Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

 Twenty seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

 Mark 10:2 - 16

     If you are like me, you’ve known people who have been divorced and remarried; sometimes people who are living in admirable and happy second marriages.  We know that Catholics, like most Americans, have an equal chance of their marriage ending in divorce and in death.  And yet, we have to listen to the words of Jesus, who is quoting the words of Genesis -- saying that this is what God wants of a marriage -- that the two become one flesh, that they stay together until one of them dies.  It’s a hard saying, and When Matthew, who wrote his gospel about 30 years later, quotes Jesus, he adds the words “except for pornea” which is usually translated as adultery, or impurity, the implication being that some sort of sexual sin is a reason for breaking up a marriage.  But I think Mark is the more accurate.  And we see some rather amazing things in this passage, if we pay attention to history.

During Jesus’ time there was an ongoing argument over what were the grounds for divorce -- and remember, this is the husband divorcing the wife.  No one ever  even thought of the woman divorcing the husband.  One school of thought said you could divorce your wife for literally any reason -- you would write a bill of divorce and hand it to her and that was it.  Islam still has a law like this; you tell your wife “I divorce you” three times and the marriage is over.  The other end of the spectrum was the idea that you could only divorce your wife for very serious matters.  Since Moses didn’t clarify the reasons, the Pharisees tried to figure them out.  But there was no consensus.  So, they said, tell us where you, Jesus, draw the line?

And Jesus pointed them back to the beginning.  He went back beyond Moses all the way to the Garden of Eden.  This, Jesus says, is the ideal.  No lines.  

We Catholics of course have complicated rules.  We talk about annulments -- the declaration that there was never a real marriage in the first place.  We look for reasons why at least one of the couple had an impediment to making an informed decision.  Of course it’s easier in some dioceses than others.  And we have some other rules about dissolving a so-called natural marriage (between two unbaptized persons) because one wants to become a Catholic and the other actively opposes this. And of course, I know of a couple, a baptized Catholic and an agnostic, who married before a Unitarian minister.  She continued to go to Mass and receive communion on Sundays, often dragging her husband with her, and raising her children Catholic.  She passed away a couple of years ago and her husband, still an agnostic, continues to support the local parish.  

Do we compromise as Catholics?  I think we do, but we have Our Lord as an example.  He after all offered “the water of everlasting life” to a woman who had been married five times and was living with a man outside of marriage.  He prevented the crowd from stoning a woman caught in adultery and told her she was forgiven.  When Jesus gave us the ideal, he was talking about theology;  but he could be pastoral also, and was.  And I think that any young couple getting married has no idea what they are getting into; and most young couples getting married have every intention of staying married.  

I think our Lord had seen the example of his own parents, Mary and Joseph.  We have no idea about Jesus’ early life except for the episode when his parents returned to Jerusalem to find him in the temple.  But we have a clue;  Mary speaks for both of them when she says “Your father and I have been out of our minds searching for you” and the last part of this little scene has Jesus going home and “being subject to them”.  To Jesus, I’m pretty sure he witnessed the constant efforts of his parents to become one flesh.  Because it doesn’t happen overnight, and I can personally tell you that the work of becoming one flesh is not over even after 54 and one half years.  

Jesus is dealing with a patriarchal society here, and we might overlook something in the text that’s very important.  When he speaks to his apostles, he says “ Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her”  That was probably the most radical saying -- that adultery could be committed against a woman.  This is one of those places in the gospels where Jesus hints at his own view -- that men and women are equal in the eyes of God.  

So where does this leave us?  Jesus clearly holds up an ideal -- marriage is supposed to be permanent.  And Jesus is aware that patriarchs and kings and probably some of his own contemporaries were living in relationships like polygamy, and had divorced their wives for burning toast, among other things.  Ahd he shows by his actions that he’s sensitive to people who haven’t met the ideal.  And that should be our attitude as well -- to encourage couples who are having difficulties to seek help, to try to heal their relationships.  But at the same time to do what we can to not cut off people from our assembly who haven’t met the standard Jesus sets.   

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

 Mark 8:27-35

When I was in Medical School, I met another student at the Newman center who invited me to come to an “evening of recollection” put on by Opus Dei. I had never heard of Opus Dei, but I went. I was impressed; the meditations were right on the money, the evening moved along nicely, and at the end we had a little sherry and some cookies. The next month the same thing; and about then I was invited to undergo some spiritual direction. My spiritual director was a professor of Dental Surgery at the University of San Francisco who also held a PhD in theology.. Over the last few years of my time at Stanford, I met with him about once a month.

I remember one of the first meetings. I had a few questions about scripture, or church teachings -- I forget now. What I do remember is that every time I would try to turn our conversation into answering my questions, he would turn it back to my relationship with Jesus. I eventually let him know that if I couldn’t get my questions answered, what good was this? I didn’t put it in quite those words, however, but he got my drift. And he told me that getting answers to questions was a good thing, but not nearly as important as becoming a disciple, and the only way to do that was to know the master.

We don’t have anything quite like the master-disciple relationship that was widespread in the days of Jesus, not just in Jewish circles, but among gentiles as well. Socrates and Plato and Aristotle had disciples. We read about disciples of the prophets, like Baruch and Jeremiah, and of course John the Baptist had disciples. There were no universities; education was practical, in trades handed down from father to son, in learning scripture passages at synagogue; and if you really wanted to learn you would attach yourself to a master, who would teach you -- and in return, you would serve the master, seeing that he was clothed and fed and protected. And it was understood that you would imitate him; you might even wear clothing that indicated you were his disciple. Being a disciple was very much like becoming part of a family, and it’s no wonder that Jesus said those who did the will of His father were his brother and sister and mother.

We should think about that when we read this famous gospel passage. The disciples have made their commitment; they have entered into that relationship with Jesus. And as we hear, Peter is inspired to answer Jesus’ question -- he gets it right, he knows Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ. And Jesus begins to teach what that means. It’s here that Peter steps out of line. He pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him. What was going through Peter’s mind? I can’t see Peter contradicting Jesus; after all, he’s seen miracles, he’s been rescued from drowning, he’s even worked a few miracles himself. I suspect Peter pulled Jesus aside privately to say, “This isn’t funny, Lord. You are going to scare them away!” And notice, Jesus makes public what Peter had been saying privately.

Now Jesus is talking to Peter like a master would talk to a rebellious disciple; “Get behind me” he says. Those words mean “Get back in line”. Jesus calls him Satan, and when Mark was written, the idea of Satan, the fallen angel, the adversary of God, was widespread in Christianity. But I wonder if Jesus had meant it that way? “Get back in line, don’t be my opponent, start thinking like God, not like a human being”. And at that point Jesus teaches the crowd with those words, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself…” Jesus continues to teach what being Messiah, and more to the point, a follower of the Messiah, is all about.

Peter received a revelation -- that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter had only a vague idea about what that meant. There were several possibilities -- a military ruler, a king, a prophet, a savior of the people” But the knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah is only the beginning. It will take Peter a long time to understand the kind of Messiah Jesus is. There will be moments, like on the mountain of transfiguration, where Peter will think, “at last he’s getting it right!” There will be other times when Jesus predicts his passion and death, and maybe Peter will decide in his heart, “He doesn't mean this literally”. There will be a moment when Peter’s faith gives out and he denies he even knows that man, that criminal dying on the cross. And even after the Resurrection, he will still not know what being the Messiah means. There is an old legend about Peter, who was fleeing Rome to avoid the persecutions that were going on. On the road he meets Jesus, carrying his cross, heading towards Rome. “Quo Vadis” Jesus asks. “Where are you going?” Now of course Jesus and Peter probably spoke in Aramaic, not latin, but Quo Vadis is how it comes down to us. And Peter, once more ashamed, turns back to Rome, knowing that he has to follow his Master even into the grave.

And that’s our charge this week as well. If we want to be a disciple, it’s not enough to study; it’s not enough to pray. In the end we have to know Him so we can imitate him, so we can understand in our own lives those words he tells the crowd: “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” So like Peter, learn from HIm, imitate Him, and accept that we are on the way; we are not there, we have a lot to learn; and the more we give up our lives for His sake and for the gospel, the more we will be given the abundant life which he promises his true disciples.

Twenty third Sunday in Ordinary time, cycle B

 

Mark 7:31 - 37

When I was in grade school there was a kid in my class, Daniel, who wore very conspicuous hearing aids along with glasses that were as thick as the bottoms of coke bottles. He spoke differently as well; sometimes he was hard to understand. Dan had some kind of condition, I don’t know which one, that resulted in progressive deafness. He could expect to completely lose his hearing, which he did. I don’t know if he had a problem with his eyes or was just nearsighted. In those days I wasn’t much of a diagnostician.

Dan had a cheerful personality, and was involved in sports. He wasn’t a great student, and used his deafness to his advantage. He would look at the teacher with innocent eyes and say he had not heard the homework assignment. I used to walk home with Dan, who lived about five blocks from my house, and when we were walking together we could talk to each other perfectly well, as long as he had his hearing aids on.

I lost touch with Dan after high school, but someone sent me an obituary when he passed away. His deafness did progress to the point where he couldn’t hear anything. That didn’t phase him, though. He got married, had a couple of kids, became a professional advocate for deaf people, learned sign language -- probably contributed more to the world than many of his classmates. We all can admire someone like Dan, but deep in our hearts, we wouldn’t want to trade places. We like being able to see and hear and touch and speak so we can be understood. And we grieve a little when we begin to lose our strength, our senses, our agility, and even our minds. Something in us recognizes that it is wonderful to be whole.

Some people with a lot of time on their hands have estimated that 28 percent of the four gospels are taken up with healing miracles of Jesus. Whenever you find Jesus spitting or touching or sticking his fingers in someone’s ears, that’s probably Mark. When you get to John, the miracles are all done from a distance. But all four gospel writers want us to know that Jesus cured people, raised the dead, drove out devils. Nothing seemed to stop him -- except the lack of faith. In his hometown there was little faith and he could do few of his wonderful works. It didn’t take much faith; there was a boy possessed by a demon when Jesus came down from the mountain of transfiguration whose father said “I believe, help my unbelief”. The boy was cured.

Today we meet a man who is deaf and can’t speak well. That almost certainly means that he was not completely deaf as a child, like my friend Dan. He had learned to speak but after his deafness became complete he could not hear himself or others talk, and thus could not correct his own speech. It says “some people brought” the man to Jesus and begged him to cure him. Where was the faith here? They couldn’t possibly have conveyed to the man that Jesus was a healer, but they knew, and they wanted the healing for their friend. And as the miracle demonstrates that the faith of friends and relatives is sometimes enough.

So what do we make of all these stories? Especially when Mark is always having Jesus tell people to keep the healings a secret.

We all know challenged people; in fact, some of us are those people. We are incomplete in some way. I have arthritis in my left hand, and it’s a constant reminder that I’m not the way I was designed to be. Of course my challenges are minimal compared to some people. Every week I encounter many people my own age and younger who have Alzhiemer’s disease, or have undergone a crippling stroke or have other problems that make mine look like blessings. And during my career when I took care of cancer patients, everyone who walked into my office was not the way they were meant to be.

Besides physical, mental and emotional conditions which keep us from being what we were meant to be, there are spiritual issues. None of us are where we were meant to be spiritually -- that’s the message of original sin. Even the greatest saints were quite aware of their faults, sins, and incompleteness; Last week we celebrated Saint Gregory the Great, a pope who lived in the firth century. He had been a monk before his election to the papacy, and in one of his letters he complained bitterly about how hard it was for him to pray, and how his position meant that he had to spend time with worldly people, and eventually even began enjoying conversations about worldly matters. And this is one of our greatest saints! YOu and I may be cleansed of sin with a good confession, but it doesn’t take away our faults, our distractions, or our other spiritual defects.

And that’s one of the things about the miracles of Jesus. Defects, incompleteness, not being the way we were meant to be -- in the presence of Jesus, the man who is God, these are overcome when faith is present; and the resurrected Jesus, the Christ, no longer bound by physical limitations in time and space, holds out that promise to us all -- in his presence, when we rise from our own deaths, he will make up what is lacking in us -- our faith will make us whole. In the presence of our savior, my friend Dan is no longer deaf and like him we will all be made complete.

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 7:1 - 8, 14-15, 21 - 23

I had a couple of uncles who were farmers. Farming life really depended on routine; if you didn’t get things done when they were supposed to be done, you might lose the whole year. And that rigidity extended even to the hours of the day. My aunt would prepare the mid- day meal, which was pretty substantial, and when everything was ready, she would step out of the kitchen and ring a bell. My uncle and the farmhands would drop everything and come to the house, where they would step into the washroom and scrupulously wash their faces and their hands before sitting down at the table. I’m sure if one of them had avoided this step he would have received a serious lecture. So I have a little sympathy for the Pharisees who want to know what is going on with Jesus’ dirty apostles.

Well, it turns out Jesus and the Pharisees are not really worried about dirt. Moses had long ago passed on God’s laws. We think of the ten commandments, but there were a lot of other commandments Moses gave the people which you can find in the first five books of the bible. Some of the laws seem to make little sense; in Deuteronomy, for example there is the commandment regarding birds: “Should a bird’s nest appear before you on the way … and the mother is resting on the chicks or the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the chicks or the eggs.” It goes on to say that if you do this it will go well with you and prolong your days. I’ll have you know I’ve never broken that commandment. The point was that as the Jewish people were conquered, went into exile, met other misfortune, the laws of Moses became more and more important as the way to be a good Jew, and the Pharisees made new laws to clear up any ambiguities in laws like the one about the birds. The cleanliness laws were like this -- not there to clean you, but there to separate you from those who were not Jews.

Washing your hands involved an elaborate ritual, involving several rinsings and holding your hands in precise ways. And there were similar rules for the dishes you used. And if you broke a commandment, washing usually was part of the ritual for getting back in good graces with God and the Jewish religious leaders. There’s a chunk of this scripture that we didn’t read in which Jesus gives several examples of this kind of thinking, including the idea that if you pledged money to the temple, you could not use that money to take care of your parents.

Do we still do these kinds of things? I think we do. In our society which is tearing itself apart, by the way, you have indicators of your particular tribe, or in most cases we belong to more than one tribe. We Catholics define ourselves by how diligently we “practice” our religion. Do we get to Mass on Sundays and Holy days? Do we get to confession at least once a year? Do we support our church in some meaningful way? And when we do these things we are “good” Catholics. Rules are important for us as they were for the people in Jesus’ time.

And just like the Jews, most of us feel most comfortable with people like ourselves. We may not think we have a prejudiced bone in our body, and maybe we don’t, but a little tiny alarm goes off when we meet someone whose looks, behavior or lifestyle is sufficiently different from our own. That’s normal, that’s natural; for most of human history it was important to be able to separate us from them.

Jesus is not condemning rules, or saying that the Jewish rituals were wrong; in fact he probably practiced them himself. He is saying that rules can obscure what they were meant to highlight in the first place, and he reminds us that sin is ultimately the product of our hearts,

We ask ourselves a simple question: Is what comes out of us -- out of my heart, my mind, my mouth, my actions -- is it goodness? Or is it something not so good. Sometimes it’s hard to know which.

But we have two criteria. The cross symbolizes our Christian life. Jesus said “IF anyone wishes to come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.” The cross means that we respond to evil with goodness; when someone does something bad to us, we try to find a way to overwhelm that act with something good. It’s not easy. But it can be done. Jesus also said, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our dwelling within them.” We have God within us. And Jesus also said, “Whoever believes in me, as scripture says, ‘rivers of living water will flow from within them.’” The goodness of God which is in us, is meant to pour out from us on the world, and the more it does, the greater it becomes.

It’s a struggle every day to find that goodness and pour it out -- a call to check up on someone you haven’t seen in a while; a sincere compliment to someone who had done a job well; being a willing ear to someone who has a lot to get off her chest; taking a genuine interest in what a five year old is trying to tell you. But as we develop these habits of pouring out goodness, we begin to see the effect not only in the world around us, but in ourselves. Because God dwells in us, we can become rivers of living water.

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

 John 6:60- 69

Mother Theresa wrote to her confessor that she often felt as though there was no one listening to her prayers, that she had doubts about the existence of God. Her letters from the time she began tending the poor of Calcutta to nearly the end of her life contain frequent mentions of her doubts and her torments -- despite the fact that she became an icon of holiness and love of God during that same time. And yet the Church recognizes her as one of the saints in heaven. The Church does not proclaim someone a saint to honor him or her -- they don’t need that. The reason the Church names saints is so that we have someone to imitate. So what do we see in the life of Mother Theresa that we are called to imitate? Despite her doubts which tormented her, she was faithful; she took to heart the words we’ve just heard -- “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

We all want eternal life. None of us would welcome the loss of our very selves, or far worse, an eternity of emptiness, which is really what Hell is all about. And there are so many competing voices, unfortunately, many within scripture itself.

Paul says in the Epistle to the Ephesians “by grace you have been saved through faith … it is the gift of God”. In Second Corinthians he says “For he made him… to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”. IN Acts, Peter says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your household will be saved.” In John, Jesus says “... whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” In Romans, Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” These statements are not different ways of saying the same thing. And we haven’t even discussed the Gospel of Luke, where often Jesus seems to be saying that what we do is more important than what we say or believe -- the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example. Or Matthew’s story of the coming of theSon of Man who will divide the sheep from the goats -- on the basis of “whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers that you do for me” even though the doers did not know who they were doing for. And Jesus of course tells the rich young man that he should keep the commandments.

What I’m trying to say is that if you go by scripture, or by the lives of the people we know are in heaven, the ones we call saints, there is no consistent answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?”

But I think there is a clear answer. Jesus told his apostles, “Receive the Holy Spirit, what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” And right from the beginning, the Apostles began to form the Church, the living body which would create the clear and straightforward path to eternal life.

We have to be baptized; we have to accept God’s forgiveness for our sins taking advantage of the sacrament of reconciliation, at least for those sins that separate us from God. We have to feed on the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. We have to love God, at least a little bit; and love our neighbor, at least a little bit. We look at some of the great saints and see that they were on fire with their love of God; and we see some of them equally on fire with the love of their neighbor. But we see Saint Serafina who became paralyzed and spent her life in bed, or Saint Dismas, the good thief, who was assured by Jesus himself that he would enter paradise with him.

So there are minimal requirements for eternal life. It’s fairly straightforward. It’s being a faithful son or daughter of the Church, even on days when you only half-[believe, like Mother Theresa or Saint John of the Cross. You keep coming back to the basics, knowing that what you lack will be made up by the sacrificial death of Jesus, whose complete and total abandonment to the will of the Father makes up for everything lacking in you and I, and even in the great saints, many of whom wrote and preached about their own sinfulness, even when by my standards they were pretty much free of sin. So when you and I have doubts, when the world pulls us one way or another, when we look at the scandals in the Church or feel that our Pope has lost his way, as some people do, we might feel tempted to throw up our hands and leave. But to whom shall we go?

When I was growing up, in the days before Vatican II, there was a priest from Boston who preached that you could not be saved unless you were a member of the Catholic Church. He was excommunicated, but we were all left with the impression that while maybe you could be saved it wasn't very likely. On the other hand, Karl Rahner, a famous theologian, said that you could only be saved through Christ, but there were lots of anonymous Christians out there. But the truth is, we don't know, and if we love someone, we would want them to know about the way Christ left us.

Because we know that the Church, the body of Christ, has the words of eternal life.

Feast of the Assumption of Mary

 Our Catholic Church celebrates eighteen feasts devoted to Mary every year. There are three that are Holy Days of Obligation; that means that Catholics are obliged to attend Mass on those days. Lucky for us this Holy day landed on a Sunday this year. But there is a reason that these three days deserve our attention.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception takes place on December 8. What is that all about? It means that through a singular grace Mary was conceived without original sin. Where did this grace come from? Her son of course. God doesn’t worry about before and after; God is always now. Why did he single Mary out, way back before the big bang, for this special grace? What did she do to deserve it? She didn’t, anymore than you and I deserve anything we are given. Could God have used someone born with original sin to be the mother of his son? Sure. But God through the Church has revealed that Mary was conceived without original sin. She is like Adam and Eve, before the fall. She is like human beings are supposed to be. Could we say the same about Jesus? NOt really; Jesus is like us in all things but sin -- and so is Mary; but Jesus is divine, and Mary is not, and you and I are not. So we can look at Mary and see how we are supposed to be -- saying yes to God all the time. And today we hear those words -- My soul glorifies the Lord. “Glorifies” is not a good word, though. We used to say “my soul magnifies the lord” but that isn’t too good either. Because what we really mean is that Mary’s soul reflects the Lord; she is so pure, so open to God, that when you look at her you see something of God.

The second holy day of obligation is the feast of Mary, the Mother of God, celebrated on January first. There was a lot of controversy in the early days of the Church. Was Mary the mother of the human part of Jesus? Did Mary give birth to some pre-existing Jesus who used her as a vehicle to enter the world? The Church spent a lot of time and effort to get this straight, and finally concluded that Mary is truly mother to God because Jesus’ humanity and divinity cannot be separated. But what does this tell us about Mary? Why do we insist that she is really and truly the Mother of God? Well, again, for God there is no past, no future; God is by definition always now. And Mary, whose life in time was limited to a few years about 2000 years ago, is constantly bringing God into the world. We can’t have Jesus without Mary; in a way, God made the human race for the purpose of welcoming him into the world. Mary stands in for all of us when she brings the Son of God into our lives.

The third holy day is the Assumption which is what we are celebrating today. Our Church teaches that Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven. Did she die? After all, hte Church teaches that the reason people die is because of original sin. Human beings were meant not to die. That’s the point of the Genesis story. In Genesis we learn that in the Garden of Paradise there was a tree in the center called the Tree of Life. Its fruit gave Adam and Eve eternal life. The reason they were expelled from Paradise was because they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and an angel was stationed at the gate to keep them from getting back in to eat from the tree of life. Obviously we are talking symbolically here. But the point the author was making is that we are not supposed to die. So did Mary die? Well, Jesus died, and he didn’t have to. So in the Eastern tradition, Mary did die, not because she had to but because she did so in solidarity with her son. In the Western tradition, at least among some Fathers of the Church she did not die, but simply translated into heaven. We’ll never know. But the assumption of Mary into heaven simply reminds us that God’s intention from the beginning was to gather up everything about us, body and soul, everything that makes me into the person that I am, and bring it into himself for all eternity. Saint Jane Frances de Chantal said it would be like a drop of water falling into the ocean -- the drop becomes the ocean. And Mary is the first to complete what God intended from the beginning -- to be born, to consent to being God’s way into the world, to reflect God in all that we do, and finally to become one with God at the end of our lives while all the while retaining our individuality.

And Mary has achieved that, not through anything she’s done, but out of the sheer love of God. And because she is united with God, she is fully alive, more so than ever on earth. And she can answer our prayers, because she is one of us, our mother; and one with God, her spouse, her Father, and her Son. And I believe she continues to show her children that she’s there for us -- at Fatima, at Lourdes, at Guadalupe, and maybe at Medjugorje, and countless other places down through the years.

So on this Sunday when we celebrate Mary’s Assumption into heaven, reflect on her life, especially on the Annunciation, the Solemnity of the Mother of God, and on her assumption into heaven, and see that her life shows us what God wants for each of us, and that she’s there to help us receive it.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

John 6:41 - 51

My birthday is December 22nd. During the time I was growing up I think I had two or three actual birthday parties where I got to have friends over.. After all, my mother reasoned, why have a party that close to Christmas. I got no sympathy from my dad, whose birthday was December 25. When you are a little kid a birthday party is a big deal. Your friends show up; you usually play a few games, and then the big climax, the highly decorated birthday cake and the singing of the birthday song. You all dig in and maybe have some juice or milk or soda with it. Then maybe another game or two and everyone goes home.

When I was growing up in Montana one of the things that I remember about Sunday Mass was that about a quarter of the congregation would receive communion and then walk out. They didn’t wait for the final prayers or the blessing, just receive and leave. I’m sure they must have had good reasons. But it seemed kind of like going to a birthday party and asking for your piece of cake and then leaving. It would not be considered good form.

Today Jesus continues his dialogue with the Jews and his disciples that we refer to as the Bread of Life discourse. For Catholics and Orthodox, at least, this section of the Gospel of John, which begins with the feeding of the five thousand, followed by Jesus trying to escape the crowds by taking a boat across the lake, then meeting up with the crowd again, where he gives this radical sermon, about how he is the bread of life come down from heaven; unless you eat his body and drink his blood you cannot have life; only those who eat his flesh can have life eternal -- and finally, the Jews who are listening and many of his followers say, “This is a hard saying, who can follow it?” and they leave. The discourse ends when Jesus turns to his apostles and says “Will you also leave?” and Peter says, “You have the words of eternal life; where else would we go?”

Jesus is the bread of life; he gives us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. It is, in a sense, food for the journey, the trip we take between birth and death; like Elijah, who went forty days on the nourishment God provided, we also get the spiritual and indeed physical nourishment to overcome death and live forever. How this happens, I don’t think anyone really knows, but it’s clear that our eating and drinking Jesus is his plan. And the people who receive and walk out of church afterwards are certainly doing part of what Jesus wants. But the covid lockdowns and the suspension of requiring us to fulfill our Sunday obl;igation have done a couple of things that have the potential to change how we look at things. First, it seems like a lot of people are listening not to the bishop reinstating the obligation to attend Mass, but to the exceptions -- if you are ill, if you have a weakened immune system or are elderly or have other risk factors or maybe you are just too anxious. There was a study done recently that said 63% of young Catholics between the ages of 18 and 35 have attended Mass less often than before the pandemic. They make up for it by watching on-line masses and instead of receiving Holy Communion in person, make a spiritual communion. Clearly the message that we are to eat his flesh and drink his blood if we want eternal life is not getting through.

But there is something else here, something that goes way back before Vatican II, perhaps, but is even more obvious today. Holy Communion is meant to be food for the journey for you and I, of course. But Holy Communion is also meant to form the Church. We consume the Body and Blood of Christ in order to become more like him, in order to draw closer to the Father, in order to receive strength to do good and resist evil. But the Church is formed by those who receive the Eucharist. Saint Paul said, “There is one bread, and we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” Saint Augustine echoes this when he says, “If you have received worthily, you are what you have received … though many, you are one body”. The Church is not only some big world - spanning organization; the church is us, here in Saint Mary’s, and it comes about because we partake of the one bread. So when we fail to receive the Eucharist worthily, in the flesh, in the company of our brothers and sisters, we hurt the church; we diminish the body, the Body of Christ.

Perhaps the greatest harm from Covid is the implication that the Eucharist is not necessary, and that we can sit in our living rooms and watch a mass on television and say the spiritual communion prayer and that is sufficient. But to become what we have received we have to receive it; and to build up the Church we have to become one body through the reception of the one body of Jesus.

And you of all people don’t need this reminder; but you must know some people who do. Invite them back. To stay for the cutting of the cake, for the whole birthday party.