The Eucharist -- fast food or that which satisfies our deepest human hungers?

When I make my annual retreat each year, I simply get back to the basics.  I slow down.  I seek to encounter God in stillness, in solitude.  I get plenty of sleep, eat nutritious food, and pro-actively focus both on physical and spiritual exercises.

Very simply, I eat three meals a day.  They are not rushed.  I do not eat between meals.  The food is not fast, instant or junk food.  Rather,  the food is healthy and nutritious.

I say this describing the food at the retreat house because I must confess that too often I begin my day with some coffee and skip breakfast.  Often I don’t  seem  any worse for it.  But over the long haul, clearly it is not a healthy way to live.

If skipping breakfast is relatively easy, it is also easy to neglect spiritual food.  It’s too easy to skip daily prayer and the weekly celebration of the Eucharist.  We often don’t seem any worse for the wear and tear.  But over the long haul, we can get out of touch with our deepest spiritual hungers.

Far from being a pit stop for fast food and entertainment in the journey of life, the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ is the necessary sustenance for the spiritual growth of each member of the community and for the community itself.

As we reflect on the mystery of the Sunday Eucharist, we are reflecting on the central prayer of our faith tradition.  We are part of a tradition that is nearly 2000 years old.  The Sunday Eucharist is our participation in the paschal mystery of Christ Jesus.  The Sunday Eucharist satisfies the deepest hungers of the human heart.

I suggest our deepest spiritual hungers are for Jesus’ power to love and forgive his enemies rather than embarrass and crush them.  What we hunger for is Jesus’ power to be bighearted;  to love beyond his own family, and to love poor and rich alike; to live inside of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, despite everything in life that militates against these virtues.

Left to our own will power and our own desires, we get too easily trapped in self-centeredness.  The truth of the life of all of us is that we are deeply flawed by sin.

The satisfaction of these deepest hungers comes from God and God’s love that is revealed to us in the mystery of the Eucharist.  The way we are wired is that for us to satisfy the deepest hunger of our human hearts, we need to be connected to the mystery of God’s love that is within us.  It is as a Eucharistic people, we are in to touch with the source of grace that enables us to be our best selves, the person we are called to be. 

As a Eucharistic community, we gather with an attitude of gratitude.  We gather to give, to give thanks to the Lord our God.  We give thanks because we have been fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord with a food that enables to live as Jesus lives, to love as Jesus loves, to forgive as Jesus forgives.

With great joy, we have  recently celebrated two First Communion weekends in the parish.  The spiritual joy experienced in our First Communicants and in their families is so very precious.  The ritual of our First Communion celebrations are so inspiring.  It is a moment of joy for me as a priest to give First Communion to one of our younger parishioners.  In age appropriate ways, they celebrate the life giving presence of Jesus within them.  Thanks be to God.  

  

The challenge we have as a parish community is to sustain our Eucharistic faith and joy continuously throughout the year.  Even though our First Communicants won’t  be wearing their communion dresses and suits Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, nonetheless the God whose love for us is unending continues to offer to us the Bread of Life and the Cup of salvation always.

The thing of it is with spiritual hungers; we can be spiritually hungry without being in touch with our deep hunger.  As the great St. Augustine, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are hungry until they rest in thee.

As the congregation approaches the altar and receives communion, it is as if the Church is filling up with Christ.  We are not only in union with Christ, we are in communion with all those who receive him.  The Eucharist is a community affair, not simply Jesus and me.  We are not only in union with Christ; we are in  communion with all those who receive Christ.  This is the meaning of Church.  The Church is a people  of God who are in union with Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist.  We are also a people in communion with all those who receive Christ Jesus in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is our bond of communion with Christ who cleanses us our sins and unites in marvelous communion with God and gives our dignity to be God’s beloved sons and daughters.  Further, the Eucharist binds us together with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.  We are called to the Body of Christ – the bearers of hope and love to people who are sick in body and spirit.

At the Last Supper, Jesus gathers his disciples with the context of something very old – the Passover meal – to give them something very new  -- the Eucharist.  He creates for them a new covenant.  These disciples must carry on the work of Jesus.  They will be able to do his work through the empowerment of His presence.  The Eucharist has a social dimension.  It is always an encounter of the Church, the people of God, with the powerful presence of Jesus in the new covenant of His blood.  This is why the Eucharist is so central to the life of the Church.

The Mass is our greatest prayer; we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  Yet it is what we do outside the Mass that also determines the genuineness of the offering we make at the altar each Sunday.  By our mutual love and, in particular, by our concern for those in need we will be recognized as true followers of Christ.  Go in peace glorifying the Lord  by our lives in all that we say and do this day and every day.

The Feast of the Blessed Trinity and First Communion Sunday

Today in our parish, we celebrated First Communion Sunday as well as the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity.  As we reflect on the mystery of the Trinity, we ought to reflect on the many mysteries of life.  For us Catholics, our faith is a mystery.  If we lose a sense of mystery, we lose touch with our soul.  Life is not a problem to be solved but very much a mystery to be lived.

The mystery of the beauty of family is celebrated in multiple ways.

In the mystery of the Trinity, we encounter a relational God revealed in a family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The solemnity of the Trinity is not a feast for scholars but a celebration for lovers.  In prayer, we desire to be in union, to be in friendship with our relational God.

As we celebrate First Communion Sunday, the importance of family in the life of the First Communicants is beautifully illustrated.  The family for our First Communicants is the school of love and the school of faith.  Our First Communicants are formed and fashioned in faith by their families.

As our First Communicants give thanks for the families that have brought them to the altar of God, they then come to understand the family of God that is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Then our First Communicants encounter their parish family that is anchored in the ways we are nourished and fed at the Eucharistic banquet.  Our parish family is a Eucharistic family who give thanks for each of our First Communicants as they receive the Body and Blood of Jesus for the first time.

The Eucharist is God's pledge that He will be with us until the end of the age.

The power of Pentecost can transform and enlarge our human hearts.

Luke is the author of the third Gospel as well as the Acts of the Apostles from which the first Scripture reading is taken that describes the Pentecost event.  Luke’s account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles also repeats the story of the Incarnation at the start of the Gospel.  Just as the Holy Spirit enabled Mary to conceive and give birth to Jesus, so the Spirit conceives and gives birth to the church, the Body of Christ in the world, at Pentecost.  This is why it was important for Luke to place Mary among the disciples in the upper room praying for the coming of the Spirit.  Mary’s faith inspires the faith of the disciples, who must say yes, as Mary did at the Annunciation, for the Church to be born.

As Mary responded to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation:  “I am the servant of the Lord; be it done unto according to Thy Word.”  May we too on this Feast of Pentecost say yes to the plan of God in our lives.

As the great feast of Christmas marked the birth of Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity; the Feast of Pentecost marks the birth and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Pentecost does not draw the same attention as the Christmas feast, but the grace and the meaning of Pentecost – the Spirit of God’s presence in our lives in the here and now – is of supreme importance in the life of the Church.  Yes, we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song; and yes we are a Pentecostal people who seek to discover the God’s presence in all of life – in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.

The great truth of Pentecost -- for the first disciples and us as well – is that the Holy Spirit has the power to enlarge and expand the human heart if we allow the Spirit of Jesus within us to grow and enliven us with the power to live, with the power to forgive, with the power to welcome and receive all others in Jesus’ name.  That power, the power of Pentecost becomes our own.

On this day of Pentecost, listen and pray over the questions the Spirit of the Risen Christ is asking you and is asking me?  Do you love me enough to forgive others as I forgive them?  Do you love me enough to forgive yourself your failures as I have forgiven you?  Do you love me enough to sacrifice more of your lifestyle so that others can live better?  Do you love me enough to spread the word that I have come to take the sins of the world?  Do love me enough to stand for justice in an unjust world?  Do you love me enough to stand for peace rather than for war and violence and terrorism?  Do you love me enough to welcome all people into your heart and spirit?  Do you love me enough that you are willing to use your God-given giftedness in the building of our faith community?

To the degree we answer yes to these questions, we are claiming the grace of the Holy Spirit that is within us.  The first Scripture this morning tells the story of Pentecost for the first Christian disciples.  They experienced conversion.  Their lives were transformed.  They proclaimed the good news of the love of Jesus.  There was a fire in their belly that shaped their entire lives.

We too on this day of Pentecost seek to have our lives transformed and filled with the Holy Spirit.  The Risen Lord spoke to the first disciples and speaks to us:  Peace be with you. The inner peace the Risen Lord offers touches our spiritual center.  We too are to offer the Peace of Jesus to one and all – the old and the young, male and female, long-time parishioners and those newly registered.  All are welcome.  We are all brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

Jesus at Prayer

In today's Gospel, we are listening to the prayer of Jesus to His heavenly Father.  This takes place at the Last Supper with Jesus very conscious of His impending death.  Jesus did not see His death as an ending, but rather going home to His heavenly Father and a new way of being  who are in the world.

In the Upper Room on the Eve of His passion, the Lord prayed for his disciples gathered around Him.  At the same time, he looked ahead to the community of disciples of all centuries.  In His prayer for all disciples of all time, he saw us too, our First Communicants and our candidates for Confirmation, and He prayed for us.  He prayed that we be consecrated in truth.

To consecrate someone means to give that person to God.  We are set apart for God.  But rather than being separated from the world, we are given over to God and thus are charged to represent God to others.  We must be available for others, for everyone.

Overhearing Jesus at prayer is our way of understanding the identity of Jesus and our participation in the divine plan.  The mission of Jesus is to become our mission.  What is this mission?  We are missioned to release divine love into the world.

Jesus tells us to look for Christ in one another and to be Christ for one another.

Our First Communicants and our candidates for Confirmation are to be Christ for all in our faith community, and may we see the face of Christ in our newly initiated.

Each of us is called to lead others to the gracious mercy of God.

The Gospels for the eight Sundays from Easter to Pentecost form a wonderfully cohesive progression from Jesus’ Resurrection to our taking up Jesus’ mission to preach the Gospel.  The first three Sundays of Easter always feature appearance accounts of the Risen Lord.  This fourth Sunday we are invited to reflect on Jesus’ great love and care for us and be assured that we will not be abandoned.  Jesus will be with us always.  On this Good Shepherd Sunday, we begin our mission of discipleship as we move into the second half of the Easter season and our preparation for the celebration of the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost.

Today, we hear the words of the Good Shepherd:  “I am the good Shepherd.  I know mine and mine know me.  I will lay down my life for the sheep.”  The same Eternal Word that became flesh in Jesus longs to become flesh in our lives --  in our home, workplace, parish, global marketplace.  Indeed, there is no shortage of need for compassionate people who continue Jesus’ mission.

Our spirituality is not primarily about keeping the rules.  Our spirituality is primarily about relationships  --  our relationship with God and our relationships with one another.  Yes, there are rules to be kept – no doubt about that.  But more than that, the imagery of Jesus as the Good Shepherd reveals the depth of intimacy that the Lord Jesus has for each of us.

The Shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  The sheep follow him because they do not follow the voice of strangers.  What are the voices in your life in which you are safe and very much loved?  How well do we recognize the voice of Jesus in our life?

I pray that you are clearly able to identify the voices of your life in which you are safe and very much loved?  Who in your family speaks words of unconditional love to you?  Treasure and value very highly the people you love and the people who love you?  Who in our faith community speak words to you to assure you that you are safe and very much loved?  We are to the witnesses to each other of God’s unconditional love.

Today is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  All of us have a vocational story to share.  Vocation comes from the Latin vocare  “to call.”  Our vocation is our response to the call of God in our lives.  By Baptism, God calls all of us to be disciples, to be witnesses of God’s presence in our world.  There are to be as many disciples, as many stewards in this parish as there are baptized parishioners.  For us to have an appreciation gathering for our parish stewards, we would not only need the entire restaurant at Shadow Lake; we would need the entire golf course.  The vision we seek for our parish faith community is immersed in the mystery of God’s love for us as the Good Shepherd of our lives. We seek to be the witnesses, the icons of God’s love for each other.

As we celebrate this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, may we encourage some young men in our parish community to consider the call to the ordained priesthood.  To be a leader of our faith community as a priest is a call from God I invite you to pay attention to.  The Church needs people to respond to call to the ordained ministry as a deacon and as a priest.

May our prayer be that we seek the grace of the Good Shepherd.  Each of us is called to lead others to the gracious mercy of God.  Like the shepherds, we do not do this by herding or forcing people along.  We seek to live lives of such self-evident joy that others can trust that we are leading them in the path of life eternal.

Jesus, our Good Shepherd, give us the grace we need to gently lead others to become more aware of our love and of God’s love for them.

Like the first disciples, we will experience the presence of the Risen Christ when we see His wounds -- to be found in the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in need.

Year after year, Easter Sunday celebrates the reality of Jesus’ resurrection as the foundation of our Christian identity.  As St. Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, they empty is our preaching, and empty is your faith.”

And yet, in the resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples, failure to recognize Jesus is a hallmark of his resurrection appearances.  So rather than Jesus they see a ghost, and rather than joy they experience fear.  The evangelist says:  “the disciples were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost.  Before the disciples were going to become fearless evangelizers, they needed a deep spiritual learning curve.  The meaning of resurrection faith was that Jesus was going to change the disciples “slowness of heart” and fearful misunderstanding into “opened minds” and joyful recognition.

Fast forward to our lives and our failures to recognize the presence of the Risen Christ in our midst, the question for us is how will Jesus appear to us in this day and age?  Will we be any better able to recognize him than those first disciples?  Jesus showed his first disciples his wounded hands and feet and spoke “peace” to them.  Could it be that Jesus is showing us his wounded body in the sick and the homeless who need our care, in the immigrants or prisoners who need to be rekindled by our Easter zeal?

In the Gospel account, Jesus stood in their midst and said to them:  “Peace be with you.”  As Jesus noticed the disciples the disciples were startled and terrified, he asked:  “Why are you troubled?”

In wishing us peace, Jesus also asks us why are we anxious, why are we fearful, why is your life shaped by our worries in our economy, why are we dominated by the possessions of our life, why do we give to another person so much power over our lives when it is not life-giving?

The question why are you troubled is often asked in the Gospel of Luke.  Recall the annunciation when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary she was going to be the mother of the savior, and Mary was confused as to what this meant.  Then the angel asked Mary:  Why are you troubled?  Be assured the Lord goes with you.

These words are spoken as well in the midst of the questions and fears of our lives:  “Why are you fearful?”  The Lord is with you and the Lord’s gift to you is an inner peace and joy that no one nor any situation can take from you.

As we reflect on the Gospel, I would highlight three components of the Gospel story that are also three movements In our spiritual journey.

1.       The disciples were a community of people.  The two disciples on the way to Emmaus had rejoined the community of disciples in Jerusalem.  Jesus appeared to them in their midst. Even if our faith is a jumble of commitment and confusion, we like the first disciples gather as a community to welcome Jesus.  We are not just individual disciples.  We are a community of disciples.  We are a Church who celebrate the presence of Jesus in our midst.

2.       We are a Eucharistic people.  “While they were still incredulous, Jesus asked them:  “have you anything here to eat?”  As for those first disciples, and so too for us, our own privileged encounter with the Risen Jesus is at table on the Lord’s day, in the context of the community’s meal.

3.       The first disciples were to be a missionary people.  Jesus commissioned them “to be witnesses of these things.”  Jesus sends forth the disciples to bear witness.  How often Pope Francis reminds us that we “touch the flesh of Christ” in the wounds of our suffering brothers and sisters to whom we are sent forth from every Eucharist as witnesses of Jesus’ self-sacrificing love.

4.       With your permission, I would add a fourth movement that gives me an opportunity to give you an update on our capital campaign on this Commitment Sunday.  The first disciples were committed to the mission of Jesus.  As the first disciples were committed to the mission of Jesus, so too we are committed to the mission of Jesus by our commitment to our Mission Driven capital Campaign.  We are making very positive progress toward of our goal of $1.8 million.  We have now pledged over $1 one million and One hundred eighty three thousand dollars in pledges.  This has been made possible of over 320 of your fellow parishioners.  Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our campaign and we are extremely grateful for your support.

I hope that everyone has had a chance to review the campaign brochure that and other material that have been mailed to your home.  As a brief recap, the three components of the Mission Driven campaign include:

·         Constructing a gathering space at the east transept of the Church where parishioners could meet and hospitality be provided.  From the Gospel, the first disciples were a community of disciples who experienced in their midst.  We will provide the facilities to enable us more fully to be a community of disciples who know one another and recognize the presence of the Risen Jesus in our midst.

·         Providing improved security for the children and staff of St Joseph’s School.  It goes without saying that we place a high priority on providing a safe and secure environment for our school children and staff.

·         Replacing our electronic organ with a pipe organ.  Our current organ is aging and tired.  A new pipe organ will enrich the sacredness of our Eucharistic celebrations.

Now is an exciting at St Joseph’s Church and St. Joseph’s School.  The brochure and the campaign materials detail what we can look forward to in the coming months.  We are excited to announce we have been meeting with the architects, LaBella Associates, and the contractor, LeChase Construction.  At this stage, we are working out the details of our building project.

We are making good headway but for us to reach our financial goal and see this project come to fruition, we need everyone to consider a pledge toward the campaign.  We ask that everyone be as generous as possible.

To reach our goal, we need some people to pledge over three years at the $15,000 level; others to consider a pledge of $3 to 4,000 over three years.

Obviously, the circumstances of each family are different.  We very much appreciate whatever you are able to give.  Trust that each commitment is deeply appreciated.  We are hopeful you are able to complete your pledge form and place in the collection today.

Please know that I and the entire staff of St Joseph’s live with an attitude of gratitude.  We are grateful for your generosity and may the Risen Lord bless you many times over for all the ways you give to make our Church a Community of Disciples who celebrate the presence of the Risen Lord in our midst,

Pope Francis proclaims a Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Pope Francis officially proclaimed a Jubilee Year of Mercy beginning with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th.  "This is a time for the Church to rediscover the meaning of the mission entrusted to her by the Lord on Easter Day, namely, to be a sign and an instrument of the Father's mercy.

This year we are to be transformed by His mercy, so that we may become witnesses of mercy,"  the Pope said.

The Holy Year's motto is, "Be merciful like your Father"  which the Pope said involves opening our hearts and witnessing mercy everywhere, for "Pardon is a force that can give rise to new life and infuse our courage to look with hope to the future."

With the leadership of our Parish Council, we are developing our next five-year visioning plan.  Following the example of our Holy Father, may we proclaim a jubilee of mercy in our parish life in which we witness to the extravagance of God's mercy in all the dimensions of our parish life.  May we be defined as a Church of Mercy just as the Father is merciful to each and every one of us.

In today's Gospel, Jesus shows us His wounds.  They are wounds of mercy.  Jesus invites us to behold these wounds, to touch them as Thomas did, to heal our lack of belief.  Above all, Jesus invites us to enter into the mystery of these wounds, which is the mystery of His merciful love.