English

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) - “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord."

When we, as Catholics, hear today’s Gospel, the highpoint of the Bread of Life Discourse in the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel, we hear the scriptural foundation for the Church’s teaching on the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the Eucharist - that the Eucharist is not a symbol but Jesus himself.  “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world”.  “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”  If the Eucharist is not really Jesus, but only a symbol, we do not have real communion with him.  The Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Receiving the Eucharist - consuming his body and blood - is how his life - eternal life - is within us.  Through the Eucharist, we have eternal life here and now.  Eucharistic communion is the promise of the resurrection for us.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”  “Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  But to the Jews who heard these words - to his own disciples who heard these words, not only did these words not make sense, but they almost started a riot.  “The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’”  Not only did they not understand how what Jesus said could be possible, but to their ears, what Jesus said was not only disgusting but religiously repugnant, i.e., offensive to their religious sensibilities.  After they are put off by the thought of eating his flesh, Jesus adds “and drinks my blood” to the discourse.  Jesus is using very graphic and provocative language.  It was prohibited in the Law for someone to drink the blood of animals - blood representing the life-force of the animal.  And he wants us to eat his flesh and drink his blood!  This is crazy talk!  In the face of the crowd’s misunderstanding and visceral negative reaction, Jesus doesn’t explain how this will be possible nor does he soften the language.  “No worries, I’m just using figurative or metaphorical language to make a point.”  Rather, he responds with heightened graphic and provocative language.  He’s telling them, “No, I mean exactly what I am saying.”  The day before, Jesus multiplied five loaves and two fish to feed a vast crowd.  Just counting the men, there were 5,000 in number, which means that the crowd, counting the women and children, was at least four or five times as large.  When they see the result of the miracle, the people exclaim, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”  John comments that the people, at this point, were ready to carry him off to make him king.  But Jesus withdraws from them for this very reason.  This vast crowd comes looking for Jesus.  They get in boats and cross the sea to find Jesus in Capernaum.  Jesus had the crowd literally eating out of the palm of his hand.  So why does he say such things that he knew would be beyond their understanding and very hard for them to hear - things that would shock them and be “unacceptable” and turn many away from him?  (This is not the way to build a popular movement!).  Because he wants them to follow him not because he does miracles and can make life physically easier for them (we got a free lunch yesterday, what will we get today?) nor because they, like the “wise and the learned”, think they have an intellectual understanding of the ways of God, but he wants them to follow him because they have made a judgment of faith - that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  That is a judgment that can only be made through a personal experience.  Jesus is being provocative because he wants to purify the reasons why they are following him.  If you are following me just because you ate and your bellies were filled, you are following me for the wrong reason.  If you are following me because you have determined intellectually through a study of the scriptures that I must be the Christ, you are following me for the wrong reason.  If you think I am the ticket to your political liberation, you are following me for the wrong reason. 

          Jesus does not get into an argument with the crowd or those who have questions.  He doesn’t try to explain himself in greater detail.  He doesn’t lay out a bunch of reasons for why they should believe him.  Rather, he invites them to eat and to drink.  In the first reading from the Book of Proverbs, we hear “Wisdom” inviting those who lack understanding to “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed!”  “Eating and drinking” is the way to understanding.  Eating and drinking is the path to Wisdom.  It is the way to leave foolishness behind in order that we may have life.  We try to make the faith - coming to know Jesus - way too complicated.  We think we have to explain everything or to have an answer for every question or doubt.  This mentality is a product of our modern age in which we think that if we can’t prove it scientifically, it doesn’t exist or is not real.  If I can’t understand it intellectually, I shouldn’t believe it.  If I cannot articulate the reason for my belief, I shouldn’t believe it.  Wisdom says, “Let whoever is simple turn in here”.  Eating and drinking is sharing life.  This is the simple method for evangelization and communicating the faith.  Eating and drinking is experiential knowledge that provides a knowledge that is more profound than intellectual, abstract understanding.  Study of the faith is important.  Knowing the reasons we believe what we teach as Catholics is important.  But someone only comes to belief, ie., comes to faith by a judgment rooted in experience.  “Taste” precedes “seeing”.  “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”  Jesus said to those first disciples, “Come and you will see.”  Entering into a relationship with Jesus, sharing life with him, spending time with him, precedes “seeing”.  Because they spent time with Jesus and shared life with Jesus, the disciples “knew” he was the Messiah well before they could articulate with any specificity what kind of Messiah he would be.  They knew he was the Messiah because they made a judgement based on their experience.  It is for this reason why we see in next Sunday’s Gospel that the disciples do not leave Jesus even though they cannot explain or make sense of Jesus’ discourse on the Bread of Life any more than the crowd can.  Jesus provoked in them a judgment by asking, “Do you also want to leave?”  Peter, speaking for the rest says, “to whom shall we go?”  The disciples have come to believe and became convinced that Jesus was the Holy One of God not by a particular argument but by the accumulation of evidence that came from sharing life with Jesus over time.  Peter cannot imagine his life without Jesus.  It would be foolish, i.e., against reason, for Peter to leave Jesus at this point, after everything he’s been through with Jesus, simply because he cannot understand or explain what Jesus is saying.  An analogy with this judgment of faith is when I ask a couple preparing for marriage, “how did you know that he or she was the right one for you?”  Any reason expressed just as a list of “shared values” or “interests we have in common” seems silly, shallow, and inadequate.  They know on a deeper level, a truer level, that cannot be expressed any other way than, “I cannot imagine my life without this person.”  Does their lack of an ability to give a detailed explanation make what they know to be less true or not true at all?  Definitely not.  They’ve come to a judgment based on their experience of sharing life together.  It is something that fills them with wonder and awe.  They are in front of a mystery. 

          One of the tactics of those who are opposed to the faith is to try to get us to doubt the faith or to think we lack faith because we can’t explain it.  This is the bid of the atheists who want us to give a scientific explanation for what we believe.  This is also a common practice of fundamentalist Christians or others who want us to explain or to answer the question, “do you know that you are saved?” or to have us “show them where that particular belief is in the Bible”.   We should have adequate reasons for our belief, but we believe not through an argument but because we’ve encountered the person of Christ in the Church and trust him.  Trust is built on a relationship.  Attraction to the mystery is what opens us to belief and to want to know the reasons.  Just giving someone the reasons will not open their heart to belief.  One of the primary ways we encounter the Mystery of God is through the sacred liturgy.  The celebration of the Mass speaks to the truth of the mystery of God’s presence in ways much deeper than just to the intellect.  We hear the word of God and receive an explanation in the homily, but we understand the mystery through other modalities besides the mind.  The truth is communicated through sign and gesture, music and sound, color and light, even the smell and the cloud of incense speak to the mystery.  Children get this - the simple hearted come to understanding in this way.  Just because we’ve become literate doesn’t mean that word and explanation are the only way we learn or are a sufficient means for learning.  In fact we are inhibiting the education and formation of our children in the faith if we think that classroom study, whether at the Catholic school or the PREP program, or the OCIA course for adults, is enough.  If they do not have the regular experience of the Mass, if they are not coming to the table that the Lord, Wisdom Incarnate, has spread before us; if they are not tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord, the faith remains an abstract, intellectual thing that remains disconnected from our real life - disconnected from experience.  The Lord calls us today to purify our reasons for following him.  Have we made a judgment about Jesus based on our experience that our life makes sense only if we stay in communion with Him?  People leave the church not because they don’t understand the teaching of the church but because they haven’t made that judgement or think that understanding must precede belief.  Let’s not get into arguments with our friends or family members who do not believe or who have left the church but invite them to experience what we have experienced in the life of the community of faith - to taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

English

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) -  “Eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”

Deacon Kevin, Deacon Lou, and I are working together to plan a two-evening program on End of Life Issues for this coming Fall.  (October 22 and 29 at 7:00 p.m.).  It will be a panel discussion with presentations by a deacon trained in Catholic medical ethics, a lawyer who will talk about common legal issues when someone approaches death and then dies (how one should make proper legal preparations in anticipation for one’s death), a funeral director who will speak about practical considerations regarding funeral planning and pre-planning a funeral, and I will speak about the importance of and the practical means for the pastoral care of the sick and the dying.  I give credit to Deacon Kevin for proposing the idea for this event.  He and his family had to deal with many of these issues when his father entered a memory-care facility some time ago suffering the debilitating effects of dementia and then died at the age of 95 in April of this year.  Death is something we will all have to face, and if we are not prepared both spiritually and practically (whether this is for ourselves or a loved one), it is a burden that seems too heavy to bear. 

          Getting old is not easy.  As one of my Italian friends says frequently, “La vecchiaia è una brutta bestia” (“Old age is ugly beast”).  He’s usually referring to his aches and pains and the physical things he can’t do the way he used to do when he was younger, but getting old is often hard spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically too because we are embodied persons.  Our physical state affects us spiritually, and our spiritual state impacts us physically, psychologically, and emotionally.  We are bodies and souls and need to care for our spiritual health as we age as well.  Many folks who become sick, suffer from a chronic illness, or become homebound or need to enter a care facility then face the spiritual and mental challenge of being more isolated from family, friends, and the community of faith which provided the spiritual nourishment in their lives.  Often the spiritual suffering (the effects of isolation) is much worse and harder to deal with than the physical suffering, and actually compounds it.  One might be in good physical health but find oneself separated from the community when one’s spouse or friend who was the driver or the more socially connected one dies or moves away.  I see this often with older widows, like my grandmother, who never drove.  When my grandfather died, it was much harder for her to get out of the house or even to go to church.  One is not committing a mortal sin if one misses Mass because of an infirmity or because one is stuck at home for lack of transportation, but the spiritual suffering from the isolation and the lack of communion made possible through the sacraments that the Lord gave us to strengthen us for the journey, makes life that much harder.  The grace of the sacraments and the companionship of our brothers and sisters in Christ helps us to bear the cross of suffering - both physical and spiritual suffering. 

          As with someone who loses a spouse suddenly or has an accident or the rapid onset of a debilitating disease, the suffering, depression, and lack of hope in the future can be particularly acute.  Life becomes physically and emotionally draining.  It is not uncommon for the person to even pray for death as a way to put an end to their suffering.  “Lord, take me!”  They don’t understand why they are still here.  It doesn’t seem fair.  The isolation and lack of ability to care for oneself (or care for others) makes the person question the value or meaning of his or her life.  I am often asked by people in that situation, “Is it OK to pray for death?”  “Is it a sin to pray for death?”  In our first reading, we hear the elderly prophet Elijah praying for death.  “This is enough, O Lord!  Take my life…”  Elijah has suffered a rather abrupt turn of events.  He was the lone faithful prophet left in Israel.  The Lord sent him to call the people to conversion who were leaving the faith and forsaking the commandments to follow false gods.  God answers his prayer after Elijah sets up a contest between himself and the false prophets.  The people come to their senses, return to right worship and say, “The Lord is God!”  The false prophets are slain.  Elijah is victorious.  But now there is a price on his head, and Elijah has to flee for his life.  He is only one day’s journey into the desert, and he is totally exhausted and discouraged.  He prays for death.  The Lord does not grant his wish.  Instead, the Lord sends him an angel to wake him up and to give him food for the journey.  It is sustenance sent from heaven.  The angel orders him, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”  The Lord has more plans for Elijah.  Elijah has to get to the mountain of God to hear the “still, small voice” of the Lord.  There, the Lord then tells him what to do to before Elijah is to be taken up to heaven.  He tells him also who will succeed him.  Strengthened by that food that came down from heaven, Elijah walked forty days and forty nights to get to the mountain of God.  “Forty days and forty nights” should remind us of the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert and the Lord fed them with quail and manna.  It was a time of testing and preparation before entering the “Promised Land”.  “Forty days and forty nights” should also remind us of the 40 days and nights that Jesus spent in the desert fasting and then being tempted by the devil.  Jesus answers the first temptation to satisfy his physical hunger by saying, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God”  (Mt. 4:4).  The journey through this life, especially when dealing with sickness and infirmity, is a time of testing, and it is not a journey that can be sustained only by addressing our physical needs.  There is a great temptation to lose one’s faith when someone undergoes sickness and suffering.  We are very susceptible to all kinds of temptations when we are in a physically compromised state.  That is why the ministry to bring Holy Communion to the sick and the homebound is so important.  Frequent reception of Holy Communion for the sick and the dying brings the person to a deeper understanding of the mystery of their suffering in relation to the Paschal mystery of Christ and strengthens them for the journey.  Reception of Holy Communion keeps the sick and the homebound connected to the sacrifice and celebration of the Mass and to the community from which they were separated by illness or circumstance.  Ministry to the sick and homebound is also an expression of our support and concern for the members of our community who cannot come to Mass.  We hunger for a life that is greater than this one.  We hunger for eternal life.  And the food that sustains us for the journey to our heavenly homeland must be a food that comes down from heaven.  The food provided by the angel to Elijah and the manna in the desert for the Israelites are prefigurements of the Eucharist.  The difference as we hear Jesus say to the murmuring Jews in the Gospel is that, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died… I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  Jesus is the Word of the Father.  He is the Eternal Word spoken by the Father that has become flesh.  He is the bread of life.  He is the food for eternal life. 

          If you know someone from our parish who is sick or homebound and can no longer come to Mass, please encourage them to call the parish and to ask for someone to bring them Holy Communion.  If your mom or dad or other relative was a regular mass goer and is now homebound, please call their parish for them and arrange for the priest or the Extraordinary minister to come for a regular visit.  If you find yourself homebound, do not hesitate to call the parish.  This is not a bother for the priest.  We are never “too busy” to care for the sick and the homebound.  Pastoral care for the sick and the dying is not only one of the most important ministries of the church but also the most rewarding.  The one who brings the Eucharist to the sick and the homebound sees the difference that Jesus makes in their lives - both spiritually and physically.  It strengthens our faith in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist when we experience the difference that regular Communion makes for the person - how grateful they are and renewed in spirit when Jesus comes to visit.  Sadly, too many people wait until their loved one is literally breathing his or her last breaths before they call the priest.  At that point, most often the person is unable to receive Holy Communion because they can no longer swallow or are not conscious.  Neither can they make a last confession.  Many people “hang on” because they are afraid of dying or they have unresolved issues.  It is not doing the person a favor to delay calling the priest - thinking the presence of the priest will scare them or make them think they have no more hope for life.  The priest comes with the sacraments to give the person comfort in their trial and hope for eternal life  - so that they are not afraid of death.  Many times I have been called to someone’s death bed and the person dies shortly after they receive the sacraments.  The family will say, “Father, you got here just in time.”  And I’ll say to the family, “No, they were waiting for Jesus.”  They were waiting for the food needed to strengthen them for the journey - for the passage through death to eternal life.  If you can do anything for your loved ones who are sick or dying, do not let them wait for Jesus.  Be an “angel” and bring them the food and nourishment they need for the journey.  I also invite any parishioner to talk to me or to one of the deacons about becoming an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion to help us to bring the Eucharist to the sick and the homebound in the parish.  You will help others to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” and to see for yourself how the answer to the temptation to death is Jesus, the bread of life.