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Daily Scripture

+ 7th Week of Easter

Much ado about nothing or, is there something to it?

Readings: Acts 19:1-8 Psalm 68:2-7 John 16:29-33

Paul traveled through the interior of the country and down to Ephesus where he found some disciples. He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They answered him, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” [Acts 19:1-3]

Depending on one’s sacramental theology and pastoral practice, this text has been variously interpreted. For example, those who work with the RCIA (catecheumenate) hold that the sacrament of Confirmation should be administered with Baptism as it was in the early Church. It is one of the sacraments of initiation—Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. The Eastern Rite of the Roman Catholic Church has retained the tradition of administering all three at Baptism. Yes, the infant receives a small piece of the Eucharist bread. And so in the Eastern Rite, there is no formal celebration of First Holy Communion at the age of reason or Confirmation by the bishop at whatever age the local diocese has determined the age of maturity appropriate for Confirmation. All three sacraments are administered shortly after birth.

Others feel that the celebration of First Communion and Confirmation at a later age ensures the participation of youngsters in parish religious education programs – at least until Confirmation. In this case, many Catholics view Confirmation as the completion of or graduation from religious studies.

In recent years I have become convinced that the RCIA folks and the Eastern Rite Catholics have it right. All three sacraments of initiation should be administered together. First Holy Communion and Confirmation have become more social than spiritual. I do not mean to suggest that there is no connection or that there should be no celebration after sacramental ceremonies but for many, the accent is on the wrong syllable.

The path from Baptism to Christian maturity is life-long and the benchmarks for progress are not easily measured by grouping children by age or grade level for a period of preparation that is largely academic.

This is not to suggest that religious education is optional. Faith development is unique to each person within the context first of family and then of parish. Religious education / formation is intended to provide insight into faith development at an age-appropriate level.

Catholicism has become ‘child-centered’ the result of which, we have an adult population whose religious and spiritual development stopped at Confirmation.

The celebration of Eucharist is the primary setting for faith formation. Religious education is a necessary component but detached from Eucharist, it remain just another subject to master.

Of course this all assumes that the parish celebration of the Eucharist is truly inclusive and meaningful rather than just an empty ritual. The parish at worship should be a rendition of a community of faith that strives to live its faith ‘in the town square’ as I mentioned in Sunday’s homily.

Notwithstanding my commitment to religious dialogue, I do believe that effective dialogue is based on the assumption that although both parties are knowledgeable about the topic. Though they may have different perspectives, they are not based on ignorance of the subject.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'B'

Sunday August 2, 2009

Look beyond the bread you eat.

“Babette’s Feast” is a wonderful 1987 Oscar winning film based on a short story by Isak Dinesen. It is filled with rich symbolism, wit and in the words of a Newsweek review, “robust humanity” that depicts the transformation of a ‘community’ of strangers into a feast of friends through a French gourmet meal. The setting is on the desolate coast of Denmark where Martina and Philippa, devout daughters of their very stern father and clergyman who preached salvation through rigid self-denial. Despite opportunities for romance, marriage, and a career in music, they carried on the mission of their father to a stoic and Spartan life-style long after his death until the arrival of Babette a colorful refugee of the French civil war whom they had hired as a servant. The beauty of the story is in the wisdom of the charming Babette who in the preparation for the feast brings out of the disparate group of strangers a new vision of what living the Christian life could be like when experienced as a feast.

How often have we read in the Scriptures a reference to the kingdom of God as a feast or banquet?

What would life be without food? What would life be without bread?

This is a question I used to ask young candidates for First Communion during family night. On this occasion, first communion candidates and their families would gather in the church for their final preparation for the feast – their First Holy Communion. All the candidates were asked to bring a loaf of their favorite bread. Many of the moms or dads baked their own bread. The session opened with an invitation to each candidate to stand in turn before the gathering to tell us his or her name and then name their favorite bread as they held it aloft. “My name is Kenny and my favorite bread is….” The variety of breads included everything from plain white to zucchini and potato bread and a hundred other names I had never heard before. The church had the fragrance of a large bakery.

I explained that although we come from different families and like the bread, we are all very different, when we gather in the name of Jesus, we become one family. After a bit of dialogue with the children, we retired to the gymnasium where they made Eucharistic banners attaching their names to each banner that would be hung on their family pew at the celebration of first Communion. And then they shared their bread from a common table.

The ceremony was rich in symbol and broadened their understanding of the Eucharist. It was an effort to raise their consciousness and that of their parents to look beyond the sign and the symbols to see that Jesus feeds us not just with bread but also with his very life. In effect, in the words of St. Paul, they needed not just to learn about Jesus but they had to learn Jesus by living Jesus – at an age appropriate level.

Yes, to learn Jesus is to live Jesus. That’s what we come to celebrate at this table.

In today’s gospel, Jesus challenges those who followed him to Capernaum to look beyond the bread that he had give them on the side of the hill. In essence he was saying, “Yes God provided manna to your ancestors in the desert, but the bread that God is providing is more than food for your body. It is wisdom for your soul.” In chapter fourteen of John’s Gospel, Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way, the truth and the life. Those who live in me will not die but live.” In other words, those who partake of this food will be transformed and live a new kind of life but here again, he was not just speaking of bread but of the totality of his life and lifestyle.

When John describes Jesus as the new manna and the bread of life, he means Jesus as the “divine sophia” or wisdom of life. To the extent that we live in Jesus, we are able to respond to life’s challenges with insight, courage, grace, and dignity. Indeed, rather than cave into or melt down before them, we will grow through these challenges. Moreover, in Christ we are able to look beyond the bread and see one another as our sisters and brothers. We are challenged to look beyond the brokenness of life to new horizons that brings justice to our world and healing and peace to troubled hearts.

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul suggests to us that we cannot go it alone nor as “believers” can we trust the wisdom of the world — the desire for profit, material success. We must raise to consciousness the Spirit we received at baptism which in fact gave us the radical capacity and potential to live our humanity to the fullest with our eyes set on the higher goal of eternal life -salvation.

John tells us that eternal life-salvation is a gift that was given to us at baptism that continues throughout our lives to generate the wisdom and grace to think with God, to respond with Christ and to do the right thing. We need to come to this ‘Gospel table’ together and drink in the wisdom of God’s word and to this Eucharist table to become the bread that we eat—not just to survive but also to flourish.

As our ancestors of old grumbled in the desert, we sometimes whine and grumble and pine for the good old days while ignoring the bad old days.

But we can’t go back to the old days. We need to remain steadfast in the present and move confidently into the future. Indeed, “[we] do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”