Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus

Corpus Christi 7:30 2007 Ruth went to her mail box and there was only one letter. She picked it up and looked at it before opening, but then she looked at the envelope again. There was no stamp, no postmark, only her name and address. She read the letter: Dear Ruth, I’m going to be in your neighborhood Saturday evening and I’d like to stop by for a visit. Love Always, Jesus Her hands were shaking as she placed the letter on the table. “Why would the Lord want to visit me? I’m nobody special. I don’t have anything to offer.” With that thought, Ruth remembered her empty kitchen cabinets. “Oh my goodness, I really don’t have anything to offer. I’ll have to run down to the store and buy something for dinner.” She reached for her purse and counted out its contents. Five dollars and forty cents. “Well, I can get some bread and cold cuts, at least.” She threw on her coat and hurried out the door. A loaf of French bread, a half-pound of sliced turkey, and a carton of milk...leaving Ruth with grand total of twelve cents to last her until Monday. Nonetheless, she felt good as she headed home, her meager offerings tucked under her arm. “Hey lady, can you help us, lady?” Ruth had been so absorbed in her dinner plans, she hadn’t even noticed two figures huddled in the alleyway. A man and a woman, both of them dressed in little more than rags. “Look lady, I ain’t got a job, ya know, and my wife and I have been living out here on the street, and, well, now it’s getting cold and we’re getting kinda hungry and, well, if you could help us, lady, we’d really appreciate it.” Ruth looked at them both. They were dirty, they smelled bad and, frankly, she was certain that they could get some kind of work if they really wanted to. “Sir, I’d like to help you, but I’m a poor woman myself. All I have is a few cold cuts and some bread, and I’m having an important guest for dinner tonight and I was planning on serving that to Him.” “Yeah, well, okay lady, I understand. Thanks anyway.” The man put his arm around the woman’s shoulders, turned and headed back into the alley. As she watched them leave, Ruth felt a familiar twinge in her heart. “Sir, wait!” The couple stopped and turned as she ran down the alley after them. “Look, why don’t you take this food. I’ll figure out something else to serve my guest.” She handed the man her grocery bag. “Thank you lady. Thank you very much!” “Yes, thank you!” It was the man’s wife, and Ruth could see now that she was shivering. “You know, I’ve got another coat at home. Here, why don’t you take this one.” Ruth unbuttoned her jacket and slipped it over the woman’s shoulders. Then smiling, she turned and walked back to the street...without her coat and with nothing to serve her guest. “Thank you lady! Thank you very much!” Ruth was chilled by the time she reached her front door, and worried too. The Lord was coming to visit and she didn’t have anything to offer Him. She fumbled through her purse for the door key. But as she did, she noticed another envelope in her mailbox. “That’s odd. The mailman doesn’t usually come twice in one day.” She took the envelope out of the box and opened it. Dear Ruth, It was so good to see you again. Thank you for the lovely meal. And thank you, too, for the beautiful coat. Love Always Jesus This, of course, is a fictitious story but it does put flesh on Jesus’ words, Whatsoever … In receiving Jesus in Communion, you may be as solemn as a cloistered monk, as fervent as a first communicant. But the proof of your devotion to Jesus Eucharistic extends beyond the moment of Communion. The proof, for example, is not what you do or how you act here in church but how you care for others out there in your daily life. You all know from your experience that it is much easier to be pious here in church than to be patient, forgiving and loving in your daily interpersonal relationships. Just as Jesus feeds you here with himself as the bread of life, so you are to feed those in need with the bread of your life with generosity as did the woman in our story. You are to feed them not only with material food as is done, forexample, in a soup kitchen but also you are to feed them with your concern, your time, your helpfulness, your kindness, your affirmations. You come here to Eucharist not so much to serve God but to learn how God breaks bread that you can do it in the same way. Like David, for example, who shared the sacred bread of the Temple with his soldiers, like Jesus who shares the bread become his flesh, so too you are to share the bread of your life with everyone, deserving or not. Bread is sustenance. So you are to sustain others with the nourishment of your Christian love. Not by being “preachy” but by the way you live his word. E.g. living his parable of the prodigal son by forgiving someone before he or she is able even to say, I’m sorry. Your loving service to those in need will make your devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist more concrete, more intimate. Macrina Wiederkehr in her book, A Tree Full of Angels, offers us a wonderful connection between the Eucharist and ourselves. She writes, Each of us is called to be bread for the world. Can’t you at least be bread for those around you just as Jesus is bread for you, feeding them with the nourishment of your own spirituality? Humorous: A man climbs to the top of the snow- covered mountain. He is wondering, “Can God really hear me from here?” So he yells, “God, what should I do with my life?” God answers, “Feed the hungry.” “Oh,” said the man. “I was just testing.” “So was I,” God retorted. Thought: Always be bread for others.

Today's Youth

TODAY’S YOUTH (an editorial) We hear so much bad stuff about teens. Negative criticisms spread like a darkening web of ink on soft paper. There are derogative pictures of gangs hanging around lazy street corners, simmering with anger until the lid blows off into the terror of casual, unnecessary, wanton violence. Then there is Paris H. and her gang of glamorous hoodlums. During this graduation time, I’ve been privileged to associate with many young people who are, for want of a more captivating word, wonderful. They are respectful. Self-assured. Compassionate. Talented. Witty and humorous. Intelligent, each in his and her own way. It’s a shame that young people today are painted with the broad brush of being rebellious, aloof, self-indulgent, petty, selfish, sarcastic, loathing, belligerent, hostile. These characteristics make for TV blaring headlines. For example, Paris Hilton going to jail got more coverage than the Iraq war. Then there were 5 second cuts of a high school or college graduation. Anything for pretentious sensationalism. Anything to feed the gluttonous hunger for gossip. Anything to make people feel narcotically superior. Now to be balanced, some local TV stations do feature an athlete of the week, describing in Spartan words what the young person also does in getting involved in social works. I am amazed, although as a former high school Principal, I really shouldn’t be, at the iron-willed potential of the young people who are graduating from schools today. I have this conviction that these young people, at least the ones I know, fulfill Dorothy Day’s insight: “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution that has to start with each one of us?” It is my hope and prayer that the young people today will use their God-given talents, abilities, aptitudes, skills, competence, capabilities, in a word, potential, to bring about Dorothy Day’s “revolution of the heart.” A gospeled revolution that constructively makes justice, peace, tolerance, hope, reconciliation, the benefit of the doubt as visible as a noonday summer sun. John Shea in his book, Eating With the Bridegroom, stated, “Love is not just wanting the good for another; love is working to bring about that good.” This is the kind of love we should be calling our young people to. They are, I’m convinced, eager to answer this call. They really want to work for the good of others as opposed to a me-first, narcissistic, self-centered egotism. One aspect of young people I find most reassuring is that they do not take themselves seriously, but do take the problems of current issues quite seriously. If they do take up the “revolution of the heart” as their own, it won’t be for their own crown of glory, but for the halo of a renewed society. Who will inspire them? Will it be the hierarchy and priestly caste of our Church who seem to be more involved in handing down mandates than serving the People of God? Will it be our elected officials who seem to start running for re-election as soon as they step foot into D.C.? Will it be teachers who seem to be more interested in getting through a curriculum than making sure their students are lifelong learners? Will it be professors who seem to devote more time to research than actually teaching, whose lectures could be delivered by way of a tape recorder? Will it be parents who seem to be more concerned about their marriages and future security than about disciplining and motivating their children? Perhaps I’m being too tough in my appraisals. But there does seem to be a shortage of inspiration in the land. Notice, please, that I consistently used the verb, seem. I did that deliberately so as not to be absolutely judgmental and leave room for disagreement. The ones who will inspire our young people will be those who are faithful to Jesus’ teachings, not mitigated or exacerbated by bureaucratic red tape. As Thomas Carolyn says in his book, Will the Real God Please Stand Up? “Fidelity is a person’s characteristic which constantly inspires in others a sense of confidence and trust.” The ones who will inspire our young people are those who dare to use their imaginations to visualize how people can be transformed for the better according to the spirit of the gospel. Denise Priestly reinforces this insight in her book, Bringing Forth In Hope: Being Creative In A Nuclear Age, “Our self-understanding will be shaped through our engagement with Scripture; and as we make use of our imaginations, new possibilities for the future will emerge.” Will we adults be willing and ready to accept this challenge of inspiring our young people? I pray that we will.

WAR NO MORE

WAR NO MORE (an editorial) Pope Paul VI proclaimed to the U. N., with the prophetic voice of a universal conscience, “War no more, war no more! Yet as we look around our tiny globe, all we see is warfare and genocide. There is the war in Iraq, war between Israelis and Palestinians, genocide in Darfur, Africa, warfare in our own nation in the robberies and murders perpetrated on innocent people. In Iraq, as of May 2007, 122 U. S. troops were killed and 1,949 Iraqis were killed. And 16 U.S. soldiers were killed in the first three days of June, 2007. Warfare has become as taken for granted as breathing. The number of U. S. troops killed in Iraq is now over 3,000. The number of wounded is over 25,000. Our Government has spent over $300 billion on this tragic war. Imagine what could have been done for the benefit of our own citizens with that amount of money. Oh, there are those who say, “Look at the positive side: we’ve built hospitals and schools; there have been free elections in Iraq etc. But at what cost? This present war in Iraq is as unnecessary as wearing a raincoat on a sun drenched beach. In a world of total war, a world on the brink of destruction, only one kind of sanctity bears fruit -- the one that Jesus preached and embodied: daring nonviolence that refuses to kill no matter the pretext. What is desperately needed today is a willingness to die without a trace of retaliation; a universal love for everyone, even the enemy; and public, prophetic, outspoken defiance of patriotic militarism and state violence. In an insane world, we who call ourselves followers of Jesus must refuse to fight, refuse to kill, refuse to be complicit in warmaking, refuse to compromise -- and pit our very selves against structures of violence with all the nonviolence in our souls. It’s not easy to be nonviolent. For example, when a murderer kills and dismembers the body of an innocent child, our blood boils to the point of explosion. Or, for example, when someone you thought was a close friend and confidant knifes you in the back by revealing a secret you only told to her, you fell like strangling her. Or when barbaric suicidal maniacs fly planes into buildings here in our own nation, it’s easy to arouse the citizens to the point of mass hysteria and with national clenched fists to be hell bent on getting even. It’s not easy being nonviolent. And so the citizens watch passively as young men and women are sent off to a war that cannot be justified any more than we can make a square circle. Then the citizens go back to their daily routines and duties and only once in a while notice that the number of military people who have been killed is increasing. But they don’t remember what the previous number was so they don’t recognize the significance of the most recent number. As long as no bodies are being returned from the battle field to their homes, their attention is easily diverted to other interests and other endeavors. Inattention or indifference becomes the new nonviolence. The fact is that this is not nonviolence; it is apathy as common as ignoring the commercials on TV. Now the question is: Should those in the Church both clergy and lay make an effort to jolt the attention of the people into the realization that there should be War No More? Now the more important question is: How do we do this jolting? Sister Joan Chittister, the peace and justice activist, offers an answer as clear as church bells: “We must continue the climb up the many mountains to which we have been sent in order to light the way for a world reeling from the anguish of the hungry in our streets, the danger of ecological devastation, the obscenity of war as a political strategy, the sins of systemic oppression, the stench of corporate greed, and the heresy of sexism. Anything else is to make religious life a sinkhole, a swamp of pretended piety, a prophetic promise unfulfilled.” It’s a statement worth pondering for a lifetime. The fact is that it is impossible to talk about or preach peace without mentioning warfare and the current war is in Iraq. How did the Iraqis become our enemies? We made them our enemies. It’s easy to make war when we demonize the people of another nation. If it is leftist to preach peace then Jesus was leftist and that’s why he was crucified. Blessed Pope John XXIII in his encyclical, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), emphasized that respect of human rights is an essential consequence of the Christian understanding of all people. He clearly establishes, “That everyone has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life...” The continuing assaults of warfare are proof of the total lack of respect societies and governments have for human life. Human life can be discarded on the garbage heap of non essential values. Human life is cheap and can be misused or abused carelessly and endlessly. It is time for those who claim to be followers of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the Nonviolent Christ, to stand up and proclaim with words and actions, “War No More!”