August 23, 2009
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
Twenty-first Sunday, Year B, August 23rd, 2009
There’s the story told of a young man on a first date. He spent the first fifteen minutes talking non-stop about himself, paused, then said, “well, that’s enough about me, what do you think about me?” He is in for a rude awakening, as he discovers that “she’s just not that into you.”
This is an extreme case of self-centeredness, but all of us fallen human beings suffer from one degree or another of this self-centeredness, this tendency to worship the false god of the self, to spend too much time thinking and talking about ourselves.
Does this really make us happy, to be so self-centered? We have to make a decision, like the Israelites in the first reading, and choose whom we will serve (Jos 24: ) and where we will put our faith: in the false god of the self, or in Jesus Christ, with His difficult teaching that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have life in us. In our modern secular world, there is very little danger of worshiping pagan idols of silver and gold, but there is a very strong temptation to relativism, subjectivism, the worship of self, an obsessive concern with my thoughts, my plans, my desires, etc . . .
It really is an either/or decision. You cannot server God and mammon. You cannot serve Jesus Christ and self. We see that in today’s Gospel there were really only two kinds of disciples: 1) those who “turned back” (eis ta opiso) in upon themselves and no longer “walked” (peripateo) with Jesus (Jn 6:66) and 2) those that remained faithful to Jesus. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn 6:69).
Jesus makes faith in Him dependent on faith in the Eucharist: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6: ). Some people think that coming to Mass on Saturday/Sunday and receiving Holy Communion might help their relationship with Jesus. No. It doesn’t “help” our relationship with Jesus; it is our relationship with Jesus. Our faith in Holy Communion is our faith in Jesus Christ. Our attitude toward Mass is our attitude toward Jesus Christ.
Where are your thoughts right now? “Where your treasure is, there will be your heart” (Lk 12:34). Where your thoughts are reveals where your heart is. Are you thinking about Jesus or thinking about yourself? “How can I serve you better, Lord?” or “I wonder what I will have for dinner tonight . . . I have some frozen hamburgers, but I think I’ll have to get some buns . . . hmm . . .”
Our faith in the Eucharist is our faith in Jesus Christ. And make no mistake about it: Jesus expects great faith from us and He does not hesitate to challenge people through His teaching that He is present Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in what appears to be a piece of bread. “This teaching is difficult,” many of His contemporaries complained, “who can accept it?” (Jn 6:60). It is a “great mystery” (Eph 5:32), this loving union of Christ with His Church in Holy Communion.
Jesus expects from us great faith. In the Gospels, three levels of faith are mentioned: first, absence of faith. When Jesus returned to Nazareth and the people did not accept Him, He was “amazed at their unbelief” (Mk 6:6) (usually translated “lack of faith” but apistia literally means “unbelief” or “absence of faith”). Second, Jesus often admonished His disciples calling them, “ye of little faith” (Mt 14:31). Third, at times He praised people, like the Canaanite woman, saying, “Oh, woman, great is your faith” (Mt 15:28).
Unbelief, little faith or great faith. Jesus is calling all of us to great faith. I have a little prop here for a moment of children’s liturgy. Children can you all see this chart from the back, can you see what it is? (Semi-circle divided into 4 pie pieces, coloured green, yellow, orange and red, with an arrow in the green section). Have you ever gone camping and seen one of these charts? It is used to indicate the level of risk of forest fires. In a wet month like this past July, the arrow would have been in the green section: very damp and very low risk of forest fire. With the hot weather we have been experiencing in August, the arrow would be moving up a bit, perhaps into yellow or orange. As a child going on holiday in Nova Scotia, I always liked seeing the arrow in the red section, not because I liked forest fires, but because it meant the weather was hot and sunny, good for the beach and swimming!
This chart can also be used to indicate our level of faith in Jesus and in the Eucharist. Do we have a lack of faith, little faith or great faith? Are we cold, warm or hot in our relationship with God? On the forest fire chart, the arrow moves according to changes in the environment, in the weather.
But we human beings are not mere products of our environment; we are children of God with free will. So on the faith chart, we ourselves, with God’s help, can choose where the arrow goes (choose this day whom you will serve).
I have mentioned before the Canadian Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor and his book A Secular Age. In about 700 hundred pages, he tries to answer the question: why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000, it is so easy not to believe? (25). What happened? 1500 was an age of faith (arrow in red section); the whole social environment was one of faith in God, so it was much easier for individuals to believe in God. Now, we live in a secular age (arrow in the green section); the whole social environment in which we live is one of relativism, skepticism, subjectivism, worship of self. It is much more difficult for an individual to believe.
But in every age, Jesus Christ speaks to individuals, calling each person to great faith in Him. And He provides all the grace we need to believe. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Mt 17:20). Some might say, “well, that is just a metaphor.” Really? What about walking on water? St. Peter literally walked on water. When he began to fear and started sinking, Jesus grabbed hold of him and said, “O you of little faith.” But what great faith St. Peter had to do the impossible even for 30 seconds – to walk on water (Mt 14:29). If we have great faith in Jesus, all things are possible.
I don’t think there’s anyone here who would not like to have greater faith in Jesus. I do. This past year, from September to June, has been a challenging year for me with my anxious personality and my added duties as vocations director. I know Jesus is calling me to greater faith in Him.
Do you want more faith? Jesus Himself wants to give you more faith in Him: “if you want it, you got it,” but you have to truly desire more faith. What has happened to the level of your faith in the last five years? (And I can ask that because I have now been here five years, and I have been observing you, praying for you, loving you, for five years). Has your arrow moved at all in five years, from cold to hot, or is your arrow stuck in the exact same place it was five years ago?
If you are stuck, how can you get unstuck? You can start by being fed up, and saying, “I don’t want to be the center of my life anymore. I have tried it over the last five years (or more) and it has not made me happy. I’m tired of worrying about my life and always thinking about myself. I want Jesus – Jesus in the Eucharist – to be the center of my life. ‘Enough about me, Lord, what about you? What do you want me to do?’”
If we want more faith, we have to do what Jesus told us to do: repent and believe the Good News (Mk 1:15), to repent of our self-centeredness, and turn away from self to Jesus, which is essential for happiness in any relationship. My homily is not focused on the second reading on marriage, but I mention it in passing as an example. St. Paul advises husbands and wives to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21). To love and serve the other; to think of the other and not be centered on self, all out of reverence for Christ. “Enough about me, what about you? How are you doing?”
I could easily speak for 20 minutes on ways to increase our faith in Jesus, but I am running out of time, so I will have to be brief. Essential to repentance and conversion is confession. If you want to grow in faith in Jesus, confess your sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation – regularly – and you will grow in faith.
If you desire more faith in Jesus, then go straight to Him and ask Him point blank in the words of the apostles, “Lord, increase my faith” (Lk 17:5). Go straight to Him where He can be found, not in the clouds, but here, truly present, in the Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. If you want more faith in Jesus, then truly worship Him, here and now, in the Mass. Think of him, talk to Him, listen to Him. Come to Mass early to pray, and after, say a prayer of thanksgiving.
Come to a weekday Mass, to adoration on Tuesdays or Fridays (there’s all day adoration the next first Friday, September 4th). In the name of our parish, our diocese, our nation, I ask you to consider signing up for an hour of adoration (or even coming for five minutes). The world needs your prayer before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I hope you will come to see that you also need this prayer, if you are to grow in faith. Jesus is always here, waiting for you, wanting to give you the gift of great faith in Him.
Now, no one should be discouraged because of their lack of faith or little faith. We are struggle with doubts and anxieties. Faith is both our freely chosen response to God who reveals Himself to us, but it is also a gift, something beyond our total control. So even if we do everything “right” Jesus may still allow us to struggle with many doubts. It is part of His loving plan and we trust in Him.
Generally speaking, however, if you are not willing to try any of the things I have mentioned to grow in faith, then Jesus will assume that you are happy where you are, with your arrow stuck in its place, and He will leave you to yourself, if that’s what you really want. “Choose this day whom you will serve.”
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August 16, 2009
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 16, 2009
If you had a sense of déjà-vu in listening to today’s Gospel, there’s a good reason for it, because the first verse today is the same as the ending verse from last Sunday. There is some overlap in next Sunday’s Gospel, too, as the focus continues to be on Jesus as the bread of life. This is a very rich, and very important, teaching; it’s a teaching that we actually experience every time we come to Mass, and participate in every time we receive communion.
Do we recognize what a tremendous gift the Eucharist is? We come to church Sunday after Sunday, year after year. We line up for communion, and after we do that 500, or a thousand times, or more, we may lose some of the sense of wonder of what is actually involved. It’s not that we stop believing, but perhaps at times it becomes so commonplace, so familiar to us that we begin to take it for granted. We may need to remind ourselves that we are in fact receiving the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus under the appearance of bread, and also of wine if we receive the precious blood. The people asked “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” This is how – through the Eucharist.
This is an unconsecrated host. As it is, it’s nothing special, just a piece of round, unleavened wheat bread. At the consecration, through the actions of Father Tim in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, it will become the living bread, Jesus Himself. And this is not something theoretical, or just symbolic as some of our brothers and sisters in other Christian denominations think. We wouldn’t be able to eat His flesh as He instructed if the Eucharist remained just bread and wine. St. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote: “Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, … partake of that bread and wine as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul” (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).
Put a cheerful face on your soul. That’s an interesting choice of words, but the Eucharist should pick up our spirits. Speaking of cheerful, have you noticed that people have become more cheerful in the last few days? After all the rain and cool temperatures and generally miserable weather, the sunshine has really improved our outlook. Receiving Christ in the Eucharist can be like that, it can also improve our outlook; it is a blessing that brings us light – and life. We share in Christ’s life, we are promised resurrection and eternal life through the Eucharist. When we receive communion, we carry Christ in ourselves, in our bodies, our hearts, and our souls. The substance lasts only until the host is digested, but we can work to make the effect remain and last indefinitely, for Christ to abide in us and us in Him. Fr. Tom Rosica said: “For those who receive Jesus, the whole Jesus, His life clings to their bones and courses through their veins. He can no more be taken from a believer’s life than last Saturday’s dinner can be extricated from one’s body.”
His presence in us is part of our being, and because of that we should be witnesses, examples of God’s love, reflections of His light to those around us who may be in darkness. Many people these days do not know where to turn for answers, whom to talk with. So they look to talk shows, pop spirituality, new age practises, and many other things – but those things do not hold the truth that we have in our faith. Christ has the answers, for people who are willing to listen with an open mind, and an open heart.
Although the only way to receive the Real Presence is in the Eucharist, by our words and actions, we can bring the presence of Christ to our friends, our community, to whomever we may meet. When He abides in us, His love will shine through. And as we draw closer to Him, we will also draw others to Him.
In a little while, we will once again form our communion procession. When we do that, let’s really think about what we are doing, and what it truly is that we are receiving, the flesh and blood of Jesus. What a fantastic gift and privilege it is to be here and be offered this opportunity to be that close to Our Lord. As He said, those who do this have eternal life. “For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in them…the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
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August 9, 2009
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
19th Sunday, Year B, August 9th 2009
(Start with a spray of perfume into the air). “My perfume gives forth its fragrance. My lover is for me a sachet of myrrh to rest in my bosom.” So sings the bride in the Song of Songs (1:12-13) of the fragrance that draws the lovers to one another. These words can also be applied to Christ, the Bridegroom, who is, in the words of St. Paul in today’s second reading, a “fragrant offering and sacrifice” (Eph ). Perfume can be a symbol for sacrifice; in fact, St. Paul equates a “fragrant aroma” with an “acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (Phil 4:18), recalling the Old Testament tradition that God is pleased with the sweet-smelling sacrifices burned on the altar, whether of incense or the flesh of animals.
There are other connections between fragrance and sacrifice: Mom cooking in the kitchen, the fragrance of her loving sacrifice in feeding her children, or Dad sweating at work to provide for his family. And priests are anointed with the balsam-scented holy oil of chrism as a sign of the sacrifice of our lives. In the perfect sacrifice of the Mass, in the Eucharist that we celebrate today, Christ is our great High Priest, and a fragrant offering and sacrifice who draws us to Himself.
Sometimes we Catholics who attend Mass every Sunday (and even weekdays too!) assume we know Jesus. Just like the people in today’s Gospel assumed that they knew Jesus. “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven?’” (John 6: ). The truth is that they really did not know Jesus, and in general, neither do we.
Jesus was speaking to them about the Eucharist, saying, “I am the bread of life . . . and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6: ). In giving His flesh for the life of the world, Jesus is the Great High Priest offering the sacrifice of His life to God the Father. And as I’ve mentioned before, during this year of priesthood, in which priests rededicate ourselves to prayer, and the wonderful people of God pray for us, I think it is important that we also come to know Jesus better in His essential identity as Priest and Sacrifice.
Has anyone seen the statue of Sir Galahad at the corner of Metcalfe and Wellington (or in yesterday’s Citizen? August 8th, B1). It commemorates the sacrifice of Henry Albert Harper , who died on December 6th, 1901, trying to save Miss Bessie Blair from drowning in the Ottawa river. The author commented how the busy crowds rush by this monument without stopping to read the story on the plaque and appreciate the sacrifice of this man’s life. Are we Catholics like that busy crowd who do not stop to look at Jesus on the Cross or appreciate His sacrifice in the Mass and the tabernacle?
Yes, even in the tabernacle Jesus is a sacrifice. Some people imagine that Jesus in the tabernacle is just sitting there doing nothing. In reality, He is a continual sacrifice, and for Him to be present in the Eucharist and the tabernacle, maintaining Himself in a state of oblation and sacrifice, requires the constant and direct action of Jesus as Priest (Pere Eugene Prevost)i.
Jesus knew there would always be busy crowds that would prevent people from noticing Him, and He knew He would have to do something to attract people.
In today’s Gospel, He testifies, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw them” (John 6:44). Elsewhere, Jesus testifies, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32)
The word translated “draw” (elko) can also be translated “attract”: “I will attract all people to myself.” Jesus in Himself is infinitely attractive, because with the Father and the Holy Spirit, He is the source of everything good, true, beautiful (attractive) in heaven and earth. Jesus in the Eucharist, in His priesthood and His fragrant offering and sacrifice, is infinitely attractive.
But the way that Jesus attracts us by His fragrant offering is subtle, like the scent of flowers in the breeze, or the fragrance of perfume in a crowd, (one particular perfume that attracts you, reminds you of someone special, makes you think of love). Yes, I think that Jesus the Bridegroom is hoping that the perfume of his fragrant offering will make you think of His love for you and draw you to Himself.
But if we are all sick from colds and our noses are stuffed up, we will neither notice these subtle scents, nor taste and see that the Lord is good. When our spirits are sick with busy-ness and selfishness, we will not be attracted to the fragrant offering of Jesus, nor appreciate His sacrifice on the Cross, made present in the Eucharist.
But when we do taste and see that the Lord is good by receiving Him in Holy Communion, we are drawn up into His Sacrifice, transforming all our relationships.
When lovers like those in the Song of Songs, attracted by one another’s fragrance, are united in Christ, in a relationship centered on Christ, they themselves become a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And you, the priestly people of God, when you offer your lives in union with Jesus to the Father, also become (in the words of St. Paul) “the aroma of Christ” (2 Cor 2:15). But we must guard against selfishness and busy-ness, the loss of the spirit of sacrifice and forgetfulness of the sacrifice of Christ.
So the next time you’re downtown, stop at the corner of Metcalfe and Wellington and look at the statue of Sir Galahad. Stop and take a look at Jesus on the Cross, and take some time to contemplate His sacrifice in the Eucharist. Pay attention to how many times the word “sacrifice” is used during Mass. Realize what you are saying when you yourselves pray out loud, “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands . . . “
I wish there were something more I could do to attract you to Christ the fragrant offering on this altar. Spray some more perfume? A friend of mine at the Seminary, now a priest in Ottawa, used to like sitting at the front of the chapel at the Seminary, because he liked the bouquet of the wine wafting from the altar to his pew. He told me that it was always after the consecration of the wine into the Blood of Christ that he could smell the fragrance of the wine. “The nose knows.” If all our senses were purified they would all be attracted to Christ.
Finally, has anyone ever heard of the “odour of sanctity”? It is often used in the context of a holy man or woman who dies in the “odour of sanctity.” It literally refers to a specific scent, often compared to flowers, that emanates from the bodies of the saints as a supernatural sign that they have become a perfect sacrifice, the aroma of Christ. That is also the goal of our lives: “to live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice” (Eph 4: ). To be drawn, attracted to Him by His fragrant offering, to know Him and love Him more and more. And with every Holy Communion we receive, to grow in union with Christ until we also become a perfect sacrifice.
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August 2, 2009
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
18th Sunday, Year B, August 2nd, 2009
Our faith, or lack of faith, in the gift and real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist influences everything, even the global economy, and the global economy in turn influences our faith or lack of faith in the real presence of Jesus. Does that sound far-fetched? Whether our lives are governed by deceitful desires or the experience of gift will influence everything: from the economy to our faith in the Eucharist.
In today’s Gospel, the crowds ask Jesus: “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? . . . Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” (John 6: 30-31).
This crowd had just witnessed a very clear sign: Jesus had fed 5000 men, not including women and children, with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish. That’s a miracle. Their ancestors had witnessed the sign of the manna – another miracle. Every morning, for six days a week, for forty years, this “fine flaky substance” (Ex 16:14) would appear on the ground; it was bread from heaven that the Lord had given them to eat.
Both cases are miracles that the people witnessed with their own eyes as God created something out of nothing. From God’s perspective, transubstantiation in the Eucharist, the changing of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, is a greater miracle than the manna or the loaves and the fishes. A greater miracle. But to our eyes, it is no miracle at all. To our eyes, it looks like the same bread and wine. We too would be very impressed if we saw manna on our front lawn tomorrow morning, or is some holy man were to feed 5000 people at the Shepherd’s of Good Hope with one bowl of soup. But the Eucharist, to our eyes at least, does not seem to be a miracle at all.
We do not appreciate the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist in part because we have been corrupted by “deceitful desires” (Eph 4:22). In the second reading, St. Paul urges the Ephesians to “put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts” (Eph 4:22). A more accurate translation is “corrupted by deceitful desires” (epithumias tes apates).
We heard in the first reading how the Israelites in the desert were also corrupted by deceitful desires – “If only we had died . . . in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots (of boiling meat) and ate our fill of bread” (Ex 16:3)
Of course it is a normal desire to have enough food, but it was a deceitful desire among some of the Israelites to prefer living in slavery in Egypt, rather than depend on the providence of God in the desert. Perhaps when they lived as slaves, they “confused happiness and salvation with material prosperity” and they learned to trust in the work of their own hands and to rely on the food that they produced on their own. But now in the desert, God is allowing them to hunger, to teach them to trust in Him, and to prepare them for the gift of a new food – the manna, the bread from heaven.
For us to truly appreciate the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the true bread from heaven, God wants to train us the same way He trained the Israelites – the deliver us from our deceitful desires, and to allow us to hunger for God and receive from Him His many gifts.
The experience of hunger – that we can feel in our flesh, in the pit of our stomach – reminds us that we are not self-sufficient. We need to receive life from something outside of us – from food and water, from God. The Eucharist has been called the gift of God for the life of the world (the theme of the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec last June). But to appreciate this gift, we need to renounce our deceitful desires, and learn to be poor, humble, open and trusting enough to receive a gift.
The Pope’s latest encyclical, Charity in Truth, is addressed not only to bishops, priests and deacons, but also to all of you, the lay faithful (and the link is on our parish website). I would like to share with you what one commentator has called the “central claim” of the encyclical (Fr. Lombardi in www.zenit.org/article-26443?l=english). And so that you will remember at least one of the Pope’s claims in his encyclical, I show you this (a wrapped present, a gift). Benedict writes:
“Charity in truth places man before the astonishing experience of gift.”
“Gift . . . precedes us in our souls as a sign of God’s presence in us” (Please note: the official English translation reads: “Gift . . . takes first place in our souls as a sign of God’s presence in us.” But what does that mean “takes first place”? The French translation reads: “Le don . . . nous precede dans notre ame” with similar translations in Italian and Spanish. So a better English translation might be the above)
“Gratuitousness is present in our lives in many different forms, which often go unrecognized (I would add, like the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist) because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of life. The human being is made for gift . . .
(As an aside, I want to remind each one of you that you yourselves are a gift: to your family, your friends, to this parish. Your presence, who you are, with all your talents, and yes, with all your weaknesses, you are a gift. We must re-discover this elementary truth in our culture).
Pope Benedict continues: “Sometimes modern man is wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society. This is a presumption that follows from being selfishly closed in upon himself, and it is a consequence . . . of original sin.
The conviction that man is self-sufficient . . . has led him to confuse happiness and salvation with . . . material prosperity” (Remember those Israelites in slavery in Egypt) . . .
Then, in the very next line, the Pope mentions the economy, drawing a parallel between the self-sufficient man who is not open to receiving a gift, and a “self-sufficient” economy. He writes: “the conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from “influences” of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way” (#34) We are currently living through these effects in the global economic crisis. The latest stats from May report that the Canadian economy shrank 0.5% in May.
Do you see the connection? The self-sufficient man does not need God; the autonomous economy does not need the “interference” of God, religion or morality. These self-destructive tendencies re-enforce each other. If we live as self-sufficient people in an autonomous economy, we will not be open to receiving gifts; we will not hunger for the Eucharist; we will not be open to fully believing in the gift of the real presence of Jesus in the Holy Communion, in the tabernacle.
So I hope I have shown in some small way that our faith, or lack of faith, in the gift and real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist influences everything, even the global economy, and the warped philosophy undergirding the current global economy in turn influences our faith or lack of faith in the real presence of Jesus.
When our hearts are corrupted by deceitful desires, and minds are moulded by an economic and materialist mentality, we can end up being obsessed with what we produce. But Pope Benedict reminds us that “truth, and the love which it reveals, cannot be produced: they can only be received as a gift. Their ultimate source is not, and cannot be, mankind, but only God, who is himself Truth and Love.
The Eucharist that we celebrate today cannot be produced by us. The real presence of Jesus in Holy Communion, in the tabernacle, cannot be produced by human effort. It is a gift from God. It is the gift of God par excellence; the gift of God for the life of the world, and a miracle infinitely greater than the multiplication of the loaves or the manna. Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord, to appreciate this gift of yourself.
I will end by briefly mentioning one simple way to strengthen our appreciation of the gift and real presence of Jesus: prayer. The prayer books in the pews were designed mainly to help people pray before and after Mass, but it also includes the prayers for a Holy Hour, a novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, and so on. I would encourage everyone to come to Mass early enough to say at least one of the prayers in the booklet before Mass. And I want to leave enough silent time after Holy Communion so everyone could privately recite at least one of the several prayers of thanksgiving after Mass. To appreciate the gift.
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Homilies