29-May-2018 Dear Friend, Food has always played a very important part in people’s lives. Today we are into all kinds of junk food, health food and fast food but we all relish a good meal. In various cultures and traditions food is eaten not only to stay alive but also to build relationships with one another. When we sit at the table we like to sit in the company of friends, and we only invite those who are close to us to share a meal in our homes. Today we are reminded that God not only invited us to share a meal with him but he chose to become the food that nourishes and unites us. Have a nourishing Eucharistic celebration! –Fr. Jude Sun. Refl. Corpus Christi “This is my Body and Blood! Do this in my memory!” 03-Jun-2018Exod. 24: 3-8; Heb. 9: 11-15; Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26; Today’s first reading alludes to all kinds of sacrifices the ancient Jews offered. Blood was used as a sign of the Israelites ‘covenant’, a special word the Hebrews borrowed from others. It was a pact between unequal parties, like the king and his subjects; binding perpetually, and sealed in blood. Moses is referring to the covenant with God and this pact was sealed with a sacrifice. Moses splashed the blood on the altar and he sprinkled the remaining on the people, binding the two together. The people honor the pact by agreeing to keep the commandments and being faithful to God, in return for his protection of them. Furthermore the people identified with the sacrifice by eating a portion of the victim being offered. Meal sharing was regarded as very sacred in antiquity. By eating, one signified acceptance of, and respect for the person providing the meal.
Food for the JourneyI traveled to a place in the northern tip of Ireland one night to say Mass for a Prayer Group. It was a wild wintry night and, when the Mass was over, I was anxious to get on the road for home. As I dashed towards the car, I was stopped by an elderly lady, and I wasn’t too pleased at the prospect of having to listen to her tale of pains and aches, while I was impatient to get going. I was very taken aback when she handed me a small boat-shaped basket, filled with triangular sandwiches, with all kinds of fillings. The basket was covered with cling film. “I just thought, Father, you might like to eat those on your journey home.” She turned and went back into the church. For once I was stuck for words…! I still have the basket on my desk as I write here now. When I look at it I think of the Eucharist as, ‘food for the journey.’Jack McArdle in ‘And that’s the Gospel Truth’ In today’s gospel we have Mark’s account of the Last Supper, and the longest part, has to do with the preparation for the meal. This was no haphazard, hurried, get-together but a sacred event. Jesus was continuing something that had been going on as the Jewish way of offering worship and thanks for their deliverance since they left Egypt. What He did in the Upper Room was, first of all, an adaptation of the Passover of the past. The Passover meal was also an anticipation of Jesus’ offering of himself and a commemoration for the people of the future. In addition to being an adaptation of the past and an anticipation of the future, what Jesus did at the Passover was important for what he was doing now. He was signing the covenant with his own blood which will be poured out for mankind. Our taking part in the Eucharist required preparation of both body and soul. The Eucharist is not something that we come to watch; rather it is something we come to do. We have to become personally responsible for our presence at the Eucharist and not make it dependant on the priest who is presiding. Certainly, the priest can help enormously in getting us involved and in breaking the word meaningfully but if I am not disposed nothing will help. Thus a meaningful celebration of the Eucharist would mean not only an open disposition and reverent celebration of the ritual but also letting the Eucharist affect our attitudes and life. Eat and Drink DeeplyWhen Albania was still a Communist nation, Mother Teresa paid a visit to her homeland. In the office of the Communist Dictator, she heard him say defiantly, “Jesus will never return to Albania, while I am in charge.” Mother Teresa was laughing to herself all the time. She was carrying the Eucharist in a pyx. She believed Jesus had returned to Albania under the appearance of bread. It doesn’t matter what Mother Teresa or you or I believe about the Eucharist. What does matter is what Christ himself believes about it. For the answer we must go to today’s gospel where Jesus says “this is my body…. This is my blood.” Christ did not mean the Eucharist to be just a symbol, but a real presence. It is not by accident that Jesus chose bread at the last supper to represent His flesh. It is one of the staples of our life. One finds it on the tables of both the rich and the poor at every meal all over the world. The word ‘companion’ is a lovely word. It comes from two Latin words: cum which means with and panis which means bread. So a companion literally means someone with whom I share bread. It is not everyone that one enjoys a meal with, nor everyone that you invite in for a cup of tea. There has to be a bond. And that bond is deepened by the sharing of food and drink. Eat and drink deeply. God’s concern for us is the mystery of the Eucharist.John Pichappilly in ‘The Table of the Word’ This will be enough for me!In Ingmar Bergman’s classic film, ‘The Seventh Seal’, the quest for God is set against a medieval world threatened by plague. After fighting in the crusades, a knight makes his way to his native land. He survives a shipwreck, but death lets him know that he is doomed to die within a certain time. The knight wins a little more time at a game of chess, but he is sick at heart: he wants to believe in God, yet he cannot manage by himself to reach faith. He seeks for signs of God’s presence, but there is none he can see. It is the time of the Black Death; God seems to be absent from the troubled streets of every town and village. On his journey the knight meets a peasant couple and their child, and shares a simple meal with them. The only food they can manage to gather is wild strawberries –this they share together with fresh milk. The love in the young couple’s welcome, the fruit of their love in the sleeping child, Mikael, all this is greater than the food and drink they share. In the simple actions of sharing the meal the knight sees the presence of a love that has eluded him. In that meeting place the darkness begins to lift from the knight. He has been gifted with more than food; he has been graced with more than fellowship. He prays his thanks when he says: “I shall remember this moment. The silence, the twilight, the bowl of strawberries, the milk, your face in the evening light, Mikael sleeping, Jof with his lyre… I’ll carry this memory between my hands as carefully as if it were a bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk… And it will be an adequate sign. This will be enough for me!”Denis McBride in ‘Seasons of the Word’ Retelling the storyOn a hill near Cape Town, South Africa, just below the famed Table Mountain, a gun is fired every day at noon. The hill is known as Signal Hill. The firing of the gun once served a beautiful purpose. It signaled that a ship, on its way to or from India, had arrived in the harbor with a cargo of goods, and was in need of supplies of food and fresh water. A beautiful exchange resulted. There was receiving and giving. But that was a long time ago. The purpose no longer exists. Yet the gun is still fired dutifully every day. However, the firing is now little more than an empty ritual. Once it had a beautiful meaning. Now the meaning has gone out of it. Most of the local people ignore it. Visitors are told, ‘If you hear a loud bang at mid-day, don’t worry. It’s only the gun going off.’ However the ritual still has one thing going for it. Most people know the story behind it. If that story were to be lost, then the ritual would become poorer still. The Eucharist celebrates a wonderful event – the gift which Jesus made of his life on our behalf. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist we tell that story again. But like anything that is repeated over and over again, there is a danger that it may become just a ritual.Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies’ Christ –the primary focusLeonardo da Vinci was 43 years old when the duke of Milano asked him to paint the Last Supper. He worked on it slowly and with meticulous care to detail. He spent much time making the cup that Jesus held as beautiful as possible. After three years he was ready to show it, and he called a friend to come and see it. He said, “Look at it and give me your opinion.” The friend said, “It is wonderful. The cup is so real I cannot take my eyes off it!” Immediately, Leonardo took a brush and drew across the sparkling cup. He exclaimed as he did so: “Nothing shall detract from the figure of Christ!” Christ must be the primary focus of a Christian’s life!John Rose in ‘John’s Sunday Homilies’ God always comes…Once upon a time there was a Rabbi. Whenever he wanted God’s presence, he went to a special place in the woods, lit a fire, said some prayers, and did a dance. Then God would appear to him. When he died, his disciple did the same. If he wanted God’s presence, he went to the same spot in the woods, lit the fire, and said the same prayers, but nobody had taught him the dance. It still worked. God appeared. When he died, his disciple carried on the tradition. If he wanted God’s presence, he went to the same spot in the woods and lit the fire, but he didn’t know the prayers, nor the dance, but it still worked. God came. Then he died. He also had a disciple. Whenever he wanted God’s presence, he too went to the same place in the woods, but nobody had taught him how to light the fire or say the prayers or do the dance, but it still worked, God appeared. In the end, he died, but he too had a pupil. One day this pupil wanted God’s presence. So he searched for the place in the woods, but couldn’t find it. And he didn’t know how to light the fire or say the prayers or do the dance. All he knew was how to tell the story. But it worked. He discovered that whenever he told the story of how the others had found God, God would appear. In essence, this story explains how the sacred ritual, liturgy, works.Ronald Rolheiser in ‘In Exile’ Jesus, Bread of LifeBrennan Manning, an American Franciscan priest, tells this story of his mother, a lady in her mid-seventies in Brooklyn. Mrs. Manning’s day centered on her daily Eucharist. Because she began her voluntary stint at a drug detoxification centre each morning at 7.30 am, the only mass she could reach was at 5.30 am. Across the road from her lived a very successful lawyer, mid-thirties, married with two children. The man had no religion and was particularly critical of daily church-goers. Driving home from a late party at 5.00 am one January morning, the roads glassy with ice, he said to his wife: “I bet that old hag won’t be out this morning”, referring to Mrs. Manning. But to his shock, there she was on hands and knees negotiating the hill up to the church. He went home, tried to sleep, but could not. Around 9.00 am he rose, went to the local presbytery and asked to see a priest. “Padre,” he said, “I am not one of yours. I have no religion. But could you tell me what do you have there that can make an old woman crawl on hands and knees on an icy morning?” Thus began his conversion along with his wife and family. Mrs. Manning was one of those people who never studied deep religious books, never knew the big theological words, but she knew what it is to meet Jesus in Holy Communion. Jesus Christ is the bread of life. What more could we want?Sylvester O’Flynn in ‘The Good News of Mark’s Year’ May we become the bread of life for others through the Eucharist we share! Fr. Jude Botelho [email protected] PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections.These reflections are also available on my Web site www.NetForLife.net Thank you. | | | | Net For Life | | |
