Happy Father's Day
The word “father” or “dad” evokes various qualities my father possessed in abundance -- qualities all good fathers possess:
Love (he truly cared for us),
commitment (he stuck by us),
communication (he was ready to listen and give his advice),
spirituality (we went to church together whenever we could),
and above all, we spent time together.
Our gratitude to fathers for all they do on behalf of family life.
Another interesting occurrence this week: Tuesday, June 21 is the "longest day of the year" with 3 hours and 31 minutes more daylight than its December counterpart. Enjoy the day!
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, in Latin “Corpus Christi” and in Greek, “eucharistia” or thanksgiving. Let us reflect upon the significance.
There have been many impressive meals in the course of human history. Some intimate, some grand.
At the first supper, so the Book of Genesis says, the meal of forbidden fruit was a catastrophe. There are state banquets, like the ones at Buckingham Palace, where royal staff take three days to set the table. And there’s the Passover meal, the Seder, in remembrance of the Jews’ deliverance from their oppressors in ancient Egypt.
Now the meal table is often the center of family life. Memorable things often take place. Families celebrate important transitions—birthdays, marriages, graduations, retirements—as they gather around a table.
And in our global Christian family, the altar or table of the Lord is the center of our faith community. We gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, to re-enact the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus Christ so that we can re-experience our salvation, the gift of God's life in us.
Now consider what the word of God has to say to us today. The Book of Genesis takes us back almost four thousand years to a mysterious kingly figure, Melchizedek. He blesses Abram. They celebrate with bread and wine. This story, for many, prefigures the Lord’s Supper.
St. Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Corinth in Greece, highlights the sacredness of the Lord’s Supper. Paul saw some attendees were drunk; others weren’t sharing the food. So Paul reminds them: This sacrificial meal reenacts the life-giving death/resurrection of Jesus, the new and everlasting covenant God made with us. It should be celebrated reverently.
This Lord’s Supper soon developed into the structure we know: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
In the Gospel, after speaking with people and healing those in need, Jesus satisfies the hungry crowd. People have so many hungers. Some hunger for bread; others for justice and freedom; and still others for peace. Jesus here satisfies physical hunger. This wonder prefigures the Eucharist where the bread and wine become the body and blood of the living Christ.
To understand, we have to focus on three phrases of Jesus at his last supper.
Jesus said: This is my body…this is my blood. The bread and wine become his real presence. The living Christ sacramentally is alive among us in these signs of bread and wine by the power of the Spirit.
The second phrase: Do this in remembrance of me. The same victim who died once for us centuries ago at Calvary so that we can have God’s friendship once again returns sacramentally to this sacrificial meal today and every day.
The third phrase: Take and eat…take and drink. Jesus invites us to become one with him, to form us into a vibrant faith community. Paul wrote: because the bread is one, we, though many, are one body. The living Christ by the power of the Spirit also empowers us to reach out compassionately to others.
Giacomo Puccini, who wrote such operas as La Boheme and Madame Butterfly, discovered he had cancer while writing Turandot. He died before he finished. For the world premiere of Turandot, Puccini's friend Arturo Toscanini conducted magnificently up to where maestro Puccini had left off. And then Toscanini stopped and cried out: thus far the master wrote.
But the opera thereafter continued to its finale, to thunderous applause. Where Puccini left off, others picked up the torch.
And where Jesus left off his earthly ministry, He asks us to continue that ministry until He comes again in glory. Yes, Jesus has no hands but our hands to do His work; He has no feet but our feet to lead human beings to Him; and He has no voice but ours to tell others the good news, that Jesus Christ is gloriously alive. And because He lives, we live.
Yes, the Eucharist unites us as the mystical body of Christ and empowers us to be the hands and feet and voice of Jesus in our homes and workplaces and communities, until He comes again in glory to transform this universe of ours into a new heaven and a new earth. Let's do our part here on earth by doing all the good we can, to all the people we can, in all the places we can, as long as ever we can. Amen
