19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear Parish Family,

When the crowd recognized Jesus’ miracle as a sign of the Messiah who would feed them heavenly bread, he fled from their adulation. He disappeared to pray to his Father in secret. The next morning the crowd heard reports that he had crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. When they find Jesus again in the synagogue in Capernaum, they ask, “Lord, how did you get here?” They really do not know him or where he is from. They are using his human origins to discount his divinity, not unlike what we can do whenever we use the truth that Jesus is indeed divine to discount his humanity. It is not one truth or the other, but both. For the Eucharist is the reality of Jesus’ Body and Blood with the appearance of bread and wine. It is mystery and sign, reality and symbol. Mystery means living with more questions than answers. Mystery is not ignorance; it is knowing, accepting revealed truths that exceed the ways of this world. We put a proper faith in them when we ponder upon what God has said and done, knowing that the light of its full meaning will dawn on us only when our risen Lord appears in glory. Every week we confess the same faith because the revealed mysteries of our salvation shed new light upon us as our lives slowly unfold. Jesus explains that the prophecy of Isaiah, “They shall all be taught by God” is fulfilled in us when we listen to God, learn what He has said and done, and come to Jesus. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.” A reflection on the truth of God’s many acts of love for us (Liturgy of the Word) leads to faith (Creed), and without faith we should not approach the Blessed Sacrament (Liturgy of Eucharist). Only by these connections does faith grow into a life lived in the presence of Eternity. Eternal life is lived now, in this everyday world where nothing we see seems to have changed. And yet, because divine mysteries happen, how we see everything has changed and the way we relate to others changes. We can truly become what St. Paul says: kind to one another, compassionate and mutually forgiving. The love of Christ enables us to love one another in the same way. Being sustained in living this eternal life of faith and love requires eating Jesus, the true bread from heaven. To receive the Eucharist in faith does not mean we have to deny what we see and taste — the appearance of bread and wine is real, for Jesus is giving himself as food. But we do not limit our response to appearances: receiving the Eucharist is a genuine encounter with the living Jesus. To eat the Host with faith is to taste how good the Lord is by remembering how he has loved us. In faith we should ask each time we receive him, “Lord, how did you get here?” For even with the many, many times we have eaten the Host, we still do not yet fully know the heaven contained in the Eucharist. (hprweb.com)

God bless you, Sister Maria Inviolata, SMDG