Already and Not Yet

Feast of Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we celebrate Christ the King, we celebrate what is, but also long for what is to come.  We see this even in our Lord’s description of His kingdom.  In the Gospel according to St. Mark, in the very first chapter, Christ says, “‘This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.”  In the Gospel according to St. Luke, in chapter 21, the same Christ says, “‘behold, the kingdom of God is among you.’”  And yet, as we heard today, Christ also says in the Gospel according to St. John, “‘My kingdom does not belong to this world.  If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over….  But as it is, my kingdom is not here.’”  So, which is it?  Is the kingdom at hand and even among us, or is it not here?

    Yes.  Yes it is at hand; yes it is among us; yes it is not here.  As with so many aspects of our faith, we need to unpack the idea of Christ’s kingdom.  The Incarnation is the presence of the Kingdom of God, where all is right.  Christ holds all things together in himself, and in Christ we have the perfect union of God and man, which is part of the kingdom.  In Christ, the human soul is subject to the will of God perfectly, and the body is subject to the human soul.  In Christ, love and truth have met, justice and peace have kissed (to cite Psalm 84).  
    But, and you don’t have to look hard to realize this next point, we’re not living in the fullness of the kingdom.  Our bodies do not always obey our souls, which do not always obey the will of God.  Love is distorted to mean delight or even license; justice is often available to the highest bidder and is applied differently if you have money and/or power than if you don’t; civil unrest, battles, and wars still plague our cities, State, nation, and world.  Sorry, Belinda Carlisle, but heaven is not a place on earth.      And yet, as followers of Christ live the Gospel, heaven does break into earth more and more, and the kingdom establishes itself more perfectly.  When we love to the best of our ability with the love of God, the kingdom grows.  When we proclaim the truth of the Gospel, the truth that the Church continues to unpack throughout the centuries, the kingdom grows.  When we not only give each other his or her due, but also help others to thrive, the kingdom grows.  When we are able to pray for our enemies and do good to those who persecute us, the kingdom grows.  This is not to say that we are the ones who bring about the kingdom; that work is always primarily the work of God, with which we participate.  The approach that we have to usher in the kingdom tends to go wrong pretty quickly, due to our own sinfulness.  Just look at the approach taken in Central America which sought to bring about the kingdom, but which ended up being Marxist regimes that oppressed the people and led to class warfare and societal instability.
    It is Christ who brings about His own kingdom, and He will fully establish His reign at the end of time, when His angels will separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, and will cast down the beast and its followers for eternity in Hell.  That will be a dies irae for those who work against God, and the battle will be swift and decisively victorious for Christ.
    It will be decisive because Christ already decisively conquered on a tree.  His sacrifice, re-presented for us in an unbloody manner on this altar, was the defining battle of all time, when Satan was conquered once-for-all, and sin and death were trod underfoot.  So Christ already achieved victory, but that victory has not been extended in totality yet.  And that is why we wait.
    And as we wait, we show if we want to be victorious in Christ, or conquered with the ancient foe.  We demonstrate whether we prefer to serve in heaven or reign in hell.  Our actions are our response to the invitation of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God.  Are we going to the wedding feast of the kingdom, or do we find excuses why we cannot attend?
    If we wish that kingdom to spread, if we wish to cooperate in spreading that kingdom, then it begins here.  If Christ is the kingdom of God in its fullness, then when we receive Holy Communion worthily, the kingdom of God is among us and even within us.  Coming to Mass, offering ourselves with the host and the wine, and then receiving in a state of grace the Eucharist allows the kingdom of God to be planted inside of us at least each week, or even every day.  The more that we receive the Eucharist in a state of grace, the more likely it is that we will respond to spreading that kingdom in our lives at work, at home, on vacation, at sporting events, etc.  
    That kingdom also spreads most easily through the domestic church, the family.  When parents demonstrate love, the children learn to do the same.  When children and parents tell the truth, God’s kingdom is strengthened among them.  When parents make sure that every member of the family has the ability, not only to survive but to thrive, the justice of the Kingdom of God grows.  When children learn how to say “I’m sorry” when they have done wrong, and when children see their parents apologize for their sins in confession and in the home, Christ’s kingship is established more and more.  And then those children are more likely to do the same in the homes and families that they make for themselves.  And the kingdom spreads even more.  
    If you wish to help the kingdom God, then love, not only your neighbors, but also your enemies.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, tell the truth, be honest in contracts.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, stand up for what is right, no matter how unpopular it may be, correct with charity, when appropriate, and administer discipline as your state calls you.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, admit when you’re wrong, and forgive when others have wronged you.  It will help show the “already” of the kingdom, and will allow us to persevere in the “not yet,” until Christ reigns fully, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Eucharistic Revival

 Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  The US Bishops have launched a Eucharistic Revival in our country, culminating in a Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024, the the first Eucharistic Congress in the US in some 40 years.  Reading any of the stats on how many Catholics actually believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist can be rather depressing, and demonstrates the need to reinvigorate the faith of Catholics across the US in our Eucharistic Lord.

Famous mosaic of the Miracle of Loaves from the Holy Land

    Our Gospel passage today is a perfect one to draw us in to the Eucharist, as it was one of the multiplication of loaves miracles of our Lord.  How could we not think of the Eucharist when we hear how our Savior gave thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to His disciples, so that they could give it to the people?  That action still continues today, as we give Christ what we have, both our interior offerings of what has happened since the last time we came to Mass, but also bread and wine, and He, through the ministry of His priest, gives thanks, breaks, and returns that gift to the people so that they do not die of spiritual hunger.  No longer is it simply bread, but it is the Bread of Heaven, the Bread of Angels, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord.  In Latin we ask God in the Our Father, “Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie”; “Give us this day our daily bread.”  But in the Greek, the phrase is not Panem…quotidianum, daily bread, but 𝜏𝜊𝜈 𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜊𝜈…𝜏𝜊𝜈 𝜀𝜋𝜄𝜊𝜐𝜎𝜄𝜊𝜈, super-substantial bread.  He gives us this “super-substantial bread” in the Eucharist, which not only feeds our body, but especially feeds our soul.
    This Panis Angelicus, this Angelic Bread, forgives us our venial sins, and unites us to the Lord.  That’s why we also refer to it as Holy Communion, Holy Union with Christ.  And if we are united to Christ the Light, then those small bits of darkness that we invited into our lives through venial sins are eliminated by the light.  But, if we have invited into our lives major areas of darkness, mortal sins, then we first need to go to confession, so that we are not joining our grave infidelity and evil to the fidelity and holiness of Christ.  That is why any person, from the President of the United States, to an individual in Timbuktu, should not present him or herself for Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin, nor should that person be offered Holy Communion if they publicly reject communion with Christ and His Church.  Still, if we only have venial sins, we should approach this Salutaris Hostia, this Saving Host or Victim, so that we can be more closely united to Christ.
    The Eucharist also gives us strength to live as disciples.  The people in the Gospel were fatigued because they had been listening to our Lord preach for three days (and you thought my homilies were long!).  They have received some strength from the Word of God, delivered by the Incarnate Word of God, but they are in need of more if they are not to faint on the way back home.  The Eucharist gives us this strength.  It is not enough that we be strengthened by the hearing and reading of the Word of God (though that is important).  God wants more for us.  He knows that living according to His Word can be difficult and taxing, because living according to His Word means denying our fallen human nature and taking up our daily crosses to follow Him.  And so He feeds us with Himself so that we can live the life to which God calls us.  That is also why the pelican is an ancient symbol for Christ: it was thought that the pelican, when there was not enough food, would pierce its breast and feed its young with its own blood.  So Christ does for us: He allows Himself to be pierced for our offenses, and then feeds us with His own Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  
    In many parts of the world in the past, and in some parts of the world today, people only receive Holy Communion once per year, not feeling worthy enough to receive.  St. John Vianney and Pope St. Pius X rightly advocated for frequent Communion (as long as one is not in a state of mortal sin) because he knew that we are more likely to be conquered by the devil when we are weak and malnourished, but we are more likely to be victorious in Christ when He dwells within us.  Frequent Communions has been a great gift to the Church over the past centuries, to strengthen us to live our life as disciples.
    Lastly, our Lord sent the people away after they had eaten.  Even in this small pericope, we see the heart of the Mass: the people hear the Word of God, they eat the bread that the Lord provides miraculously, and then they are sent.  So in our Mass, we have the proclamation of the Word of God in the Mass of the Catechumens, the consecration of the Eucharist and the miracle of transubstantiation in the Mass of the Faithful, and then the priest says, “Ite, Missa Est”, “Go, She [the Church] has been sent.”  The reception of the Eucharist is meant to change us, to make us more like Christ, in our life that we live outside these walls.  It is supposed to make us more kind, more forgiving, more loving, just as Christ is kind, forgiving, and loving towards us.  The Eucharist is meant to help us sacrifice our own wills for the good of our spouse and/or family, just as Christ sacrificed His life for His Spouse, the Church.  The Eucharist is not something that we receive as a prize for coming to Mass.  It is food that sustains us to go out and proclaim the good news of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God by word and deed.  
    We need a revival of belief in and reverence for the Eucharist.  We need to better understand the great gift that the Eucharist is for us.  And we need to better utilize the graces that we can receive through worthy reception of the Body and Blood of Christ, so that the City of Man can better resemble the City of God, to use an expression of St. Augustine.  Let’s commit ourselves today to valuing this most precious gift Christ left for His Church, and commit ourselves to allowing the graces of the Eucharist to flow through us and empower us to bring Christ to those we meet, so that others may experience through us our Triune God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Union With God

 Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Fr. Zach Mabee, who used to serve here in Flint (and who is probably best known as the tallest priest in the Diocese of Lansing), likes to share funny memes on Facebook.  His full time job is teaching at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, but some days he posts so many memes that you would think that posting memes is his job.  Anyway, he recently posted one meme that said, “Why would you say ‘half a dozen’ when you can literally say ‘six’?”  It is interesting to think about how we use a phrase when we can use just one word.

    The same could be said about the Eucharist.  Sometimes we refer to the Body and Blood of Christ as the Eucharist, but we often refer to the Eucharist as Holy Communion.  Perhaps not as long as “half a dozen,” but still it’s another term for the same reality.
    The word Eucharist comes from two Greek words, 𝜀𝜐 and 𝜒𝛼𝜌𝜄𝜍, which, when put together, means “give thanks well,”  The Eucharist is the way that we give thanks to God well, because it is Jesus’ perfect sacrifice that unites us to the Father and opens heaven for us.  The Mass, where we celebrate the Eucharist, is our prayer of thanksgiving that Jesus gave us.
    But we do also rightfully call the Eucharist “Holy Communion.”  We all know what holy means: set aside for God or belonging to God.  Communion is also a common word, which comes from the Latin word comunio, or union with.  When we receive Holy Communion, we have union with Christ, and, therefore, union with the entire Trinity.  How often do we think about this reality: that when we worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are becoming one with God?
    St. Paul affirms this teaching in the sixth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians.  He writes, “whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”  Certainly, receiving Jesus into our bodies in the Eucharist is joining ourselves to the Lord.  Later, in that same letter, in chapter eleven, he encourages people to think about (he uses the word discern) whether or not they should join themselves to Christ through Holy Communion, because those who partake of the Eucharist unworthily “will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord…[and bring] judgment on himself.”  He even goes on to say that the reason that “many” are ill and dying, and some are even dying, is because they are joining themselves to Christ when they shouldn’t be.  
    The Eucharist isn’t something that we should receive only out of habit, without considering the state of our soul.  We do not want to join a life that is objectively and gravely contrary to the same Person that we are receiving.  Communion means that we are, in the major ways, one with the other.  Think about it in terms of marriage.  Married couples sometimes have disagreements, but they are not necessarily major.  But if, hypothetically speaking, a husband were to forget his wife’s birthday, or their anniversary, that union might be damaged in a major way, and the man may find himself sleeping on the couch; hypothetically speaking, of course.  Because of the major offense, they do not engage in union with each other in the marital act, because that spousal embrace means that they are one, while forgetting such important dates denotes a lack of union or care for the other.
    So for us as Catholics, following what St. Paul says, we are to discern whether or not we should have Eucharistic union with Christ, or if we need to be reconciled to Him first.  Again, going to the marriage analogy, forgetting an important date is bad, but it does not mean that reconciliation cannot take place.  There should be an apology, and then possibly roses, or chocolates, or some gesture of contrition.  So with God, when we have failed to live according to His teachings in major ways, we first need to reconcile before we can have that great and Holy Communion that God gives us in the Eucharist.  We cannot ignore that wound that we caused without causing a greater wound.  Go back to the marriage analogy: telling your wife she has a birthday every year or that you’re always married when you forget those important dates does not help.  Just so, we cannot receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin without making a sacrilegious union with God, seeking to unite our sinfulness to His holiness.
    We shouldn’t approach Holy Communion and receive the Eucharist if we have any unforgiven mortal sin on our soul.  Recall that mortal sins are sins that are grave, that we know are wrong, and that we freely choose to do anyway.  Neither should we receive Holy Communion if our life is, in a public way, contrary to what Jesus (whether in Scripture or through the official teaching of the Church) teaches us is part of following Him.  
    What are some major ways of rejecting God?  The Ten Commandments are a good rule of thumb.  Yes, that includes taking God’s Name in vain, or unnecessarily skipping Mass on Sundays.  It also includes the offenses against our neighbor, like murder (including abortion), adultery or sexual sins, stealing when it involves a larger value, and lying under oath or to legitimate authority.  Living in a public way contrary to Christ is not only working publicly against Church teaching, but includes not being married in a way that is recognized by the Church (whether it’s a first marriage outside the church, or a second marriage without an annulment).
    Union with Christ means that we are in union with all that Jesus teaches us as necessary for salvation, whether in what we believe or in how we live.  That is also why non-Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion: they often reject one or more of the official teachings of the Church in faith and morals.  But if they do believe everything that we do, not only about the Eucharist, but about the pope, the sacraments, the Bible, the moral life, etc., then they should become Catholic, at which point they can receive Holy Communion.

    The point of all of this is that God wants communion with us through Holy Communion.  But in order to receive Holy Communion worthily, our lives need to be conformed (at least in major ways) to His way of life.  When we are conformed to Christ in major ways, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, becomes our strength to continue to following Christ day-by-day.

A Godly Diet

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are all sorts of diets these days: Atkins, South Beach, Paleo, No Carb, and the list goes on and on.  The different types of food you eat are supposed to help you either lose weight or maybe grow muscle mass, or help with a particular health goal.  Growing up watching cartoons, I was very familiar with the Popeye diet, where, if you wanted to grow strong, you downed a can of spinach.  I didn’t know what spinach was (we never really ate it at my house), but it seemed to work well for Popeye.  I have had spinach in salads and Greek food since, and it’s pretty tasty, but I can’t say that I have become as strong as Popeye when I eat it.

Our first reading, psalm response, and Gospel reading all have to do with eating.  So if you’re getting hungry, that’s understandable.  In the first reading, an angel tells Elijah to eat, or else “the journey will be too long!”  And our psalm and Gospel both speak about tasting the Lord.  The Psalm says that we are to taste and see the goodness of the Lord.  And Jesus in the Gospel talks about Himself as the Bread of Life, and if we eat of Him we will live for ever.  

We need the Eucharist.  It is our spiritual diet that gives us strength to live as Christians.  Vatican II called the Eucharist the source and summit of our Christian life: the fount from which we gain all of our strength to follow Jesus, and the goal of our life, because heaven in the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God.  We tend to talk about the Eucharist as food for our Christian journey with people who are dying, as we give them Viaticum, which literally means “on the way with you,” but in our daily lives, even when we are not dying, we need Jesus to be with us on our way to Him.  

The Eucharist is our spiritual life, because it is the life of God, the true flesh and true blood of Jesus.  We taste the goodness of God by tasting His Body and Blood in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  And yet, from the very beginning, we have also protected the Eucharist and required preparation for it, since it is not any everyday food.  St. Justin Martyr, in the early second century, spoke about how the Eucharist was only for those who were baptized and believed what the Church taught.  It wasn’t for everyone.  And to this day, we still hold that, unless one is Catholic, one cannot receive the Eucharist in a Catholic church (with very few exceptions).  Those who are not Catholics, even if they believe in Jesus, cannot partake of Holy Communion with us, because they don’t have communion with us, and we are never closer to each other in the Body of Christ than we are in the Eucharist.  

But even beyond that, sometimes even Catholics lose communion with Jesus and with the Church through grave or mortal sins, sins that separate us from the saving grace of God given to us in baptism.  And so the Church requires us to have that communion restored, to be healed of our grave or mortal sins before we present ourselves for Holy Communion, for, how can we have communion with Jesus in Holy Communion if we have separated ourselves from Him through sin?  Now perhaps you are thinking to yourself, “Well, I’m not aware of any grave or mortal sins, nor have I been in some time, so you’re losing me, Father.”  Praise God that you have been sustained in grace.  But others may struggle more, and, as a good shepherd, I need to warn the sheep about pitfalls.  If we have skipped Mass through laziness, if we are guilty of adultery or fornication, if we have taken God’s Name in vain, or any other grave sin, then we need to go to confession first before we present ourselves for Holy Communion.  Otherwise, our unworthy reception of the Eucharist does not help us on our way, but becomes another obstacle to having God’s grace and life within us through the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.

But beyond what we shouldn’t do, what does the Eucharist do for us?  If it is the food for our Christian journey, how does it give us strength?  For one, the Eucharist unites us to Christ more closely than we could ever be with anyone else on earth.  We often think of marriage as the greatest exchange of love between two persons, but infinitely greater than that is receiving the Eucharist, because we receive the love of Jesus which was made manifest for us when He died on the cross for you.  If no one else existed on earth, Jesus would have still died for you; that’s how much he loves you, and that love is consumed when receive the Eucharist worthily.

A second effect is that our venial sins, the small ways that we have said no to God, are wiped clean.  All those little things that we do, and we know what they are, that are not what we should be doing as followers of Jesus, those things are washed clean in our souls.  The Eucharist is a great way to find forgiveness for our small sins (not our mortal or big sins, but our small ones).  

A third effect is that we get to taste heaven.  We often talk about being so close to something that we can almost taste it.  In the Eucharist, we can taste heaven, because we receive Jesus who is in heaven.  When we receive the Eucharist, heaven exists within us, and the more that we live the life of heaven here on earth, the more we’ll be ready for it for ever at the end of our lives.  The more we practice for heaven, the more we’ll be ready for it at game time.  Through the Eucharist, the veil that separates heaven from earth is pulled back, and Jesus gives us Himself so that we can experience it in a small way.  What a great blessing the Eucharist is for us!  There is nothing more valuable on earth, because nothing is more valuable than Christ, and the Eucharist is His Body and Blood.

I want to leave you today with a beautiful prayer written by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ.  I invite you to learn this prayer, and perhaps make it a part of your preparation prayers before Mass begins.

O Sacred Banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of his Passion is recalled, the soul is filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory is given us.  Amen.  

Union in the Face of Separation

Holy Thursday–Mass of the Lord’s Supper

One of the hardest things that we learn as humans is the pain of separation.  Sometimes that separation is between friends who have grown up together who are now leaving for different colleges; sometimes the separation is a break-up between and man and a woman who thought they were in love, but who are now going their separate ways; sometimes it is the separation by death of a husband from a wife who have lived together for most of their life; sometimes it is the separation of a priest from his parish.  Separation is a hard lesson to learn, a lesson that brings with it pain and tears.

Probably all of us have experienced some form of separation, whether the ones I listed or different ones.  We all know that pain, that pit in our stomach, the tears that flow from our eyes at the separation either already experienced or coming in the future.  Jesus, as fully human, also knew this pain, and it is in that context of separation that He celebrates the Last Supper with His apostles, anticipating the celebration of the Passover by one day.

Jesus “knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.  He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.”  He knew that He would not be able to celebrate the Passover, the great feast of redemption from slavery in Egypt, with his apostles because He would be on the cross, dying to truly redeem the world from its greatest enemy: sin.  We get some sense from the Gospel tonight and the Gospel passage we heard last Sunday of the trouble the Last Supper caused the apostles.  There is much confusion, concern, and anxiety.  No one knows what will happen next.  

So what does Jesus do?  St. Paul tells us that

the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Jesus, at the same time, institutes the priesthood and the Eucharist, so that all of Jesus disciples not in the upper room, that is, every disciple beyond the Eleven, could have something to hold on to in the midst of their separation.

We call the Eucharist Holy Communion, and it truly is Holy Union With Christ.  It is not simply a memory of what Jesus did.  It is a way, in the present, that the anxiety of separation can be lifted.  Because when we receive the Eucharist worthily, we are not separated from Jesus, but are united to Him.  When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, Jesus is one with us, and we are one with Him.  And, for those who are baptized into His Body and remain in it after Baptism, because we are members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we also have union with each other.  Only those members of the Body who have cut themselves off from it by mortal sin are truly separated from Jesus, even if they receive Holy Communion, until they are reconciled with God and rejoined to the Mystical Body of Christ.  Otherwise we are connected by Jesus by sharing in His Body and Blood.  

Jesus knows the pain of separation.  In fact, on the cross, feeling the full weight of sin, the full weight of enmity and rejection of God, Jesus will cry out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”  Jesus, in His human nature, feels the worst separation that any human can have: separation from God.  But that is not His plan for His followers.  Jesus institutes the priesthood so that His presence and His power will continue in the world through the sacramental life of the Church, especially the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  He gives all of His disciples a way to be united with Him, not separated from Him, until He returns in glory.  And not only Him, but also with each other, even when we are separated by long distances, or even by death.  In the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Love, death is overcome and we have union with Christ and with each other, whether our life continues on earth, or if it continues in Purgatory or Heaven.  

How do we show appreciation for such a great gift as continuing communion with Jesus?  We try to live as He did, in total obedience to the Father, in holiness of life.  If we fall and separate ourselves from God by mortal sin, we seek reconciliation with God through His Sacrament of Reconciliation, and change our life to be more like His.  How do we show appreciation for such a great gift?  We offer the “sacrifice of thanksgiving, and…call upon the name of the Lord.  [Our] vows to the Lord [we] pay in the presence of all his people.”