Food for the Journey

 Holy Thursday–Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    When many Catholics today talk about Last Rites, they think of the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  But when the Church talks Last Rites, she talks about the Sacrament of Penance, the Apostolic Pardon, the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and Viaticum, or Holy Communion for a person on the way to death (Viaticum is a smash-up of the words meaning “on the way with you).  We were taught in seminary that when a person is seriously ill, they are to be anointed.  When a person is certainly (barring a miracle) not getting better, the priest may anoint again, but certainly offers Viaticum (and Viaticum can also be offered by a deacon).  In the Church’s mind, the last sacrament a person should receive on earth is the Body of the Lord, Holy Communion with the Lord, because that is what we pray the person will experience after death, communion with the Lord in heaven.  
    We probably don’t often think about it this way, but the Eucharist is meant to be spiritual food for a people ready to move on somewhere.  We see that even in the prefigurement of the Eucharist in the Passover sacrifice.  The Jews were to sacrifice an unblemished lamb, spread its blood over the doorposts and lintel, and eat it.  They were to eat it “‘with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand, you shall eat like those who are in flight.’”  The eating of the Passover lamb was to prepare the Chosen People for their pilgrimage from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.  
    So for us, the Church, the Eucharist is our food for the journey, not only the journey from this life to the next, but even our daily journey from the safety of the church into the war zone of the world, where we fight against spiritual powers inside of us and outside of us.  It is meant to strengthen us for our witness to the Gospel in our daily life.  And yet, how often do we see it as boring, as just another obligation.  Dorothy Day, the great, saintly woman of the Catholic Worker movement, related a scenario when she encountered one such person:
I was saddened last week when a former nun told me she was tired of going to Mass daily.  She had been doing that for fourteen years, and no longer felt it necessary.  So much routine.  One could only point out that breathing was routine, and eating was routine…We go to eat of this fruit of the tree of life because Jesus told us to….He took upon himself our humanity that we might share in his divinity.  We are nourished by his flesh that we may grow to be other Christs.

Indeed, as Jesus prepare to celebrate the Last Supper, the first thing He does is serve.  He washes the feet of His apostles.  So for us, after we receive the Eucharist, we are called to serve.  Jesus says, “‘I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.’”
    This is not to say that the Eucharist is merely a means to an end, the means by which we move on to the really important stuff, the activity of daily life.  In fact, it’s the other way around.  The Eucharist is the really important “stuff,” and the activity of daily life is the overflowing of the cup that is filled only with the Body and Blood of our Lord.  
    Jesus gave us the Eucharist because He knew we needed to be fed by God as part of our worship.  He knew that so few would be with Him on Golgotha, as He did what the Last Supper pointed to: give up His Body and Blood for the salvation of the world.  And from that most important act of the crucifixion, the transformation of the world became possible.  So it is only after we are worthily nourished by Eucharist that we are able to be the disciples that we are called to be, relating to others by word and deed how our connection to Jesus changes us.
    And then, there is a double movement that, after our daily activity of living as disciples, brings us back here, back to the Mass.  Having utilized the spiritual energy which we received the last time we went to Mass, we are drawn back for more, because we hunger more for God.  And yet, we also are drawn back to thank God for the power that we have seen exercised through us as we shared the fruits of the Eucharist we received in talking about Jesus, in loving like Jesus, in serving like Jesus.  “How shall I make a return to the Lord / for all the good he has done for me? / The cup of salvation I will take up, / and I will call upon the name of the Lord.”  We return because we hunger more; we return because we thank God for what the Eucharist made possible in our lives.
    As we begin these three holiest of days–Holy Thursday tonight, Good Friday tomorrow, Holy Saturday culminating in the Easter Vigil–there’s a lot going on.  If we are truly, fully entering into it, we’ll be physically, emotionally, and spiritually tired.  We will need sustenance.  Even though we won’t celebrate Mass again until Holy Saturday night, the Church will feed us with the Eucharist tomorrow from what was consecrated tonight.  And then we’ll have the chance to be fed once more on Holy Saturday evening as we will rejoice in the news the surpasses every joy.  Only those who are in need of Viaticum can receive the Eucharist at another time on Holy Saturday, because the Church knows they need Holy Communion to prepare them for the ultimate communion with God.  
    Tonight we are fed by the Lord, Who knows that we need Him to be His disciples.  May we never find the reception of Holy Communion routine, but find in it our strength to be the saints God has called us to be.

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.