Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
If you look at stats about how many Catholics actually believe what the Church teaches on the Eucharist, it’s pretty depressing (at least if you work for the Church). From a survey taken in 2019 or so, I think it’s something like 33%. That’s horribly low! So the need is there. I’ll try not to make this too academic, though.
Before we get to the Eucharist in itself, we can look at what we’re giving God. In today’s Gospel, the people are hungry, and Jesus wants to feed them. But there’s only five loaves and two fish. Still, God takes what the people has, miraculously multiplies it (this whole junk about sharing is trying to force a different message into this Gospel, rather than reading what the Gospel truly says), and then returns it to them. And in our first reading, bread is brought to Elisha, who multiplies it for the people to eat. So the people bring what they have and offer it to the Lord, who makes it enough for all who desire to eat.
At face value, what we offer for the Eucharist is bread and wine (aren’t you glad it’s not bread and fish??). When we think of why we use bread and wine for the Eucharist, there is, of course, the reality that bread and wine were common items in Judea at the time of Jesus (and well before that, and well after that, as well). Bread and wine were also already part of the sacrificial system of the Jews. There was showbread, which was in the presence of the Lord in the inner temple. And there were also libations, drink offerings, poured out to God. So bread and wine were common, not only for food, but for sacrificing.
But when we look at what we use for the Eucharist, there’s also the reality of how bread and wine are made, which also helps us understand something of why they are used for the celebration of the Mass. Think of how bread is made. For our Eucharistic bread, the hosts, it can only be made from flour and water. Flour comes from wheat which is finely ground. After baking the mixture of flour and water, we have unleavened bread.
Wine is made from grapes. But you can’t just leave grapes on your counter and magically get wine (you’ll get raisins, I suppose). You have to crush the grapes in a wine press, and let the juices ferment. Then you get wine.
In his 2006 homily on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict spoke about the cooperation between God and humanity that is required to get bread and wine that we use in the Eucharist. God has to provide the fertile fields, and even the water itself in order for wheat to grow. But then we need to grind the wheat to make the flour. God has to provide rain and sun for the grapes to grow on the vine, but then we have to press the grapes. So what we need for the Eucharist is a cooperation between us and God, which is the original intent of God in the Garden of Eden: God and humanity working together to sanctify the world.
Another text called The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, which was written around the year 100, also says, “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom.” The gathering of the different heads of grain is itself an image of the diversity of the human race coming together, and then being offered to God for Him to bless and transform it into something new.
But beyond the bread and wine that we offer, Jesus invites us to give all of who we are to Him, to allow Him to transform us into something new. From the beginning, in the sacrificial system, humanity was invited to give God their all, represented by some earthly thing. So we, as Catholics, are invited to give all of who we are, and unite it to the bread and wine offered by me on your behalf to God the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are invited to give God the good and the bad. Did you have a horrible week, where nothing went right, where you lost friends or family, where the car broke down, where it rained every day on your vacation? Offer it to God! Did you have a great week, where you hit every green light when you were late, when your kids and grandkids visited, where you received an unexpected compliment or word of praise? Offer it to God.
God wants all of it, the good and the bad. He wants to transform it from something simply earthly, to something heavenly, like the Eucharist. But He will not transform what we do not give Him. If we do not give Him our life, the daily ups and downs, then they remain simply ours; they remain earthly and limited. But if we give him what has happened since the last time we came to Mass, He will bless it, transform it, and return it to us as something that helps us draw closer to Him and experience the heavenly life.
The invitation has been extended. Today, and at every Mass you attend, offer to God whatever you have, no matter how little you think it may be. Let God transform your daily life, as He will shortly, through my ministry, transform the bread and the wine we offer Him, into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ.