

So on the picnic in Galilee over the next weeks look for the signs and ask yourself some questions.  For example, in today’s reading the multiplication of loaves is worked by Jesus as a sign – but how?  How is it a sign?  We are not dealing with magic but with a miracle.  So how is God encountered in the sign – in the miracle of the multiplication of loaves?  Where is God’s challenging presence in my life?  What interior transformation is being brought about within me?  Remember the beginning of our transformation is becoming aware of our need for it.

Many questions – but the answers can come only from us and from our lives – not from any homily or catechism.  The answers come from our own deep-down living.

During these next weeks let Jesus earn his reputation as a “miracle-worker”.  Let this become our expectation:  how is Jesus bringing us to wonder and awe in our own lives?

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ

Wonderfully Made!

BIRTH OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

Isaiah 49: 1-6 / Acts 13: 22-26 / Luke 1: 57-66, 80
 

We celebrate the birth of John the Baptist.  In our liturgical calendar there are only three births celebrated:  the birth of Jesus at Christmas, the birth of Mary in September and today’s feast, the birth of John the Baptist.  So it’s a special day when we recall the beauty of birth – the beauty and wonder of new life.  Added to this celebration is the fact that, as a growing parish, over the past year we have celebrated over sixty baptisms.

So we are being given new life – in our babies and in our baptisms.  And I think we can let today’s celebration help us – help us to learn to see ourselves perhaps differently but certainly more deeply – learn to see ourselves with the same bright, expectant eyes we use to see our newly born and newly baptized.

Let us learn to hear the words from Isaiah, our first reading, speaking to us and speaking about us directly:  The Lord called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.  …You are my servant, the Lord said to me, through you I show my glory.  …and [so] I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord.

These words are true and speak truly to us and about us.  God has chosen to reveal the wonder of his love and goodness in and through each one of us.  Each of us reflects in a unique, unrepeatable way God’s own radiant presence and love.

Today we celebrate John the Baptist.  But there was another John whose words capture the deeper meaning of our feast.  They are the words of Cardinal John Newman, an Englishman of the nineteenth century, who realized how wonderfully we are made and how wonderfully we are guided by God in life.  Listen to his words.  Again, they are words spoken directly to us and about us:

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.  I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.  He has not created me for naught.  I shall do good – I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments.

I think what Newman says is deeply true.  In the working out of God’s plan we are simply irreplaceable in one another’s lives.  We are, each of us, links in a chain, bringing people together – bringing people closer to one another.  What a thing of beauty it is to have this as our vocation in life:  bringing people closer to each other.  I think we deprive ourselves when we don’t take the time to reflect on how we actually do live out in our daily lives the beauty of our vocation.  Reflect on our marriages and families.  Reflect on our friendships.  Reflect on all the ways we reach out to others and bring them closer.  Reflect on how irreplaceable we are for others in their coming to know God’s goodness.

In today’s gospel from Luke Elizabeth insists that the child to be circumcised be called John.  In Hebrew that name is Johanan, and it means God is gracious.  In his own life John remained true to his name.  He showed God’s gracious love by bringing people together to be baptized and then bringing them to Jesus.  John was the messenger; Jesus the message.  John was the voice; Jesus the word.

John tells us who we are.  We are, all of us, like John.  Each of us – being fashioned fresh from God’s love – bring people together.  We love and we link people together.  And in our own wonderful, beautiful, irreplaceable way we bring people to Christ.

During the upcoming week, as we begin to enjoy the season of summer, let us also take the time to enjoy how God has been gracious to others through us.  Let us appreciate and give thanks for how wonderfully we have been made.

And let us continue to hear true words spoken to us: And the Lord said to me: ‘you are my servant; through you I show my glory.’  [Isaiah 49: 3]

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ

Images of Our Hope

11^th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Ez 17, 22-24 / 2Cor 5, 6-10 / Mk 4,26-34

In the reading from Mark Jesus speaks to us of images of the kingdom of God.  The “Kingdom of God” was Jesus’ central teaching.  It’s what happens when we allow ourselves to do God’s will – what things begin to look like when we allow ourselves to do God’s love.  The images Jesus uses to describe the arrival of the kingdom have to do with growth – growth happening of itself.  We just look on and see the growth happening – just as we see a stalk of grain growing.  First, the blade appears, then the ear, and then the full grain in the ear – all is ready for the harvest.

These are all images of hope.  The kingdom of God is a life lived in hope – where God truly is at work bringing about change and growth – and we are witnesses to what God is accomplishing.  But we must be honest here with ourselves.  Do our own images of hope faithfully reflect Jesus’ images of hope?  In his images God is bringing about what God wants, and we are the onlookers.  Let’s honestly reflect here.

I wonder what images come to mind when we hear the words of Psalm 50:  “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.”  What do we imagine God saving us from?  Much more importantly, what do we want God to save us from?  What do those images look like?

I am sure each one of us here has had those moments when in a bad, bad situation we pray to God to save us from it – to get us out of it.  That’s only normal for us.  We’re in a bad – a threatening place and we want out – to overcome the threat.  We want to be on top of the threat – to have it somehow behind us.  We want God to make us safe, secure.

Let’s go deeper.  What really threatens us?  What makes us feel unsafe, insecure?  I want to answer for myself – and you can see for yourself.  I want to say what makes me feel unsafe and threatened is anything that might undermine my sense of my own well-being – my health, my social and economic position in the community, and my self-regard before others, including God and church.  I want God to protect me – my body, my goods, my reputation.

But when I am honest with myself and my own life, I must say I have never experienced God working that way.  That’s what I want God to do, but honest reflection leads me to say I don’t think God does work that way.  I have had a false image of hope.  This false image has much too much of me at work – my images of success and well-being – of what is good and bad for me and others.  In this false hope I have ceased to be the onlooker at what God is doing and have become the orchestrator of what I think God should be doing.

Further reflection and prayer tells me God did not protect Jesus’ body, nor his goods, nor his reputation.  Jesus did not run from the cross nor come down from it.  I do not see God working that way in the lives of those who tried to follow Jesus closely – Peter and Paul, all the other apostles and disciples.  Nor does God seem to protect in that way the lives of those seeking to follow Jesus today.  Think of the many martyrs who have died just in our lifetime, close by – the nuns and missionary workers in El Salvador, the archbishop of San Salvador, the Jesuit martyrs at the University of Central America, Sister Dorothy Stang in Brazil – and many, many more all over the world.

Jesus’ life and his ongoing life in his followers – these provide true images of hope.  And what signs of growth do we see actually happening in their lives?  How do their lives yield up blade and ear and full grain – signs of God being at work?  Following Jesus’ parable, let us become simple, honest onlookers.  And what do we see?  We see people being freed or saved from the fears they have for themselves – for their bodies, their goods, their reputation and self-esteem.  We do see people being saved from self-preoccupation and even from the fear of death.  We do see people being freed up for a full life and a fully caring life with and for others.

God does not work the magic we want.  God does work the wonders, the miracles we see in the life of Jesus and his followers.  They are works of transformation – of conversion, that radical change which God alone works in our lives.  And God is working now to grow the mustard seed of our lives into large branches where others may delight to thrive and flourish.  But we must look – look for God’s action in our lives!

Let us hope in God!

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ

Bread Shared & Life Poured Out

THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
 
Ex 24, 3-8 / Heb 9, 11-15 / Mk14, 12-16, 22-26

We celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  That is the formal name of our feast today.  In fact, we are celebrating what we as church continually celebrate.  Today we are celebrating the Eucharist.  Because the Eucharist is so central and familiar to us as Catholics, I want to reflect on this sacrament which so clearly identifies us as disciples of Jesus.

I think it very important for us to remember and appreciate the context in which Jesus gave us the Eucharist.  It is our founding memory as a community of disciples.  Jesus takes bread – blesses, breaks and gives it to his friends saying: “Take this and eat it.  It is my body which is given for you.”  Also he takes a cup of wine – blesses and gives it to them saying:  “This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many.”  Then Jesus adds:  “Do this – as my memorial.”

The context is crucial to understanding what is being said here.  The community of disciples that Jesus had worked so hard to nurture is about to disintegrate.  Judas has already sold him out.  Peter, in whom he had put such special trust, will desert and deny him.  And Peter will soon be followed by all the other disciples.  In the face of denial, desertion and his own death Jesus chooses to share himself – to share his life.  And he chooses to give himself – to share himself with the very ones who will do the denying and deserting.  That first eucharistic assembly was a community of the unwilling, the unworthy and unbrave.

In Jesus’ understanding it was absolutely right that he entrust himself to sinners, to the weak and unreliable because he was acting in hope – hope in God – hope in what God can do working through our very human lives.  In Jesus’ understanding there’s more – much more to us – than what we do of ourselves alone.  There’s life in us.  There’s God’s own life in us.  There’s the Spirit of Life in us – the same Spirit of Life as in Jesus.

Contemporary images make blood a sign of gore.  Just watch TV to see how much blood is used to grab our attention.  But in Jesus’ Jewish imagination blood meant “life”, “haim” in Hebrew.  I’m sure you’ve heard the Jewish toast: “L’haim” “To life”.  In our first reading, when Moses sprinkles blood over the people at the reading of the covenant, he is sprinkling them with the sign of God’s life to which they are committing themselves.  So intimate was the association of blood with life that kosher rules for food preparation required the blood of animals be drained from them before cooking.  The fear was that taking in an animal’s blood would make one act like an animal.

When Jesus identifies the wine with his own blood, he is identifying it with his own life.  Drink in – take in my life – my way – my values – my attitude to life – my love.  Live as I live.  Love as I love.

We are the direct descendants of that first eucharistic community.  Today we make up the community of the unwilling, the unworthy and unbrave.  And again Jesus acts and speaks among us in great hope – hope in the Spirit of God already in us – hope in the life of God already acting within us.  Jesus’ life – Jesus’ Spirit moving, motivating and shaping us.

“Do this”, Jesus says to us.  “Do this – as my memorial.”  Do my way!  Do my life!  Do my love!  Do not withhold yourself from one another.  That is my way!  Pour your life into the lives of others – into the lives of sinners – into the lives of those who are weak and unreliable.  Let your love’s hospitality be like mine – shockingly expansive and shamelessly inclusive.

We celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  But we must become what we celebrate.  We must become the holy body and blood of Christ by embracing the human completely and compassionately – all our brothers and sisters – with their joys and hopes – and with their sins and sorrows.

In the Letter to the Hebrews we read: “[Jesus] is mediator of a new covenant…”  He is that mediator through us – now becoming his body and blood for the life of the world.  Let us then recall the words of consecration we hear said at every Eucharist.  They are our words of consecration.  They tell us who we are.  “…blood of the new, eternal covenant… poured out… for the forgiveness of sins.”  Let us become what we recall and celebrate.  Let our lives be poured out to others in a love that forgives.

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ