Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

    Jesus’ words are as shocking today as they were when he spoke them to the crowd.  Eating the flesh of a human being is a taboo that has been condemned by most of the human race, and when it is permitted, it’s usually a religious act rather than a form of nourishment.  And in the foundational scriptures of the Jewish religion, the people are told to go to great lengths to avoid consuming blood.  Even today observant Jews will not eat meat unless it is ritually slaughtered and drained of all visible blood.  Jesus' shocking statement, which he doubles down on when  he is questioned, is one of the reasons we Catholics as well as the Orthodox believe in the real presence -- that Jesus is present body and blood, soul and divinity in what appears to be bread and wine.  But the question comes up, why did our savior institute this sacrament?  Why does his church continue to insist that when we receive Holy Communion we are eating and drinking Christ, and not just acting out a symbol?

When you look at the history of the Jewish people, you see that their scriptures recalled a time when God and man, at least some men, lived in an intimate relationship. Adam walked and talked with God.  Later God and Abraham were like friends.  There are hints that there were other close bonds between God and some of the ancestors -- Noah, Enoch, Melchizedek -- But none of these were like the bond between Adam and God.  And as time went on that close friendship gradually disappeared from the human race, until God again intervened through Moses.  God, for reasons only known to him, desired to enter into an intimate relationship with Israel, the descendents of Abraham.  And as you read about this relationship it’s obviously mostly a one way street -- God keeps reaching out, the people keep rejecting the kind of intimacy He desires.  In the Old Testament that relationship is compared to many things, but the marriage bond is paramount.  Hosea devotes much of his prophecy to acting out what God desires -- and still, Israel does not respond.  

In the past several Sundays we’ve witnessed Jesus feeding the five thousand in a miraculous way.   He and his apostles leave in the middle of the night and the people find him, and we hear that dialogue -- Sir, give us this bread! And Jesus answers, “I am the bread come down from heaven.  And that pretty much brings us up to this gospel, where it seems as though Jesus is saying, “I’m not speaking symbolically; I mean what I say.”  No longer is the goal to establish a marital relationship; the goal is to establish a relationship between me and the food that I eat.  God becomes my food, not just to nourish my soul, but also my body.  Or to put it another way, for God there is no distinction between body and soul -- that’s a distinction we make.  But I am not me if they are separated -- when I die the “me” does not go floating off into the distance, leaving my now useless body behind.  We use a lot of terms to describe how things will be after death -- we talk about the particular judgment, the general judgment, the resurrection of our own bodies, spending eternity in heaven or hell.  And these are all ways of trying to put into words what can’t be.  Those saints who have caught a glimpse of the way things will be after death are at loss for words. Because if we really  believe in the intimate relationship God wants to have with us, there is nothing in our own experience that we can turn to.  

So God tells Abaham that he wants to be his close friend; and Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son to this God, a sacrifice God prevents at the last minute.  Then God tells the people he wants to live in their midst and be part of their day to day lives; he will accompany them to a new land, he will give them food and drink along the way; and the people seek out other gods, because to them a real god requires sacrifice and is so far above us that all we can do is try to keep on his   good side.  And God tells his people he wants to marry them and that doesn’t do either, because the people have divided hearts -- what about money and power and all the things we would have to give up to be married to God?  And finally Jesus says, I’ll be your food and drink, really and truly, I’ll feed your body and your soul, because that’s how much I love you and want you and I to be one.

And we, barely understanding this mystery, come forward once again to take the Lord as food and drink, and in our poor human way, approach that oneness.  And we pray that we will become what we eat, that we will be sons and daughters of our God, sharing in his very being. 

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Today we hear about the first missionaries -- the twelve apostles.  And there are several things to notice about this particular scene.  First, this takes place relatively early in Jesus’ ministry.  The apostles haven’t been with him that long.  They’ve seen miracles and heard some of his message and gotten to know him as a person, at least a little bit.  They know something is going on and they want to be part of it.  But they are still disciples, still learning.  

In medical education, and it’s probably true in other professions, you have to learn a lot of procedures.  There is a saying, “see one, do one, teach one.”  The way to learn a procedure is to see one being done, try it out yourself, then teach it to someone else.  That last step sort of nails everything down, because you have to put in words what you have learned.  Jesus is educating his disciples, and tells them to go out and do what they have been watching him do, and preach the same message he’s been preaching.  

And Jesus says this is urgent, there is not time to waste.  Don’t go home and pack a suitcase, don’t get some cash out of the ATM, just get moving.  Wear sandals because you can move faster.  Bring a staff because it helps if you get threatened by a wild animal.  And you can almost hear the disciples -- Lord, we’ve got to eat, we’ve got to have a roof over our heads if the weather turns bad.  And Jesus says, “Don’t worry, stay with whoever welcomes you and don’t waste any time with people who reject you.  And Jesus, no stranger to human behavior, knows that things will be infinitely better if they go out in pairs, because then they give each other courage and remind each other of things forgotten.  

And the disciples are to heal the sick, drive out demons, and preach repentance.  And they do, and if we were to read further into the gospel of Mark, they come back to Jesus all excited because of what has happened.  There are often earthly rewards for preaching the gospel.  

But there’s that word, repentance.  As you may know, the Greek word is “metanoia”, which doesn’t really mean being sorry for your sins.  It means ‘change your mind, change the way you see things”.  Because the driving out of demons and the curing of the sick are signs, signs that God is breaking into the world, and things will never be the same.   

Jesus still sends out disciples today.  And whether we like it or not, we are all being sent, to tell the world that God is with us, that Jesus Christ is God in human form, that he is the only way, the only truth, the only life. 

Saint Francis took his words literally and today the Franciscan movement is world-wide, with several orders, both male and female.  Mother Theresa heard his words  and today there are almost 6000 women in her order, carrying out apostolic work and healing the sick.  And we can point out many others who heard his words and did likewise.  But sometimes these individuals seem exalted and hard to imitate.  There are many people who fly under the radar in their role as disciples.  I know married couples who married out of love for each other, sure, but embracing their role as creators of a family.  Not just having more than the national average of children, but giving up a lot in order to form those children into believing, practicing Catholics.  They are going out two by two to do the work of the Lord as well. I know of one such couple who, after raising their family, sold their home, took early retirement from their jobs, and set out to start a medical mission in a Mexican village.  Their work lives on.  Here in our parish we have disciples of Jesus teaching faith formation -- preaching repentance, if you will; or other disciples feeding the hungry -- healing the sick, as it were.  And there are many other examples of people who know Jesus is sending them out.  

And I think of one young woman who told me when she was a four year old that she was going to be a saint.  Today she is giving  two years of her life to work in an organization that gives retreats and organizes missions, directed mainly at young people.  And I remember her telling me that she would sometimes sit on a park bench to read or pray, and sometimes someone would sit down and begin a conversation, and she would tell them about Jesus.  She looked for opportunities to spread the gospel, to one person at a time, not being pushy, but making herself available.  And sometimes miracles happen.  Demons were driven out.  I suspect she will realize her childhood ambition and be a saint.

How are you being sent out?  And what more can you do to tell people that Jesus is with us and God is breaking into our world?  There is nothing more important.     

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary time, cycle B

 Mark 6:1-6

Shortly after his conversion, Saint Augustine wrote these words: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things that you created. You were with me, but I was not with you.” Augustine had been searching his whole life. Born to a Christian mother and a pagan father, he became a skilled orator, which was a very valuable profession in those days. He even taught the art of rhetoric. But his profession wasn’t enough, and he studied various religions going around in those days. He eventually settled on Manicheism, a religion with secret rituals, based upon the idea that the universe was governed by a good god and a bad one, always in tension. Augustine had a mistress. In those days formal marriage took place in order to cement alliances. If all you wanted was a woman’s company, then having a mistress was acceptable. But none of this satisfied Augustine. It was only when he looked into himself that he encountered God.

The gospel today describes a village confronted by one of their own, who had left town and developed a following, and rumors of his miracles and rising fame had reached the town. And Jesus is back home in person, and is invited to comment on the scriptures. And in very short order, his hearers go from amazement at his wisdom and teaching, to rejection. And the rejection had to do with the idea that if you were looking for God, you certainly wouldn’t find him in the humdrum day to day life of the village, or among those you knew very well. And that’s Augustine’s point. The last place he looked to find what he had struggled for all his life was in himself.

Most religious people are looking for God, in a sense. If we weren’t, just a little bit at least, we would probably find something better to do with our 45 minutes on Saturday or Sunday,. But we come here because we believe God is here. But God is everywhere. One author said that God is just as present in a church as in a bar. The difference is that in a church we are looking for His presence. . The problem is not finding God, it’s our awareness of his presence.

Related to this, of course, is how we view our own lives. All of us have been given this incredible gift -- even if we are poor, sick, or in pain, it’s still a miracle that each of us exists, and the circumstances in which we find ourselves are there because Our Father is giving us the means to enter into a relationship of eternal love with him. We either believe this or we believe that everything is chance. For a Christian, nothing is left to chance. But when we look at Jesus returning to his home town, we realize that like the villagers in the gospel story, we can choose not to respond to God’s work in us. I wonder if the story that Mark tells took place over several days or all at once. When Jesus taught in the synagogue it says that many were astonished. God was breaking in to their lives and some of them saw it happening. But with time, they chose not to believe that God was present -- Is he not a carpenter? What do they know. Is he not Mary’s son, and remember the rumors back when she and Joseph got married? And look at his relatives -- none of them can even read. And they went on with their lives, having convinced themselves that God would never take an interest in their ordinary lives.

It’s interesting that Mark uses the words, “he was not able to perform any mighty deeds there… he was amazed at their lack of faith”. Matthew in describing the same scene, and probably having the gospel of Mark right in front of him, says “he did not perform any mighty deeds because of their lack of faith”. Obviously both writers see that miracles in some way require the cooperation of the person who is having the miracle worked for them. For Matthew it sounds like Jesus didn’t even try. For Mark, though, you get the feeling that Jesus really wants to work miracles for us, but we don’t have enough faith.

So I think this gospel is telling us what Augustine discovered. God is closer to you and I than our own hearts. God wants to use the lives he has given us, with their joys and sorrows, to give us the gift of himself, which we call heaven or paradise or the beatific vision. And we are always tempted to say, “I don’t believe it.” Because it’s hard to see the connection between my daily activities and God. But it’s there, and we should pray the we recognize it, like Augustine .

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 5:21-43

This is a weird gospel, right? Two stories, one within the other, seemingly unrelated.  Bible scholars call this “intercalation”, and you see it in the Old Testament in some stories.  But in the New Testament, we only see it in Mark’s gospel, and he does this six or seven times, depending on how you count.  But this is the most famous of the stories. It’s a very vivid story, and you can almost see what is going on from Mark’s description.  Jarius wants to get Jesus to his daughter as soon as possible, and he is pushing through the crowd.  But Jesus stops and says, “Who touched my cloak?”  And then there’s the whole interacting with the woman who has been cursed with twelve years of bleeding.  And this ends with people coming to tell Jarius that it’s too late, his daughter is dead.  

Mark clearly wants us to link these stories.  They are both about women who, notably,  are not named.  The woman with the bleeding problem would be excluded from marriage, would not be allowed in the synagogue, and would be almost like a leper.  To add to her misery she is out of money.  She is unclean, and forbidden to mingle among healthy people.  And yet, she pushes forward and does the unthinkable-- she touches Jesus’ garment.  The little girl is the opposite.  She’s got some kind of acute illness and is at the point of death.  Things are happening fast, which is why Jarius is so distraught.  And after she dies, Jesus, who has been touched by an unclean person, touches a dead body -- at least we think she’s dead.  They weren't stupid in those days and when the attendants come out to say she’s dead, they probably noticed that her breathing had stopped and that she had no pulse.  When Jesus says she’s only sleeping, I think he’s reassuring Jarius, not making a statement of fact.

Both women are united by the number twelve.  This is a special number for the Jewish people at that time.  There were twelve tribes, twelve patriarchs, and twelve regions in Israel.  There are twelve minor prophets in the bible. Elijah built his altar with twelve stones -- and I could go on.  The little girl is twelve years old, and the woman with the bleeding problem has had the condition for twelve years.  Twelve is a sign of completion.  The bleeding woman has completed her sentence, in a way.  The little girl ends her old life and starts on a new one. I think Mark wants us to recognize symbolically that the old order is out, the new one in.  Jesus cannot be made unclean by being touched by a ritually unclean person, nor does he become unclean by touching a dead body.  When God breaks into the human condition, all bets are off, you don’t know what he will do next, and your rules don’t count.

I think Mark has an important lesson for us in these two stories.  It has to do with faith.  The older woman had faith that if she touched Jesus’ garment she would be healed -- so she does.  She receives the healing she desired, and was about to slink away, when Jesus calls out “who has touched my clothes?”  Now if you were slinking away, you would probably continue to slink, right?  After all, you got what you came for.  But our woman drops to the floor and tells Jesus that she’s the one and then waits -- what will Jesus do, take back his healing?  Reveal to the crowd that she is an unclean person?  She is at his mercy.  But despite fear and trembling she did come forward to answer his question.  And that is Mark’s idea of faith.  Faith is not simply believing something, it’s acting on that belief, even when you don’t know what will happen--or perhaps you do know, and it won’t be good, but you act anyway because it’s the right thing to do.  In this case, the woman is rewarded.  Jesus tells her that her faith has saved her.  Before this of course she had felt herself to be cured when she touched his garment; but now Jesus confirms that she is cured.  

The faith lesson continues.  When the attendants tell Jesus and Jarius that the little girl is dead, Jesus  said, “Do not be afraid, just have faith”.  Faith in some sense is the opposite of fear.  But in a sense it accompanies fear.  Because to act on faith, which is real faith, remember, always involves taking a leap into the unknown.  We don’t know what our action will accomplish -- maybe nothing at all, maybe we’ll be laughed at, which is what’s going on in this story.  Jarius wouldn’t be wrong by saying, “Thanks for nothing, Jesus.  Now leave me to my grief”.  Because who can raise a dead person?  But despite the ridicule, Jarius and his wife continue to act on faith, and the reward is that their daughter is restored to them.  

Faith is acting despite not knowing the consequences of our actions.  Faith is acting even when there is fear.  

And of course we love that human touch of Jesus.  They are all marveling at the miracle 00 the bedridden, indeed dead little girl is not just alive, she is up walking around.  The sickness that had felled her is gone.  She probably hasAn’t taken any food or drink since her illness started.  And Jesus recognizes this and tells the parents, “Give her something to eat!”  

In these two interwoven stories Mark teaches us about faith.  During this coming week let us act on our faith -- we’ll have the opportunity.  It will feel like fear.  

  

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 4:35 - 41

When I was about four, my parents took my little sister and I on a vacation in the mountains.  We rented a cabin on the shore of a mountain lake.  In the Rocky Mountains there are lakes which fill the valleys, and Swan Lake was long, deep, narrow.  So one day my dad got us all into a rowboat and we went out on the water.  He had planned to do some fishing and I guess the rest of us were just supposed to relax.  All of a sudden a mild breeze became a gust of wind and before long the surface of the lake was getting choppy.  My dad became very anxious and rowed us back to shore as quickly as he could.  As we got out of the boat rain started to fall and the lake became very violent.  Whenever I read this gospel passage I think of those moments, some of the earliest I can remember in my life.  

With my dad’s hard rowing and my mother’s urging us back into the cabin, I felt, maybe for the first time, the idea that nature was not as friendly as you think. 

Many years ago I had a patient, a young woman who had a very unusual cancer involving her face.  She was deeply in love and planning to get married, and it looked as though the cancer might be curable with surgery, so an attempt was made.  Unfortunately it wasn’t successful, and several months later the tumor had returned.  She went to Mass General and Sloan Kettering to seek opinions, and ultimately chose to have a radical procedure that involved the removal of her eye and part of the skull.  Afterwards several plastic surgery procedures were carried out.  Somewhere during this time her boyfriend decided to break off the engagement.  And the tumor came back.  When I met her, the goal became making her last few weeks with as little pain as possible.

But you can imagine that her pain was not just in her mangled face.  She had that kind of pain that’s deep in the soul, the kind that asks, “why me?”  She had been religious once, but felt abandoned.  She wanted nothing to do with her former church, and several times expressed the idea that if there was a God at all, he was certainly a cruel God.  And I wish I could tell you that before she died she made her peace with God, but that wasn’t the case.  I was notified by the police one afternoon that they had found her unresponsive and it appeared to be suicide.  

Today we hear the apostles cry out, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”  And sooner or later we will all be tempted to ask that question.  And great faith will be demanded of us.  Because as Jesus tells his disciples, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”  The disciples had just seen Jesus do something only God could do -- control the wind and the sea.  But according to Mark they had already witnessed many miracles, including the cure of a man possessed by a demon and the healing of a paralytic.  And they had been listening to his teachings on the kingdom of heaven -- the idea expressed in many different parables, that God is the one who is in charge.  When someone sews seeds, God gives them life;  When a mustard seed is planted, God sees to it that it grows into the largest of shrubs.  

Our Catholic religion has as its primary purpose the uniting of ourselves to God in a bond of love.  Love cannot exist unless the ones doing the loving are free, free to say yes or no to the love offered.  But if we are to accept God’s love, we need faith, we need to see that the storms in our lives are no match for God’s power.  And that’s something that needs reinforcement, especially when it seems God is not listening.

God is always communicating with us.  Sometimes he uses words, but most of the time, I think, he uses the events that shape our lives.  But if we are to pick up on his message, we need to meet him half-way.  And that’s very hard in our society, when there is so much noise, so much to distract us.  You remember the story of Elijah, who went into a mountain cave, and experienced an earthquake, but God’s voice was not in the earthquake.  Then there came a strong wind, then fire, and neither carried God’s voice.  Once everything had quieted down, Elijah recognized the voice of God in a gentle whisper, a still small voice.

If we want to progress in our love affair with God, we can’t be talking all the time; we have to listen.  That means sitting in silence, doing what the Blessed Mother did -- pondering things in our hearts.  We need to remember the times in our lives that do show the hand of God, often something we don’t realize until much later.  And then we can take comfort in knowing that God orders all things for good.

A long time ago, the writer of the 46th psalm put these words into God’s mouth:  “Be still and know that I am God.”  During this summer let us cultivate the stillness, let us remember that Jesus will quiet our storms in his good time.  Let us have faith.  

Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, cycle B

 Mark 3:20-35

Most scripture scholars believe that the Gospel of Mark was the first one written, and that Matthew and Luke both used the Gospel as a framework for their own.  In fact, about 90 percent of Mark is in Matthew’s gospel.  And that brings up a question.  If Mathhew and Luke were using Mark’s gospel, why did they leave out the party about Jesus' relatives coming to seize him because they thought he was out of his mind?  Both Matthew and Luke quote the Pharisees who attribute Jesus’ miracles to Beelzebul, and Jesus’ response to this accusation.  But they say nothing about the family of Jesus.

I think this tells us something.  By the time Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels, the church was pretty well established, and the consensus was that Jesus was driven, the Spon of God.  By the time John writes, even later, there is on question in his gospel.  But Mark was written at an earlier time, when the human-ness of Jesus had not been swallowed up into the divine.  So maybe it’s a more accurate portrayal.

In any event, it’s clear that two opinions are being expressed here about Jesus’ ministry.  One is that of the Pharisees, who attribute his miracles to the devil.  The other is about his relatives, who attribute his behavior to madness.  And what was the behavior?  First, his relatives probably had watched him grow up.  There wasn’t much to see -- he was a nice normal Jewish carpenter who looked after his mother and did good work.  And then, suddenly, and it was sudden if you read any of the gospels, he made an abrupt break with his normal life and began wandering around preaching, depending on the charity of others for his food and drink.  He associated with tax collectors and even had one follower who was one.  He had another follower who was a member of a radical political party - Simon the Zealot.  The rest of his followers were not much to look at - fishermen, another carpenter named Thomas -- there wasn’t a Pharisee in the lot.  And yet he was telling people what God thought, or at least what he thought God thought.  It’s not surprising that his relatives, those who knew him best, thought he was insane, and were committed to bring him home and lock him in the basement until he came to his senses.  He wouldn’t be the first or the last.

I elaborate on this point because when Jesus talks about the unforgivable sin, I think Mark wants us to notice not only the Pharisees, who attribute his miracles to the devil, but also Jesus’ own relatives, who in a sense are disowning him.  Both groups are missing the point.  Because Jesus is clearly working out the prophecies.  IT was only a little while ago when Jesus stood in the synagogue and said, “today this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing”.  The blind were seeing, the deaf were hearing, the lame were walking and the gospel was being preached to the poor.  What more could Jesus do?  But there were those and will always be those who refuse to see what’s right in front of their noses.  

Jesus’ message then and now is radical.  Not everyone is willing to accept it or even believe there is a message.  And the reasons for not accepting the message boil down to two, for Mark. One is what his relatives give -- look at the one giving the massage -- we know all about him.  He’s gone crazy so don’t listen to him.  The other is given by the Pharisees -- he can’t be trusted because he is not one of the in crowd who study the scriptures and know how to be religious.  And since he works miracles, it’s got to be due to demons.  

Human beings haven’t changed much,.  We still have a hard time accepting and following Jesus.  Sometimes it’s because we think we know the messenger, like Jesus’ family, and don’t really accept him or her as a bearer of the message.  You see that today among some conservative Catholic circles, who have decided Pope Francis is not to be trusted, because he’s made some off the cuff comments that are ambiguous. How many of us have actually read his writings, which are the product of his serious thinking?  

And we are like the Pharisees as well.  There are some people who are unwilling to listen to anyone who doesn’t have what they consider credentials.  I like to listen to WJMJ when I’m driving. That’’s the official radio station of the Hartford Archdiocese.  It’s run by a priest and staffed by Catholic radio personalities, as they call themselves.  I asked a friend of mine if he ever listened to it.  He had and stopped, because every now and then there is a short reflection given by a minister of a protestant denomination.  

The Lord has not stopped preaching and working miracles.  Let us pray today that we will hear his authentic voice and recognize the miracles in our own lives, especially the miracle of being a member of his family. 

Corpus Christi, 2024

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

Last Sunday we attended the baptism of our twentieth grandchild, now almost two- and one-half months old.  JJ was adopted.  His mother had a narcotic habit, and JJ needed to begin life by being weaned off of his own addiction acquired in the womb.  This meant extended hospital time, and my daughter in law had to spend seven weeks living in a different state, fending for herself, four hundred miles from my son.  Needless to say, she and baby JJ bonded.

Most of her relatives and many of ours were present for the pre-baptism dinner, the baptism, and the post baptism party.  There were many ladies and a couple of men who wanted to hold the baby.  He seems to have a pretty even temper, and in general put up with all this holding for a  bit, but sooner or later, he needed to be given back to his mother, who would put him on her shoulder and walk around making soothing noises, until JJ was comfortable and often asleep.  

Today we celebrate the fact that Jesus left us himself, to be consumed, to be worshiped, to be confided in, and to be comforted by.  There has been a lot of theology written about the Eucharist.  Surveys show that when you ask Catholics if the Eucharist is really the body and blood of Jesus, a sizable percentage will say no, they don’t believe that.  And in a way, you can’t blame them.  Because when we put this mystery into words, words are never enough, they don’t do justice to the miracle.  I suspect there are Catholics who couldn’t live without the Eucharist, but when you ask them to explain transubstantiation, they can’t do that.  If you ask them if eating the bread and drinking the wine is the exact same thing as biting Jesus on the arm and sucking his blood, they might very well say, “no, that’s disgusting”.  And they’d be right.  Oddly enough this was a big controversy in the Middle Ages.  What do we mean by the real presence?  What happens when we eat the bread which we claim is Christ's body, and drink the wine which we claim is Christ’s blood?  And then we say that if you eat the body or drink the blood, it’s all the same, because since the resurrection his body and blood can’t really be separated.

There was a school of theology in the Middle Ages which insisted that taking the Eucharist was exactly the same as if you ate his body and drank his blood when he was walking around on the earth.  That position was condemned, and I think that’s what gets people about the real presence -- it’s so obviously not that.  But as the author Flannery O'Connor was to say about the Eucharist, “If it’s only a symbol, then to hell with it.”  

Thomas Aquinas as usual had something to say about the Eucharist, as about most things.  He starts with a definition of a sacrament - it’s a sign that causes what it signifies.  When water is poured over a child and the words ``I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” are said by the minister of baptism, the child enters into a new and permanent relationship with God.  And when Father says the words of consecration over the bread and wine, what is there is no longer bread and wine, but the body and blood of Christ.  Thomas distinguishes between the Jesus who walked around on the earth and was crucified and died -- that’s the proper presence.  The presence in the Eucharist Thomas called “sacramental presence”, meaning that through the power of God everything Jesus intended to achieve in the sacrament happens, and we witness his presence through faith, not through our senses.  I should point out that Thomas himself, after offering this explanation, wasn’t happy with it.  The story goes that he set down his writings before a crucifix and asked Jesus what he thought.   Jesus replied, “You have written well of me, Thomas.  What do you want me to give you?”  And Thomas replied, “Only you, Lord.”

And that’s the mystery of the Eucharist.  Jesus, through Godly power, made it possible for us to truly enter into an intimate relationship with him, a relationship we cannot have with any other person.  It’s a little bit like JJ and his new mother.  You can be handled by many different people but sooner or later, you just need to be with your mother.  When we receive Jesus in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, he picks us up and comforts us; he fills up the god-shaped hole that is in our being; for a moment, we touch heaven.  No explanation can make this happen, only faith.  That’s why some people come to adoration.  That’s why some people come early to Mass or leave late; that’s why some people bow to the tabernacle and come to church in their Sunday best.  If we act on what we know -  that Jesus is truly present, it will become more so for us and someday like Thomas we will realize that we only want one thing -- only you, Lord.