Proper Spiritual Nutrition

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    When I first started to lift weights about a year and a half ago, I was surprised that I started to lose weight.  Others had told me that muscle weighs more than fat, so as I started to be able to lift more and more, I expected my weight to go up.  But it wasn’t; it was going down.  So I asked others who lifted why things weren’t going the way I expected.  They asked me what I was eating.  What I discovered was that I didn’t only need to lift weights to get stronger.  I also had to eat right.  I was not getting enough protein in my diet to really start bulking up the muscles (at least to the extent my 40-year-old body will let me).
    We have to have the right kind of food, not just for our bodies, but for our souls.  God gave the Chosen People manna in the desert, a food that they had not known before.  It would appear in the morning, and they could collect as much as they would need for that day, unless it was Friday, and then could collect enough for their needs for Friday and the Sabbath.  
    After the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, the people went to Jesus to give them more food.  It was like a free food giveaway.  But Jesus told them that they were looking for the wrong type of food.  They wanted simply earthly food, food that would perish.  He wanted to give them the food “that endures for eternal life,” that would bring them closer to salvation.  And at the end of today’s passage, Jesus drops a bomb on them: the food that endures for eternal life is Jesus.  If they eat Him, the Bread of Life, they will never hunger or thirst again.  Next week we’ll hear just how overwhelming that statement was for the Jews.
    We have to eat food to survive.  Our body takes the nutrients in food, and breaks them down into the materials that our bodies need to grow muscle, to give us energy, and to keep our intricate system working.  Our souls are no different.  They need spiritual food to keep up our strength to follow Christ and do His will.  And this spiritual food, the Eucharist, also keeps us connected to everyone else in the Mystical Body of Christ so that we do not try to do the work of the entire body even though we are a finger or a toe or an ear or an eye.  Whereas with normal food, our body breaks down the food and gives it to whole body to use, with spiritual food, with the Eucharist, we become part of the whole Mystical Body of Christ so that we can be useful in Christ’s Church that He founded.  
    But our souls have to be ready to receive this spiritual nourishment in order for it to do us any good.  I remember, when I was a seminarian, that we did a fundraiser in conjunction with the Run Through Hell that happens each year in Hell, Michigan.  Though my parents and sisters ran (and some still run) long distances, I was never into that.  But, being in my early twenties, I didn’t think I had to train.  So I ran, and tried to keep up with my dad, who ran marathons.  Needless to say, I didn’t keep up for long.  But, at last, I finished the race, leaving enough energy for a strong finish in a sprint.  When I finished, I was so tired and felt like I had given it my all.  I was also thirsty, so I started to drink a lot of Gatorade and eat some orange slices.  After about five minutes, my stomach told me that taking in that much nutrients while it was still trying to figure out why I had pushed it so much was not a good idea, and I made my way over to the bushes to vomit.  
    If we are not in a state of grace, receiving the Eucharist does us no good, and, in fact, is very bad for us spiritually.  If we have committed a mortal sin and we receive the Eucharist, then we commit the sin of sacrilege, and the Eucharist does not strengthen us spiritually, but pulls us farther away from God.  Mortal sins are not only murder or adultery or lying in court.  We can commit a mortal sin if we skip Mass (without a legitimate excuse of serious illness or more than a 30 minute drive to get to a church); or if we curse using God’s Name; or if we misuse our sexual faculties, whether by ourselves or with a significant other with whom we are not married; or if we support abortion or euthanasia.  These things, and more mean that we have broken our connection to God, and in order for us to receive the spiritual nourishment we want from the Eucharist, we need to reconcile with God first.  It’s like when you have norovirus, the stomach flu.  You can’t simply eat whatever you want; you have to receive healing first before you eat, otherwise it makes you feel worse.  I try to offer regular times to go to confession, so that, if you do have a mortal sin, you can reconcile with God, and be able to receive the nourishment of the Eucharist hopefully not to fall into that sin again, and to be strengthened for fighting whatever temptations are present in your life.

    Receiving the Eucharist is not going to a friend’s house to eat a snack.  In the Eucharist we participate in Calvary, in Christ’s offering of His life on the cross for our salvation.  We need the Eucharist to be strengthened in our pilgrimage to heaven, to the Promised Land where there will be no more manna.  But we need to make sure that we do not have a spiritual illness, a mortal sin, before we receive, so that the Eucharist can truly be for us sustenance which strengthens us for eternal life.  May our worthy reception of the Eucharist help our spiritual muscles to grow so that we will never hunger or thirst spiritually again.  

How to Receive Jesus

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Arguably the most popular topic for renaissance painters was the Madonna and Child.  There are more paintings of our Blessed Mother holding her child, Jesus than probably any other saint or person.  In almost all of those paintings, Mary is holding Jesus, and is looking down towards Him with love and wonder.  Probably the most famous statue of the Blessed Mother is the Pietà by

Michelangelo.  Currently housed in a chapel in the Papal Basilica of St. Peter in Vatican City, it shows the Blessed Mother holding the lifeless Body of her Son after He was taken down from the cross.  She is still looking down towards Him, but this time with sorrow on her face.

In both the paintings of Madonna and Child, and the Pietà, Mary’s gaze is towards Jesus.  She is focused on Him.  And as we come to Mass today to celebrate the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord, Mary invites us to do the same thing: to gaze towards Jesus.

For cradle Catholics, the Eucharist might seem very familiar, maybe even not a big deal.  But in the Eucharist, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, we see the same Jesus that Mary held, and receive Him either on our tongue or in our hands.  It is the biggest deal on earth, and the greatest treasure the Church has.

Jesus, on the night of the Last Supper, that we heard about in the second half of our Gospel passage today, instituted both the ministerial priesthood and the Eucharist, as His way of perpetuating the new Passover, no longer the angel of death passing over the house of the Israelites, but Jesus, the true Passover or Paschal Lamb being sacrificed so that we, His adopted brothers and sisters in baptism, would not have to suffer eternal death.  Each time the Mass is celebrated, Jesus’ one, perfect sacrifice on the cross is made present to us again as we enter the ante-chamber, the narthex, as it were, of the perfect tabernacle in heaven.  That is why, instead of the risen Christ, the crucified Christ should occupy the central place above the Tabernacle in the sanctuary: placed before our eyes in a prominent way should be the mystery of what the Eucharist recalls: the crucifixion.  

But because this re-presentation of Calvary happens so frequently, as Catholics we can forget its power, and forget just how awesome it is to be able to come into the presence of Jesus Christ Himself.  Our posture hopefully helps us to remember.  We kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer, lowering our very bodies in adoration of the miracle of the bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Not simply a reminder of Jesus’ Body and Blood, but the same Body that hung on the Cross; the same Blood that was poured out for our salvation in Jesus’ Passion.  We even used to (and people are still allowed to) kneel to receive the Eucharist.  There was something good about this, as it reminded our bodies that we are not worthy, and therefore lowered, before the presence of Jesus.  

Our heavenly patron, Pope St. Pius X, encouraged frequent reception of the Body and Blood of Christ, and in his time, many people would only receive once per year, even though they attended Mass every Sunday.  There was, in his time, an over-exaggerated sense of sin and unworthiness to receive Jesus.  And so it was very important to encourage frequent, worthy reception of the Eucharist.  In our day, we have gone to the other extreme: the Eucharist is something that everyone who comes to Mass gets, even if they are truly unworthy and should not receive.  Only Catholics in a state of grace, that is, not aware of any grave sins, should receive the Eucharist.  Those who skip Mass out of laziness, who have taken the Lord’s Name in vain, who have misused the beautiful gift of human sexuality, or who have lied in a serious way need to go to confession before they receive the Eucharist, otherwise, as St. Paul says, they eat and drink damnation upon themselves for receiving the Eucharist unworthily.  Our venial sins are forgiven by the reception of the Eucharist, but our grave or mortal sins need to be healed before we can receive Holiness Himself in the Sacrament of Sacraments.  Too often the line for the procession for the Eucharist is like a line of a drive thru at a fast food restaurant.  But the line for the Eucharist does not lead us to a Whopper or a Big Mac, but to our Lord, Savior, and Creator, Jesus Christ.

We should take as our model as we approach the Eucharist Mary, the Mother of God.  Mary shows us how to love Jesus in the Eucharist.  Mary shows us how to hold Jesus carefully as a mother with her child, in the Eucharist.  Mary shows us that, to hold Jesus, we should be doing all that we can to say yes to Jesus, and being reconciled with Him in the Sacrament of Penance if we have, in some major way, said no to Him.  As we celebrate Corpus Christi, may we rediscover a profound spirit of wonder and awe in the presence of Jesus, who each day around the world humbles Himself by changing bread and wine into His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

"Baby, Don't Hurt Me..."

Within certain age groups, if a person introduces the phrase, “What is love?” and then pauses, the response of those listening will be, whether out loud or in silence, “Baby don’t hurt me,” following the lyrics of the song by Haddaway.  They may even do a headshake gesture.  But this song betrays a real question in modern culture today: what is love?

            We talk about love in a variety of ways, while using the same word.  We love our family.  We love our boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse.  We love our pets.  We love TV shows.  We love songs.  We love particular foods.  Each of these examples of love shows different ways that we apply the word love to different persons or objects.  The temptation is that all of these meanings get blended into one, so that when we say we love a particular band, that meaning of love also seeps into what is meant when talking about a family member.

            In our Gospel today, we hear the oft-quoted, oft-displayed passage John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  Most everyone can quote it, the passage is so ubiquitous.  And yet, as we delve into the meaning, we see something profound about God and about love.

            What this passage expresses about God is pretty clear: God loves us enough that He is willing to send His only Son so that we can have eternal life, rather than eternal damnation.  That’s a very strong love!  God is willing to do everything He can, even humbling Himself to take on human nature and join it to His own divine nature, so that the God who, in His divinity could not be looked at or touched, could not be present to us, face to face, and could cry, could stub His toe, and could bleed.  The God who created the universe and whom the whole universe cannot contain, spends nine months in the womb of the Blessed Mother, and then lives among us with all the limits of human nature, except sin.  That is a powerful love.

            What we learn about love, then, is that it’s not just a feeling.  It’s not simply an emotion.  And love means sacrifice.  Because when Jesus, the Eternal Logos, became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man, the cross immediately overshadowed him.  Yes, the Jews could have freely accepted Jesus, and some certainly did, but God knew from all eternity, because all time is as the present to Him, that the Chosen People, His People, would for the most part reject Him.  Most of His people rejected the light when it came into the world, because they “preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”  These are tough words, but they are no less true than what John tells us about God loving the world.

            God’s love for us shows us that to truly love means to sacrifice.  God’s love means pouring oneself out for another, as Jesus does eternally for us.  He pours Himself out for us in the Incarnation as He did not grasp at His divinity, but emptied Himself and took on human flesh.  Jesus pours Himself out for us on the cross as He gives all that He is, the God-Man, to atone for our sins.  Jesus pours Himself out eternally for us in heaven, pleading for us at the right hand of the Father.  Jesus is forever sacrificing Himself for us to the Father, not that he dies any longer, but that His very life, even after the resurrection, is still a continuous gift in whole to the Father. 

            That is the true meaning of love: sacrifice.   We see it in so many ways, big and small: we see sacrificial love in realizing that your spouse or children may be glued to the couch during the month of March, watching NCAA basketball, and then going out of your way to pick up the slack so that they can enjoy watching March Madness; we see it in choosing to go to a movie that you know you hate but that you also know your friend or spouse loves.  Love as sacrifice is lived out in caring of a sick family member or friend at all hours of the day or night without any thought of self.  We see it in the love that remains faithful to the marriage covenant, even when one person is not being faithful, or maybe has even left.  There are so many other examples, too, of sacrifices of many other kinds that people make for each other, joining Jesus on that cross on Calvary.

            The danger for us is that in a culture where love is used for the union between a man and a woman in holy matrimony, as well as the union of mouth with hot, greasy, delicious pizza, the meanings can meld together.  Our love of pizza, as good as it is, does not entail sacrifice.  We ought not to do anything for pizza.  We ought to be willing, at least, to give up everything for a spouse or a family member.  We use the same word, but the meanings are as different as night and day.  And if we’re not careful, they meld together, so that love becomes: what can you do for me?  How can you bring pleasure to my life?  Of course, love will bring pleasure and benefits.  But those come as the result of sacrifice, not instead of sacrifice, just as the eternal reward of heaven is made possible not instead of the crucifixion, but only through the crucifixion. 

            Our beloved patron, St. John the Evangelist, could tell us about love which entails sacrifice because, though he at first ran away, he came back to the foot of the cross to see just how far God’s love was willing to go.  He knew and could write that true love means giving all of yourself to another, because He was there when God’s love gave up everything in Jesus, even His own life, so that we could return to friendship with God.  What is love?  Love is the full gift of your very self: all that you are, all that you treasure, all that is dear to you for the other.  To other persons, yes, but first and foremost to the God who is love.