Category Archives: friendship

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: Love and Friendship (6th Sunday of Easter – B)

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in friendship, homily, life in Christ, love

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Rue_dyingEarlier this week I was channel surfing and came across a broadcast of the first of the “Hunger Games” movies.  I have to admit that when the books and movies initially came out I was skeptical and avoided them altogether but then one day, kind of on a whim, I joined some friends who had decided to see the movie.  I am now a fan.  At the heart of that first movie (which I saw again this last week) is a scene where a young girl is killed in these games that pits child fighting against child to the death.  The heroine, who was trying to protect this young girl is heartbroken.  But in her pain and grief she does a tender thing.  She gathers flowers and places them around the body of the young girl lying dead on the forest floor.

In the cold world depicted in this story where, I would say, the sense of God has been lost (a world that at best can only say, “May the odds continually be in your favor.” rather than, “God be with you.”) the heroine performs a corporal work of mercy.  She buries the dead and she does it in love and friendship.  Via video cameras the nation silently watches and in response, in an imprisoned part of the country, a fight against the injustice of the oppressors breaks out! All because the heroine performed this simple act of taking the time to acknowledge the humanity and the dignity of this young girl … a humanity and dignity that all the “powers that be” were trying their best to negate.

There is a power to love and friendship. You know, if you think of all the great stories – whether they are expressed in movies, plays, literature, opera, whatever medium – a common element that runs throughout them all is the exploration of love and friendship. The settings both geographical and in time may be worlds apart. The characters and plot may be very different but in any good story there is an underlying story and exploration of the dynamics of love and friendship in life. The reader or viewer might not know what it is like to fly a bomber in WWII or stare at the walls of Troy or fight off zombies but everyone knows what it is like to yearn to give love and receive love and to desire friendship and remain in friendship.

Part of the essence of love and friendship is that it does not have to be flashy in order to be true. I thought of this yesterday in our parish’s celebration of first communion. Christ gives us himself (his body and blood) in the form of bread and wine – two things so utterly common. God does not need flash, God does not need smoke and mirrors and God does not need the latest fad in order to accomplish his plan in our lives. We might believe we need these things but God does not. Think of moments of friendship or moments when you gave or received authentic love … I would wager that the memories that come to mind are anything but flashy, more than likely they are common even to the point of being unnoticed by others – laughing with a friend, holding a loved one’s hand, comforting a child…

In today’s gospel (Jn. 15:9-17), Jesus says, As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love … love one another as I love you … You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. 

What does Christ give us and what does Christ call us to? Love and friendship. We must not pass this over, because this is the heart of it all! What unites all the great stories? What speaks to the depth of universal human existence? What does Christ give us? What truly transforms our lives and our world? Love and friendship. And the gospel message is that it is both love and friendship with one another and, through Christ, love and friendship with God! Christ calls us his friends; we need to take this to heart. We can never be friends in a sense of peer to peer with Christ but, nonetheless, he calls us friends. We need to pray on this truth and therefore on the great power of friendship that our Lord himself alludes to in this passage.

We should never underestimate the power of love nor the power of friendship.

…love one another as I love you.

I no longer call you slaves … I have called you friends…

The Our Father and Snapchat

11 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in friendship, friendship with Christ, images, Our Father, Snapchat

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However it might be used or misused; the creators of snapchat know two things very well: images are powerful and friendship is powerful.  The popularity of Snapchat (the smartphone app where people take and send pictures to friends that last just a few seconds) and other similar apps is based on these two foundational principles.   

Images are powerful; ask any person involved in the industries of advertising and promotion.  We are affected by what we see and the influence of images remains with us long after the image itself is gone.  This is where we must not be naïve and be honest about the human condition.  What we see affects us.  We are not cameras.  A camera can look on an image of beauty or of desolation, an image that either lifts up the human spirit or degrades it and not be affected.  A camera is a machine.  So often we approach images with the mistaken notion that we are like cameras – we can look on anything and not really be affected.  This is not true.  We are human beings and not machines.  The dynamic of perception works differently within us.  When we look on something, it no longer remains without, we receive it within through the act of perception and when within, it either builds us up or diminishes us.  There is a power to images that should not be underestimated. 
The “stuff” of snapchat is images that people send one to another and the impact of these images are even more persuasive, I believe, because they last just a few seconds.  When you receive a “snap” (a picture) you know this; so for those few seconds you focus all your attention and concentration on that little screen.  I, at least, know that I do.  Literally, in a manner of seconds, I have received that image into my memory which is the core component of who I am. 
Snapchat also knows the power and influence of friendship.  Friends send one another these pictures and texts.  Friends catch the reference, the joke and the meaning being conveyed by the picture.  Sending a snap is an act of friendship, maybe a simple and often silly act but an act of friendship nonetheless.  Acts of friendship build people up and reinforce bonds.  One of my favorite “snap chat buddies” is Sophie.  Sophie is six years old, she is the daughter of some dear friends and I have known her since the day she was born and I baptized her.  When I receive a snap from Sophie’s mom it is usually a picture of Sophie with coloring on it or a picture of her doing what six year olds do.  The last snap was actually a video of Sophie singing why she loves ice cream.  I love every snap I get, they bring me joy and they strengthen my friendship with Sophie and her family.  Acts of friendship are truly important in our lives. 
On Wednesday of this past week we had in the weekday Mass readings the passage of our Lord giving his great prayer, the Our Father, to the disciples (Lk. 11:1-4).  As I reflected on this reading I realized that the Our Father can be likened to a snap chat from Jesus. 
It is an act of friendship.  The disciples approach Jesus with their request.  Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.  The very tenor of the request shows that it had been weighing on their minds for a while and, as a group, they decided to approach Jesus.  Jesus responds and in giving the Our Father he is not just giving his disciples (both then and today) a bunch of words but rather inviting them into a living friendship with him and the Father.  The Our Father is an invitation to live in friendship with God.  Now, we can call God “Father” and we can know that we are never alone and that we are never abandoned.  God is here with us and for us.  The prayer is founded upon and immersed in the language of friendship and relationship!  
Also, the Our Father is more an image given us than a series of words strung together.  It has been said that when we pray the prayer of another person we enter into the very way that person sees the world.  When we pray the Prayer of St. Francis (“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…) we are seeing the world as St. Francis sees it.  When we pray a prayer written by St. Teresa of Avila we are seeing as St. Teresa sees the world.  When we pray the Our Father … we are entering into the very understanding of Jesus and we are seeing the world as he sees the world!  This is truly amazing and powerful!  When we pray the Our Father we bring within ourselves, if even for just the fraction of a moment, the mind of Christ.  Whenever disciples ask, Lord, teach us to pray… they are in essence asking, “Lord, teach us to see as you see.”  
There is one important way though that the Our Father is not similar to snap chat.  In snapchat, the image disappears.  This is part of the appeal, I believe, of the app.  The Our Father, on the other hand, does not disappear.  Whenever we honestly pray this prayer given us by our Lord we bring it within our very selves and there is remains overtime helping to bind what needs to be bound and loose what needs to be loosed and set free!  The Our Father does not disappear. 
As disciples, we also approach our Lord and ask that he teach us how to pray.  We need to continually learn the Our Father, we need to pray it and we need to live it!  They are words given in friendship by our Lord and they are words that bring us into the very way he sees the world.         

Friendship: Sixth Sunday of Easter

05 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in friendship, frienship with Christ, mission of the Church

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“The Trinity” by Andrei Rublev.  A meditation on friendship. 

Where does friendship begin?  It is a question worthy of reflecting upon.  When we look at the friendships within our lives, where and when did they start?  Did the friendships begin all at once in an instant, almost like a thunderclap, or did the friendships we have gradually develop and grow over time, even to the point where we might not remember exactly when a friendship began?  I think that the latter of these two is the nature of true friendship.  Friendship grows over time and it grows through daily encounter and interaction. 

As Christians we believe in the friendship of God – not because we have loved God first but because God has first chosen to love us.  The readings for this sixth Sunday of Easter can be read in the terms of friendship (Acts 15:1-2, 22-29, Rev. 21:10-14, 22-23 and Jn. 14:23-29). 

In today’s gospel we find our Lord saying, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him…”  In his book, The Priority of Christ, Fr. Robert Barron takes some effort to explore what the doctrine of Christ as fully human and fully God has to say about the very nature of God.  Fr. Barron begins by exploring the very common fallacy of viewing God as just the “biggest” of beings.  He points out that if this were the case then God would still just be a being among other beings and therefore if God is just another being then God’s will necessarily inhibits and limits my freedom and my very being.  Nothing is further from the truth and this is demonstrated in the reality of Christ being fully God and fully human because in Christ we find humanity fully realized and not inhibited in the presence of full divinity.  God is not the biggest being among other beings who will necessarily limit my freedom by his presence; God is “otherly other” – to quote one early Church Father.  God operates in a way that we cannot fully grasp because we are limited beings.  God does not need to compete as we do.

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him…”  Christ is offering the terms of a friendship that is truly non-competitive in nature.  This is the amazing promise of Christ.  To the one who strives to keep the word of Christ; God will come and make his dwelling with him or her.  “Dwelling” is a neat word here.  It is not heavy.  It does not oppress.  It is a place of life and home.  The presence of God does not limit nor oppress because God is otherly other.  God can be fully present to us in our lives in a non-competitive manner and in a way that fulfills the human person.  Keeping God’s word leads to true life. 

Our Lord continues this invitation to a non-competitive friendship with the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  “I have told you this while I am with you.  The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”  Christ can promise and give a peace that moves beyond the limits of this world precisely because Christ in the fullness of his divinity and humanity is otherly other.  Christ can enter into your life and my life in a truly non-competitive way.  God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit does not come to limit life but to give life and to give peace.

In today’s second reading from the Book of Revelation we are given the image of the new and heavenly Jerusalem.  It has been noted that in the Old Testament there can be seen a progression in regards to the presence of God.  First, God is present for his people in the meeting tent.  Second, God is present in the temple then God is present in Jerusalem.  In the New Testament, God becomes present within the human heart, “…and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him…”.  John writes of his vision, “I saw no temple in the city for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb.  The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb.”  There is no need of temple or church in the heavenly Jerusalem because the presence of God is fully realized and welcomed within each human heart.  This welcoming begins today and it is found in the daily invitation to encounter our Lord as he makes himself present to us. 

In the first reading from Acts we find the early Church deliberating about its mission to the Gentiles and how this is to occur and even “if” it should occur.  This is no small thing.  In fact, it is at the heart of the mission of the Church and it, in many ways, is a question about friendship.  Can the friendship with God that we now know through Christ be extended and should it be extended to others?  The Church, guided by the Spirit, comes to the decision that yes, friendship should be extended and friendship is always possible.  This mission continues today and it is primarily an invitation to friendship.  The love that we have heard and seen and touched is a love that, by its very nature, must be extended to others.  As Church, we proclaim that friendship is always possible and we make this proclamation in a time that continually seeks to isolate and divide people from one another.  The Church’s witness of the possibility of friendship is truly counter-cultural in our day and age and it is truly needed.

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him…”                     

Christ awaits and gratitude

05 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by in Catholic Center at ETSU, discipleship, friendship, gratitude, new ministry

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“…go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.” (Mt. 28:7)

These words spoken to the women by the angel at the empty tomb of Jesus have been echoing in my heart these first days of the Easter season. 

I believe that the message of the angel has added weight for me this Easter because this coming July 1st I will be moving to Chattanooga to begin a new chapter in my ministry as a priest and I will be bringing to an end my six years as chaplain to the Catholic Center at East Tennessee State University.

In the life of Christian discipleship the risen Lord always goes before us and he awaits us just as he awaited his first disciples in Galilee.  Six years ago the Lord awaited me here at the Catholic Center after five years of serving as pastor of St. Mary Parish in Athens, TN.  I am grateful to God for these six years at the Center just as I was for my time in Athens. 

I am grateful to God for the ministry that has been built at the Catholic Center these years.  I am grateful that we have built a ministry that is solid in our Catholic faith, in community and in service to the poor.  I am grateful that the ministry that we have operated out of at the Center is a ministry that is respectful of the dignity and worth of people and that does not need to manipulate people nor ridicule the cherished beliefs of others nor engage in rumors even as so often seems to be the case in our world today.  My experience on campus is that despite all the talk about respecting differing viewpoints; people and groups on college campuses are extremely eager to form other people in their own image.  I take pride in saying that at the Catholic Center we have sought to respect the image of God found in the person rather than seeking to form the other in our image.  Some people might view this deference to the image of God found in the other person a form of weakness worthy of ridicule. I disagree, it is not a sign of weakness.  It is a sign of strength, a confident humility, that in the long run shows true respect and care for the other person as a human being.

I am grateful for the students who have made the Catholic Center their spiritual home these past six years.  I am grateful for and inspired by your willingness to live, wrestle with and witness to your Catholic faith.  I honestly believe and hope that you will be leaders in your faith communities one day.  To the students who have been committed to the Center and who strive to live your faith while on campus; please know that I will always be willing to help you in any way and at any point that I can. 

I am grateful for the friends that I have made both within the university community and in the larger Johnson City and St. Mary Parish community.  Friendship is a blessing and a source of joy and comfort.  I thank God for each of my friends.

I am grateful for the years I had with my mother as her caregiver.  The last five years of her life were not easy for her or for me to watch and I cannot count the number of times I left Colonial Hills and the local hospital emergency room with tears in my eyes and in my heart but I am grateful that I was able to walk these years with her.  Rest in peace Mom. 

I am grateful to the Community of Sant’Egidio who continually teaches me to find Christ in the Gospel and in the poor.  I am grateful to my friends at the John Sevier Center.  Over and over again I have seen Christ in their faces and they have taught me about faith, trust, hope and friendship.  I look forward to living the charism of Sant’Egidio in Chattanooga and to friendship with the poor there.   

I am grateful for Fr. Christian Mathis.  He is a good friend and good priest and I know that he will bring an energy, enthusiasm and love to this ministry of the Catholic Center.  I am hopeful that he will take the Center ministry to the next level.   

I am grateful to Bishop Richard Stika who is now calling me to Chattanooga and I am grateful to the gift of obedience.  Eighteen years ago on my ordination day I promised obedience to the Bishop of Knoxville and ever since then I have experienced again and again that obedience is a font of unexpected graces and growth in life.  I am hopeful for this new call to serve.

Six years ago, Christ awaited me at the Catholic Center at ETSU.  Now, Christ awaits me in Chattanooga.  The joy of discipleship is found in following Christ wherever he might lead. 

     

    

   

Friendship with Christ and the journey to Jerusalem

23 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in friendship, frienship with Christ, Holy Week, walk to Jerusalem

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A while back an Italian friend of mine observed that we Americans grossly underestimate the power of friendship.  We focus in on our projects and plans individually and even collectively as a people (we like our meetings to give us a sense of productivity), while often failing to notice the gift and possibilities found within friendship itself.  I think that my friend is correct in this assessment.  Certainly, we Americans value friendship in life yet I do believe we often underestimate the basic human need for friendship, how it shapes who we are and all the good that friendship, by its very nature, can accomplish in life and even in our larger world.

Since my friend’s observation I have even found myself wondering about the role of friendship in our Lord’s life.  Correct me if I am wrong but I cannot call to mind a book that truly explores this dynamic in the life of Jesus.  We know that Jesus had friends (Martha, Mary and Lazarus seem to hold a special place for our Lord) and we know, through the gospel accounts, that Christ continually gathered people around himself.  We often reflect on how encounter with Christ and discipleship to Christ transformed the apostles and disciples and how it transforms people throughout history (ourselves included) but how did our Lord’s own honest human need for friendship affect him and his own understanding of himself and his mission?

Any honest examination of the human condition reveals that friendship is a prime mover in the development of the understanding of a human person.  We can all probably point to experiences in friendship (some truly positive and some truly negative) that have helped to shape who we ourselves are and have brought insight and understanding.  We hold in the mystery of the incarnation that Jesus is fully human and fully God.  We profess that the divinity in Christ has not swallowed up his humanity nor has his humanity excluded the divinity.  If Christ is “fully human” then isn’t a part of being human this amazing and complex dynamic of friendship?   

I think that we often keep Christ removed.  I think we are often more comfortable with Jesus as a stoic philosopher/savior whom we can learn from and receive salvation through but who had no real human needs or, if he did, transcended them in such a way that those needs were mitigated almost to the point of being nonexistent.

I do not believe that this does justice to our Lord, to the incarnation nor even to ourselves in the long run.  To be human means to grow in awareness; to be human means to be affected by relationship with another.  Yes, the foundational relationship that Christ had (which we see time and time again in the gospel) was his relationship with the Father but relationship with the Father does not negate relationship with other people and often it is through relationships with other people (friendship included) that God’s will is revealed in one’s life.  I think of the not-so-subtle nudging of Mary at the wedding in Cana that, perhaps, helped our Lord to realize that yes, the time had come to begin his mission in earnest.  I wonder how often those times spent in the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus helped our Lord to clarify his own thoughts and his own understanding.  It seems that Peter, James and John had a unique relationship with our Lord even among his most immediate group of followers.   

Friendship is one of the most beautiful gifts of the human life.  Why would our Lord and Savior be denied this gift?  It makes no sense that he would but often it has remained an area unexplored.  We live in a time where factors and influences continually separate and isolate people.  It is my belief that people are hungering for true and authentic friendship.  I think that it is time that we followers of Christ earnestly explore the graced reality of friendship in the life of our Lord. 

As Church, we are now entering into Holy Week and it is right that we go with our Lord to Jerusalem and here I would add emphasis to “go with” and specifically I would say, “go with as friends”.  The gospel invites us to walk this way in the gift of friendship with Christ.  There is a Lenten hymn that says that Jesus walked this way alone and that is true to some extent but we as Church are now called to walk this way to Jerusalem in the ever-deepening reality of friendship with Christ and we are invited to make note of how friendship and honest human contact touched our Lord on his journey to the cross.  There are friends who loved our Lord yet turned away in fear.  There is the mother who walked every step with her son.  There is the friend who betrayed our Lord.  There is the man who allowed a place for our Lord to be buried and there is one who came to our Lord under the cover of night.  There is the woman who anointed our Lord in preparation for his burial.  There is the man who helped our Lord to carry his cross.  There are the women who met our Lord and wept for him on the street.  There are the women and the one male disciple who stood with Mary at the cross.  Where are we on this journey?  How did these moments touch the heart of our Lord?

In Holy Week, we walk to Jerusalem with our Lord and we walk the way in friendship. 

 

The Eucharist and friendship with Jesus, part 3 – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

25 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), bread of life, Eucharist, friendship, humility

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With this Sunday’s gospel reading (Jn. 6:60-69) we come to the end of our five week collective reading of the sixth chapter of John and our reflection on Christ as the Bread of Life.  In many ways today we are given a very vulnerable scene.  Christ has just laid out the teaching of his being the bread of life and people needing to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood.  It was a difficult teaching for many of his followers.   

Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” … As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.

The scene is striking in many ways.  Jesus is vulnerable and he is willing to remain in that vulnerability out of his love for us and the Father and his desire for our friendship and not our fear.  Because of this he is willing to accept the poverty of seeing people walk away.  (There is a great lesson here, I believe, for all persons who are involved in ministry and for any Christian disciple in general.  Authentic ministry and witness means accepting and embracing this poverty.  We do not manipulate people, we do not buy their allegiance or their participation through the latest gadget or trend.  Like Christ, we simply offer what we know and what we have and we love people enough to allow them their freedom.)

Our Lord then turns to the Twelve: Do you also want to leave?  Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”  

Now, I do not believe that when Peter made this reply he had a full understanding of transubstantiation worked out in his thoughts.  More than likely, he also probably found our Lord’s words confusing and troubling and the thought was also probably there that, “… maybe it is time to just walk away.”  But he doesn’t.  Even in the uncertainty of the moment and not fully understanding, Peter makes that very remarkable reply, “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

These are words of faith and they are also words of humility – the two are connected.  St. Teresa of Avila, in her book The Interior Castle, makes a profound and foundational observation regarding the spiritual life that is helpful here, I believe, “While we are on this earth nothing is more important to us than humility.”  Humility is a key component of faith and, in fact, it is a key component of true friendship.  No humility, no friendship.  Peter does not work it all out on his own and then come to Jesus fully informed and ready to commit himself.  Rather, Peter remains with Jesus even in the midst of the uncertainty because in his humility he has come to realize and accept that Jesus does indeed have the words of life and it is by remaining with Jesus that he is brought to greater and greater faith and understanding!

The key is humility and the willingness to just remain with Jesus.

It has been noted that beyond the murmuring about eating the flesh and drinking the blood is the heart of the issue that just proved too much for people and so they walked away: this being the choice of an exclusive intimacy with God through a personal relationship with Jesus.  Peter both makes this choice for himself and proclaims it in his reply to the Lord: “We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

All of our Lord’s discourse on his being the bread of life is offered and then it is summed up and accepted in the reply of Peter.  It all comes back to humility, to faith and the willingness to remain with Christ and to have friendship and intimacy with Christ.   

“Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” 

      

The Eucharist and friendship with Jesus, part 2 – Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

18 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), bread of life, Eucharist, Fr. Lou Cameli, friendship

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During these weeks when we as the Church have been drawing from the sixth chapter of John’s gospel and reflecting on Christ as the bread of life, I have become more and more aware of how Eucharist and friendship with Christ must be held together and that the starting point for a true understanding of Eucharist is relationship with Christ.  The two are that closely bound and connected.  In fact, I do not think that one can have a full understanding of Eucharist apart from relationship with Christ.  We can talk about transubstantiation, real presence and the matter and form of the sacrament (which are all valid points and have their place) till the cows come home but without relationship with Christ all the talk does not really amount to much.

A number of years ago, I saw a saying on a roadside church sign that has remained with me, “People will not care about how much you know until they know how much you care.”  God, I think, understands this.  In the Eucharist God reveals the depth of his love.  Christ freely and totally gives his own body and blood that we might have life.

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 

This word “life” is of utmost importance.  We live in a time that says we must get the most out of every moment and that this is where true life is to be found.  Today, our faith gives us the same invitation:

Brothers and sisters: Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord.  (Eph. 5:15-16)

Wisdom has built her house … “Let whoever is simple turn in here”; to the one who lacks understanding, she says, “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed!  Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.”  (Proverbs 9:1,5-6)

Notice how in both these passages and in today’s gospel (Jn. 6:51-58) life is achieved through relationship – entering Wisdom’s house, seeking God’s will, eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ in order to remain in Christ and for Christ to remain in us.

I have just finished reading a new book put out by my friend Fr. Lou Cameli entitled; Bread of Life: Exploring the Presence of Eucharist in Our Lives.  The book is quite good and I highly recommend it but here I want to bring out two points that Fr. Cameli makes in his book. 

First, in the book, Fr. Cameli explores in detail the sixth chapter of John’s gospel and he reminds us that in this chapter as Jesus is expounding on his being the bread of life he is (in fact) in dialogue with a “more and more concentrated set of interlocutors”.  At first Jesus is talking with a crowd, then it is his disciples, then it is the Twelve and, I would say, finally Jesus is in dialogue with you and me.  The invitation that Jesus has put out there for the people has become too much, too intense – many people walk away.  Jesus puts the same question to each of us; Do you also wish to go away?  It is a question of relationship, of friendship.  It is a question that only each one of us can answer for himself or herself but notice how Christ as the bread of life and relationship/friendship are intertwined and connected.  

Throughout his book, Fr. Cameli reflects on the importance of the Eucharist yet also how that importance has seemed to dim in the life of faith for so many people.  Many people, many Catholics, just do not seem to think that the Eucharist is that important.  Fr. Cameli wrestles with the question but he does not give a pat answer because there is none.  Rather, Fr. Cameli shares his own “Eucharistic Autobiography” – how the Eucharist has been experienced throughout his life and how the Eucharist has, in turn, shaped his life.  He concludes his autobiography with these words:

So, the critical importance of the Eucharist happened for me, because the Eucharist became important at important junctures of my life and in the ordinary rhythm of daily life.  I understand how those who have not had this blessed experience would neither know the Eucharist nor find it that important.  There is a circularity here in the logic of this relationship: it is central because it becomes central; it remains peripheral because it remains peripheral.  The spiritual or formational challenge is to break into this circle of relationship and to begin to practice familiarity. 

The language is relational – friendships become important to us because we allow them to become central to our lives.  The Eucharist becomes central because we allow it to become central.

Throughout this chapter of John’s gospel as Jesus speaks of himself as the bread of life we also find him inviting us to relationship and friendship; even to the point of accepting the poverty of seeing people walk away.  Do you also wish to go away?

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  

    

  

The Eucharist and friendship with Jesus: Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

11 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Eucharist, friendship, scandal of the particular

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One of the authors that I keep returning to in my life is Jean Vanier – the founder of the L’Arche communities.  L’Arche communities are houses where men and women – mentally handicapped and not – live together in a community of friendship and support.  I enjoy Vanier’s writings because he has great insight and he is able to express great truths in simple terms.  Recently, I read this thought by Vanier which I would like to share:

Jesus invites us to make a difficult and sometimes stormy passage of faith from the enthusiasm of discipleship to the gentleness and humility of friendship.  Friendship with Jesus – the Word made flesh – becomes the nourishment for our hearts and lives.  

Jesus is not only the Word of God – fully transcendent, enlightening our minds and intellects.  Jesus is also the Word made flesh.  God incarnate for us.  God wanting to give himself to us as He is.  God wants our friendship, our kinship, and through the incarnation of Christ reveals that He is willing to become so vulnerable and so very ordinary in his flesh in order to achieve this.

In many ways this is the scandal of the particular and the ordinary.  It is what the people murmur about in this Sunday’s gospel (Jn. 6:41-51) and the same murmuring continues today.  After Jesus says, I am the bread that came down from heaven; we find the people saying, Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his father and his mother?  In other words, we know this man, how can he say such things?  Why would the omnipresent and all-powerful God reveal himself in a particular and seemingly ordinary person, in a particular place and in a particular time?  The murmuring continues today in a variety of forms.  “I am spiritual but not religious.”  “My God is bigger than your dogma.”  “The Eucharist is not really that important.”  This murmuring demonstrates an approach to faith that is happy to keep things open and generic and also one that easily congratulates itself on being “enlightened”.  But, it also should be noted that it is an approach that keeps any real demands on me at a minimum.  A truly open and generic God will not make particular demands on my life, my time and my desires.

The quote by Jean Vanier also highlights another aspect of the scandal of the particular.  It is rooted in fear.  The fear of having to make that truly necessary but stormy passage of faith from the enthusiasm of discipleship to the gentleness and humility of friendship.  The truth is that there is a part within each of us that prefers discipleship to friendship.  Discipleship is quite respectable and yet it still keeps God and Christ a bit removed.  Christ is the master and we are the disciples and although this is always true the Gospel today should shock us, it ought to shock us, into the recognition that this is not enough for God.

Jesus says, It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ … I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will life forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

God wants our friendship.  

In the very ordinary stuff of bread and wine Christ has chosen to give us his very self – full divinity and full humanity!  The infinite chooses the finite to reveal himself.  The very particularity of Jesus himself and the very particularity and ordinariness of the Eucharist reveals to us that before God is ever an incomprehensible mystery for our reason and intellect to ponder, He is an unfathomable mystery of love to receive.  God has chosen to give Himself for us.  God wants the gentleness and humility of friendship.  We do not need superhuman effort in order to understand something of heaven nor do we need extraordinary mediators to communicate with God.  God is here.  God is present.  Christ gives himself in the Eucharist.  All that we have to do is receive.

As we approach the altar we should be aware of what we are about and what God is about.  We should neither do this half-heartedly nor half-mindedly.  We should be aware that in the Eucharist Christ wants and invites us to undertake that stormy passage of faith from the enthusiasm of discipleship to the gentleness and humility of friendship.  And as we undertake this, we come to realize in the very particular and concrete way of our own life that friendship with Jesus – the Word made flesh – truly becomes the nourishment for our hearts and lives.