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Daily Scripture

+ 7th Week of Easter

We are to be consecrated in truth.

Readings: Acts 20:28-38 Psalm 88:29-30, 33-36 John 17:11b-19

Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they may also be consecrated in truth. [John 17:18-19]

Read the Gospel very slowly and if possible, out loud and if necessary, three times! Although John’s literary style is quite complex, the farewell prayer of Jesus is as powerful as is Paul’s farewell message in Acts.

It is not likely that these passages are the actual words of Paul and Jesus. They are compositions that Luke and John or whoever wrote in their name and are based on the oral tradition of the sayings of Jesus and the preaching of Paul. They were written in the style of farewell addresses of prominent leaders of their times in order to win the attention of early believers to whom the message of truth was entrusted.

The ‘truth’ that is being proclaimed is not from a catechism nor is it a defined doctrine or dogma. It is the core truth about the God who spoke through the prophets and then through Jesus about the universality of God’s love.

During this time of immediate preparation for Pentecost, we are invited to think about our own responsibility to pass on the ‘truth’ of God’s goodness entrusted to us in Christ and how we are to live that truth in our daily lives, each in our own unique way. No one of us can do this alone and so we much join hands literally and figuratively within the community of believers everywhere.

To live the ‘truth’ is to live in the Spirit of Jesus Christ the fruits of which are charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, moderation, self-control, reverence, etc. I’m sure you memorized these ‘fruits of the Holy Spirit.’

These are the true ‘marks’ of our authenticity as believers.

Feast of Corpus Christi 'B'

Sunday June 18, 2006

“Let us proclaim the Mystery of Faith”

On a small ‘plateau’ in the heart of the Green Mountains of Vermont, there is a small community of Benedictine monks. Located just outside of the little village of Weston, the community is known as “Weston Priory.”

For over thirty years, I drove to the priory for my annual retreat. In those years, the guesthouse was attached to the priory chapel and common dinning room. There were six ‘cells’ for six ‘men’. Due to the complexities of schedules — theirs and mine — I have not been able to get to Weston for a full retreat for over three years;—a genuine loss for me, to be sure.

In any event, the “brothers,” as they are known, follow the the ancient rule of Benedict with appropriate contemporary adjustments. Their location in the mountains has not distanced them from the hungers of the world. They pray, work and study and they participate in lively discussions about complex issues that face humanity—local and global. They break bread periodically with members of their brother and sister priories south of the border in Mexico in order to experience first hand, the devastating poverty that still exists in our own hemisphere. They continue to provide sanctuary for a Guatemalan family that was driven out of their homeland over twenty years ago due to their involvement in human rights causes in the face of a corrupt government.

The celebration of the Eucharist is central to their day and central to their lives not only as monks but also as members of a global village. Their celebrations attract participants of a variety of religious traditions and there is a place at their table for people of good faith and good will no matter what the difference or distance.

On this feast of Corpus Christi, we celebrate our inclusivity and unity in Christ in the midst of diversity in a world which seems ever more intent on exclusivity—those who belong and those who don’t. But St Paul in his letter to the Galatians stated: “For all who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” [Galatians 3:28]

It is through this eucharist table that we remain connected as the family of God. That’s why it is essential that we gather here on the Lord’s Day “in season and out of season, when convenient and inconvenient.”

Saint Augustine said that we become the bread that we eat—living bread for the salvation of the world. Saint Augustine also said: “We gaze on our own mystery. What we are looking at is ourselves, the Body and Blood of Christ—that which we already are and aspire to be even more.”

This is why as Christians we cannot be indifferent to the hungers of the world—material and spiritual. This may well be our greatest challenge as contemporary Catholic Christians, greater than dogmatic or doctrinal distinctions, liturgical linguistics and certainly greater than the minutiae of legalisms that pertain more to official institutional status than to citizenship in God’s dominion.

As we contemplate the mystery of Eucharist that we celebrate each week, we are challenged to reconcile the differences among us that distort the truth of who we are in God’s sight. It’s the most important thing we do every week. In fact, people who leave the Church miss it and people estranged from the church come back because of it.

It is imperative then, that we keep our tables connected—this table, our family table and of course, the table of humanity.

It is more than appropriate that the feast of Corpus Christi coincides this year with ‘Father’s Day’ on which we celebrate not only the dignity of fatherhood but also the nature of fathers as nurturer’s of the Spirit of God.

I think we have or should have come a long way from those days when fathers were viewed as either disciplinarians of the household or damn fools. These are stereotypes which even the more sophisticated TV fare has abandoned but alas, there may still be some vestiges in some quarters—present company, excluded of course.

Fathers nurture differently than mothers but both are important and necessary and even in ‘one parent’ families, surrogate fathers are able to complement and compliment the unique qualities that fathers bring to a family. Single parents with God’s help develop both the qualities of both mother and father to compensate one for the other.

We have come to the point in faith that we recognize these different nurturing qualities in the God we address comfortably as mother and father—the nurturing God in whom we find the wonderful qualities of both man and woman, of mother and father, of grandmother and grandfather.

After my mom passed away, my dad became my best friend and to this day despite his physical absence, we ‘converse’ about things that only dads can fully appreciate.

Both mothers and fathers give their lives to and for their children, each in different ways. That’s exactly what we recognize and celebrate at this table every week and many of us, every day.

“While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gate it to them, and said, ‘Take it, this is my body.’” This is my life for you!

“Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them.” This is my blood—this is my life poured out for you! “And they all drank from it.”

We become what we eat and the blood that we drink surges through our veins giving life to every cell and joy to every moment.

“As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me!”