In Scripture we hear those words which stand at the center of today’s feast – “This is my body”, “This is my blood.” These words have echoed down through the centuries and will continue to the end of the world. Here in the most unique, continuous and particular way Christ is present to us, His Church. Not by our effort but by His gift – Christ is present in order to nourish and to strengthen us. Here, we receive the very life and love of God. The mystery of the Eucharist is beyond our comprehension and it is a mystery in the true sense of the term; not a puzzle to be figured out in order to then be discarded but a mystery to be lived and appreciated.

But as we reflect today we must remember another key component to this reality of the Eucharist; not only is Christ present in the Eucharist but He is present as a “broken body” and as blood “poured out”. Christ is not present in just any manner in the Eucharist but ultimately as a friend who gives his life for those whom he loves. To have a true awareness of the Eucharist means to be aware of this reality – Christ broken and poured out. And to live as a disciple means to receive this amazing grace and to strive to live the same reality as our Eucharistic Lord – to be broken and to be poured out for others. This is what fulfills the Church’s adoration of the Eucharist.

The Church guards the concreteness of Jesus’ words and venerates his body and blood in the bread and wine, so that He can still be encountered today. We could add that Jesus is not present in the bread and wine in just any way; he is present there as a “broken” body and wine “poured out”, that is, as the one who passes among men and women and does not save himself but gives his entire life, to the point of dying on the cross, until “blood and water” come out from his heart. He held back nothing of himself. He kept nothing for himself, to the very end. That broken body and that poured out wine are a scandal for each one of us and for the entire world, accustomed as we are to living for ourselves and holding back as much as possible of our lives. The bread and wine that are shown to us several times during the holy liturgy contrast with our love for ourselves, with the scrupulous attention we give to our bodies, and with the meticulous care we take to spare ourselves and avoid commitments and exertion. Nonetheless, they are given to us and continue to be broken and poured out so that we might be freed from our slaveries, so that our harshness may be transformed, our greed crumbled, and our self-love scratched. As the bread and wine draw us out of a world turned in on itself and condemned to loneliness, they gather us together and transform us into the one body of Christ. (Quote from Bishop Vincenzo Paglia)

Saint John Chrysostom once wrote, “If you want to honor the body of Christ, do not disdain it when it is nude. Do not honor the Eucharistic Lord with silken vestments, while outside of the church you neglect that other Christ who is naked and afflicted by the cold.” As disciples, we try to live these words, we know we fall short and we pray for forgiveness. Here we pray the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as the risen Lord (his glory hidden) attempts to go a separate way. “Stay with us, because it is almost evening.”

The story of Emmaus (which is a Eucharistic story) reminds us that Christ has made himself humanity’s companion on our long journey through history. Christ walks with us – each and every one of us and us as Church. We are not alone. Christ is among us to comfort, to instruct, to correct; and when we fall short, to forgive. In this awareness of the Eucharist and in this awareness of our own frailty and weakness the most honest prayer we can utter is “Lord, stay with us, because it is almost evening.”

In this video, Mother Teresa reflects on the joyful mystery of the Nativity. 

It is good to ask the question how might Christ be born through me and my actions? 

It is a wonderful thing to develop a new friendship with a saint. 

A while back I came across a reference to St. Josephine Bakhita and following that I kept running into her again and again in my reading.  I have learned over time that when this happens it is something to pay attention to.  (It can be likened to the the saint tapping you on your shoulder; trying to get your attention.)  Eventually I took the hint and I began searching out information on this patron saint of the Sudan.

This last weekend I watched an Italian movie on her life. 

There are many things that strike me about Bakhita’s life but one of the most striking elements is her ability to open hearts.  (Because of this ability it is fitting that Bakhita served as the portress – or doorkeeper – of her community’s house for years.)

St. Bakhita endured great cruelty and prejudice during her life and she overcame it all but she also won over the hearts of many of the very people who caused her suffering.  She did not do this by clever argument or debate or vitriol but by the witness of love and the willingness to forgive.

This ability to open hearts is greatly needed in our world today.  Hearts are closed and fearful. 

We need the doorkeeper saints such as St. Bakhita and also Blessed Andre Bessette to teach us how to open hearts through the witness of love and humility. 

I pray that we as Church have hearts open to learn what the doorkeeper saints have to teach us. 

I have just completed writing an icon that I began a year and a half ago. 

The term “write” is used in regards to icons rather than “painting” because icons are considerd visual theology. 

The icon is of Christ the Tree of Life.  I first encountered this icon through the Community of Sant”Egidio – both on the Community’s website and in its chapel in Rome.  I do not know how old the original image is but I find it be a very powerful and holy image. 

Christ sits surrounded by the twelve apostles.  Christ is the Word of life and the passage that is opened for contemplation is, “I am the vine and you are the branches.”  Some of the apostles hold open books while others hold rolled up scrolls.  To the open books I added scripture passages that speak to the reality of Christ living in us and our life in Christ: Colossians 3:14-15, Ephesians 3:20-21, 1 Corinthians 12;12-13, 1 John 4:14-15 and 1 Peter 1:22-23.

Christ surrounded by his apostles within the context of a “living tree” is, I believe, a wonderful image of Church.  All is focused on Christ who is central and the branches strain toward heaven and the Father.  The twelve apostles remind us of the apostolic nature of the Church – a mark of the Church often unreflected upon in our day.  Christ retains the wounds of the crucifixion as the resurrection experiences recalled in scripture testify.  Even in his glory Christ remains united to the suffering of his Church and all creation.    

In the original icon the Father was pictured at the top of the icon in human form and there was a more ornate and detailed depiction of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.  In the Orthodox Church there has been an instruction that the Father should not be pictured in human form and I agree with this.  We can depict the Son because of the incarnation – the “Word become flesh ” – and we can use the images of the dove, tongues of fire and celestial light for the Holy Spirit but the Father remains beyond our imagings.  In this icon I replaced the image of the Father with rays of light streaming from a central point.  The rays also draw our attention to that point. 

The Holy Spirit unites the Father and the Son.  I simplified the image of the Holy Spirit in this icon.  The living reality of the Church gathered around Christ also exists and grows under the care and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. 

Reflecting on the reality of baptism, Diadochus – a theologian of the early church – writes, “Before a person comes to be baptized, grace is at work, from without, encouraging the soul toward the good, while Satan is at work, from within. After baptism, the contrary is the case. Grace works from within and the demons from without. These continue their work, and work even more evilly than before, but not as present together with grace. The only way they can work is through the promptings of the flesh.”

Today, we as church, reflect on that most profound of mysteries – the Trinity. As Christians we believe and we profess that God is one and that God is three. We are not Unitarians and neither are we Jehovah Witnesses – both of which deny the Trinity. Through the revelation of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit we have been brought to the realization that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God.

I believe that the quote by Diadochus concerning baptism can help bring us to the only point by which we can begin to contemplate this mystery – from within. The mystery of the Trinity is not a problem to be objectively solved or a riddle that can be puzzled through by our wits alone. The Trinity is a mystery to be lived. This mystery demands the involvement and engagement of the whole person – mind, body and spirit.

God began the invitation to this mystery. In John’s gospel we are reminded that, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son … For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17) Through God’s love and God’s initiative (as known in baptism) we are brought into communion with God and into the relationship that is the Trinity.

It is here, in this reality of lived relationship, that we begin our awareness of God as three. Paul – in his second Letter to the Corinthians – writes, “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” (2 Cor. 13:12) Paul firmly connects how we live our lives with the presence of God: “Mend your ways … and the God of love and peace will be with you.” Awareness and knowledge of God can only begin from within. Paul is calling for a sincere examination of conscience here. Are we living our lives in such way that Father, Son and Spirit are welcome to come, reside and be present?

In God’s great revelation to Moses the Lord defines himself by proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” (Ex. 34:6) Again, awareness and knowledge of God can only begin from within. If God defines himself as “merciful” and “slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” then why would he make himself present and known in a heart that lacks these qualities?

God has taken the initiative and invites us into relationship with himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit but this mystery, to be authentically known, must be lived.

It has to begin from within; from how we choose to live our lives.

We are taking a few days this week to do some renovation work here at the Catholic Center.  We are tearing down wall paper, repainting some rooms, doing some minor electrical and general repair work, planting some pompous grass and doing other yardwork. 

Yesterday we did quite a bit of work and have more to do the next couple of days.  But it is coming along. 

Looking at the stripped down walls and the ladders propped here and there I have been reminded of an insight of one of my professors in seminary (Sr. Sara Butler) on the Catholic understanding of the work of God’s grace in our lives: grace rather than being seen as just a “covering over” of self and sin is in fact better likened to the action of renovating a house from within.

God’s grace works from the inside out and, bit by bit in God’s time, it restores and reclaims the whole person – scrubbing down and fixing what needs to be fixed.  All done, in order to make of our whole selves a worthy and welcoming home for the Lord to come and dwell within.   

God wants all of who we are restored to full relationship with him and nothing less, it seems, will do. 

I find this quite comforting.   

On June 13th the Church celebrates the feast of St. Anthony of Padua.  This year’s feast falls the day after our celebration of Pentecost and I found the excerpt from a sermon by the saint offered in today’s Office of Readings to be a great reflection on how to keep the outpouring of the Holy Spirit active in our lives.  Below is the excerpt.

From a sermon by Saint Anthony of Padua, priest

Actions speak louder than words

The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages. These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. We are full of words but empty of actions, and therefore are cursed by the Lord, since he himself cursed the fig tree when he found no fruit but only leaves. Gregory says: “A law is laid upon the preacher to practice what he preaches.” It is useless for a man to flaunt his knowledge of the law if he undermines its teaching by his actions.

But the apostles spoke as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech. Happy the man whose words issue from the Holy Spirit and not from himself! For some men speak as their own character dictates, but steal the words of others and present them as their own and claim the credit for them. The Lord refers to such men and others like them in Jeremiah: So, then, I have a quarrel with the prophets that steal my words from each other. I have a quarrel with the prophets, says the Lord, who have only to move their tongues to utter oracles. I have a quarrel with the prophets who make prophecies out of lying dreams, who recount them and lead my people astray with their lies and their pretensions. I certainly never sent them or commissioned them, and they serve no good purpose for this people, says the Lord.

We should speak, then, as the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of speech. Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment, insofar as he infuses us with his grace, by using our bodily senses in a perfect manner and by keeping the commandments. Likewise we shall request that we may be filled with a keen sense of sorrow and with fiery tongues for confessing the faith, so that our deserved reward may be to stand in the blazing splendor of the saints and to look upon the triune God.

St. Anthony, pray with us and for us!

Here is a thought experiment: picture yourself as a parent looking upon your child.  (For those of you blessed with this role this should be easy.)  As you look upon your child imagine all the love and care that is present in your heart.  Now, multiply this by infinity.  This is what God feels when God looks upon you and me – love multiplied by infinity.  Yet, this depth of love (God to us and us to one another) is so easy to overlook and even forget in the rush and stumblings of life. 

Today we celebrate Pentecost Sunday – the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church.  In our western Christian tradition we often associate the color red with the Holy Spirit (i.e. the “tongues of fire” that come upon those gathered for Pentecost).  Red is indeed a powerful color.  It is a color that flashes and holds ones attention.  In the Orthodox Christian tradition another color associated with the Holy Spirit is green.  If we reflect here for a moment this makes perfect sense.  In the creed we profess our belief in the Holy Spirit as “the Lord, the giver of life”.  Here, in East Tennessee, all we have to do is look around at the myriad shades of green to recognize it as indeed a color which signifies life.

But, just as the depth of love is so present that it is easy to overlook in our lives so is the presence of green easy to take for granted (until, that is, life becomes dry). 

I share this because I believe it is helpful when we think of the Holy Spirit to allow some shadings of green into the equation.  I believe this allowance may expand our thoughts of how God works and even enable us to come to a deeper awareness of true power. 

Today, in our society we like our heroes and superheroes.  It seems that every other movie marketed out of Hollywood is based on some comic book hero (i.e. Superman, Spider-man, Batman, X-men, Thor, Green Lantern) and the plot line remains the same.  In all the scenarios power is strength and determination and it is exercised through brute force and clashes that are anything but subtle and easily overlooked.  In fact, it seems that in every story the whole world both hangs in the balance and holds its collective breath as it stands by and watches the great clash … just hoping for the best.  Power is strength and it forces attention.

But, is this how God (the creator of all and also the “all-powerful”) works?  It does not seem so.  At least, this is not my reading of Christ hanging on the cross.  God’s power does not need to point to itself nor force attention, it seems.  Powerful nations have clashed with great armies throughout the centuries but can any nation cause the sun to rise or set?  Can any nation or science create from nothing even the smallest form of life?  It seems that God’s power is humble – not found in clash and conflict demanding attention – but in love and in life.  That which is easily overlooked.

The gospel today tells us that the disciples had locked themselves in the room out of fear.  But that Christ, risen from the dead, came to them demonstrating a different form of power than that of the world.  This is not a power that points to itself and demands attention but rather one easily overlooked yet it is the power that overcomes fear and brings life and love.  Then Christ breathed on the Church and said, “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  God’s own power, God’s own Spirit – so much at work, so present and yes, so easily overlooked.

“Come, Holy Spirit and enkindle in us the fire of your love!”  

There is much talk today about how we live in such polarized times as a country (red states vs. blue states, this group vs. that group) and as Church (traditionalists, orthodox vs. liberal – however you may wish to define any of these terms) but what more polarized time (at least in our country’s history) could there have been than immediately after the Civil War? 

The day we observe today came about as an opportunity to heal divisions and regain unity.  Memorial Day has much to teach us both as a nation and as Church (for whether we like it or not all the baptized are members of the Body of Christ.) 

Polarization does not serve the unity of the Church.

In the polarized context of our times I think it all the more important to give a listening and truly attentive ear to what Blessed John Paul II wrote in his famous encyclical on the priesthood, “Pastoris Dabo Vobis” (“I Will Give You Shepherds”).

John Paul specifies that priests are to be “men of communion”.  He plants this understanding right in the very communion of the Trinity.

“The priest’s identity,” as the Synod Fathers wrote, “like every Christian identity, has its source in the Blessed Trinity”, which is revealed and is communicated to people in Christ, establishing, in him and through the Spirit, the Church as “the seed and the beginning of the Kingdom”…  

In this way the fundamentally “relational” dimension of priestly identity can be understood.  Through the priesthood which arises from the depths of the ineffable mystery of God, that is, from the love of the Father, the grace of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit’s gift of unity, the priest sacramentally enters into communion with the Bishop and with other priests, in order to serve the People of God who are the Church and to draw all mankind to Christ in accordance with the Lord’s Prayer:  “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one … even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:11,21). 

Pope John Paul II, later in his encyclical, then goes on to reflect on the value of communion in the human formation of priests.

Future priests should therefore cultivate a series of human qualities, not only out of proper and due growth and realization of self, but also with a view to the ministry.  These qualities are needed for them to be balanced people, strong and free, capable of bearing the weight of pastoral responsibilities.  They need to be educated to love the truth, to be loyal, to respect every person, to have a sense of justice, to be true to their word, to be genuinely compassionate, to be men of integrity and, especially, to be balanced in judgment and behaviour…

Of special importance in the capacity to relate to others.  This is truly fundamental for a person who is called to be responsible for a community and to be a “man of communion”.  This demands that the priest not be arrogant, or quarrelsome, but affable, hospitable, sincere in his words and heart, prudent and discreet, generous and ready to serve, capable of opening himself to clear and brotherly relationships and encouraging the same in others, and quick to understand, forgive and console (see also 1 Tim 3:1-5, Tit 1:7-9).  People today are often trapped in situations of standardization and loneliness, especially in large urban centres, and they become ever more appreciative of the value of communion.  Today this is one of the most eloquent signs and one of the most effective ways of transmitting the Gospel message.

I believe it extremely important that today priests be known as “men of communion” and I believe that Blessed John Paul II also believed this.  I think that the above quotes testify to this. 

The words found in the last sentence quoted are truly powerful and bear great weight.  In a time of polarization and isolation; being a “man of communion” is indeed one of the most eloquent signs and one of the most effective ways of transmitting the Gospel message.

The Church, by its very nature established in the heart of the Trinity, must be a place of communion and priests must strive to serve communion. 

In all times and seasons, we as Church set our lives not by the limits and sad resignations of this world (i.e. polarization) but the truth and communion of the Kingdom of God.   

At one point in his ministry our Lord tells us, “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.”  There is an intrinsic power and truth to words that must be respected.  Words convey reality.  John at the very beginning of his gospel gives us a glimpse into this profound connection of words and reality when he writes,

To respect words and their conveyance of reality is to show respect to the very foundation of reality.  To manipulate words is to seek to manipulate truth and to instead choose falsity and illusion over reality.  The manipulation of words is itself a violent act.  It is an act of self-centered pride ultimately doomed to frustration and failure precisely because it is based in falsity. 

These conversations have led me to the essay, “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” by Josef Pieper.  I would like to share a few quotes from his essay that I believe are worthy of note and consideration. 

Pieper then goes on to flesh out the interpersonal character of speech by the use of a negative:

Further Pieper writes,

Pieper then carries this through to a prophetic warning,

The degradation, too, of man through man, alarmingly evident in the acts of physical violence committed by all tyrannies (concentration camps, torture), has its beginning, certainly much less alarmingly, at the almost imperceptible moment when the word loses its dignity.  The dignity of the word, to be sure, consists in this: through the word is accomplished what no other means can accomplish, namely, communication based on reality.

I share this because I believe we live in a time when language is being abused and manipulated.   The temptation in this is to return “like for like.”  But here is where the above quoted teaching of our Lord is essentially important for the disciple.  When so many seem to prefer the choice of illusion over reality; disciples, all the more, must make sure that our yes means yes and our no means no.  Ours is and must be a different choice.
 
By so doing we will all the more stand out and our words, rather than just being “mere monologue” that might have flash but really accomplish nothing, will harmonize with the very truth of creation and even share in the very power of that truth.