August 5, 2021
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B) on August 1, 2021, at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Psalm 78; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; and John 6:24-35.
Last week in the Gospel of John, Jesus fed over five thousand people with a few loaves and fish. He then crossed the sea to his home base in Capernaum, but the people were so excited about his recent miracle that they quickly followed him there.
Jesus responds to them with the famous of “Bread of Life” discourse, which we will hear over the next four weeks. This is a great time to focus on the Eucharist, the source and summit of our lives. But today, in the first part of the discourse, the people listening to Jesus probably thought he was speaking in metaphors.
So today, we’re going to name a lot of valid metaphors for understanding what the Eucharist is. Hopefully, a few of them will give us new insights for our contemplation over the next several weeks.
As we prepare to receive the most Blessed Sacrament once again, let us ask once again for God’s mercy.
Over the past three decades, I’ve participated in many lectures, workshops, and conventions about the Eucharist. At one Eucharistic Congress that I attended a number of years ago, there were three keynote speakers on a single day. (This is a true story, although it sounds like a joke!)
First up was a scripture scholar. He boldly proclaimed his thesis: “I’m going to talk about the Eucharist as three things: the Eucharist as a sacrifice, the Eucharist as a meal, and the Eucharist as the real presence of Jesus Christ.” He then went on to expand on his theme for more than 30 minutes.
After a short break, the second speaker – the rector of a large seminary – began his keynote quietly, saying: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I listened to the professor’s address,” he explained sheepishly, “and I’m afraid that he stole my thunder. I will be talking about the Eucharist as meal, sacrifice, and… real presence.”
Later in the day, a famous bishop flew in to give the final keynote. He came into the hall trailed by the Catholic equivalent of paparazzi, and when he finally ascended to the stage, he told many jokes. But eventually, blissfully ignorant of all that had transpired in the morning, he settled into his address, declaring: “Mass is a sacrifice, a family meal, and the real presence of Jesus Christ.”
Now, I am not disagreeing with these speakers, although I must admit that I tuned out to the third keynote. The Eucharist is a sacrifice, which I probably be preaching about in two weeks, if the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary wasn’t going to take the place of our regularly-scheduled gospel reading that day. The Eucharist is a meal, as last Sunday’s gospel made abundantly clear. And the Eucharist is the real presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which we will likely discuss more on the weekend of August 22.
But the Eucharist is not just a sacrifice, not just a meal, and not just the real presence of Jesus. It prepares us for heaven. As the First Letter of John advises us, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Eucharist bring us closer to seeing God as God is. When St. Augustine presided at the Easter Vigil in the early 5th century, he presented the consecrated bread and wine to the newly baptized and confirmed adults, proclaiming: “Believe what you see, see what you believe, and become what you are: the Body of Christ.”
As Christians, it is our mission to become the Body of Christ. As Christians, it is also out mission to bring others into the Body of Christ, for us to become Eucharist for others. In the words of today’s song during the Preparation of the Gifts, “May we who eat, be bread for others.”
Here are three more dimensions of the Eucharist, in rapid succession:
- It is our mystical communion with the saints and relatives who’ve gone before us and with those generations of believers yet to be born.
- It is a sign of unity among all Catholics around the world.
- It is the healing touch of God.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, writes,
In truth, the Eucharist is all of these things, and more. It is like a finely cut diamond twirling in the sun, every turn giving off a different sparkle. It is multivalent, carrying different layers of meaning, some of them in paradoxical tension with others. There is, even in scripture, no single theology of the Eucharist, but instead there are various complementary theologies of the Eucharist.
Or as my friend Pauline, a published novelist, says,
Stories, like sacraments, have different levels of meaning. You don’t have to choose just one. Understanding the Eucharist doesn’t mean limiting ourselves to the right answer – ‘that’s not wine, it’s Christ’s blood.’ With God, it’s ‘yes/and’… not ‘either/or.’ We’re used to thinking that you have to nail everything down to one meaning, but God doesn’t see the way we see. It can be bread and body, God and human, flesh and soul, symbol and real, as personal as the most intimate relationship and as public as a Mardi Gras parade. However many dimensions we can see, there will always be a new one to find.
While the pandemic separated many of us from the Eucharist this past year, and as the delta variant threatens to separate us again, we need to ask ourselves: how are we being the Eucharist even when we are unable to receive the Eucharist? Whether or not we attend Mass during the time of pandemic restrictions, the Eucharist should still propel us out of our solitude to show the world that we are changed people.
The Eucharist is a meal, and a sacrifice, and the real presence of Jesus Christ. But we can’t leave it there. Does the Eucharist really make a difference to us? In the world, there is still poverty, selfishness, racism and hatred, and the world continues to tolerate all that we should be on fire to change with the love of Christ burning within in our very bodies. The only way to prove that the Eucharist makes a difference to us… is to actually become what it is that we receive.