There’s kind of an interesting contrast in Sunday’s three readings. The first two readings, from Proverbs and Ephesians, talk about wisdom. And then here comes Jesus in the Gospel, talking about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Our human wisdom makes us recoil in disgust or puzzlement over that statement.
Now having written all that, I confess to not being sure where I want to go with it! What a weird feeling! Let’s try something else …
It still amazes me to no end that that little wafer of bread and that sip of wine have such a transformative power. When I receive the Eucharist at Mass, there’s no instant result. There’s no rush of energy, no feeling of being deeply graced, no feeling of deeper intimacy with Jesus. It seems as though nothing happens, and that’s a feeling I have 99.9 percent of the time. I have a much greater connection to the Lord as I distribute the Eucharist to the folks.
Yet something does happen. My personal prayer at Communion time is that the Bread will fill up any emptiness in my life at that moment. Sometimes I know exactly what the emptiness is (for example: deeply missing a dear one, feeling depressed and so on). At other times there’s only a vague sense that something is missing.
Since wine is acidic, I use that fact as the basis for my prayer, I pray that the Blood of Christ will eat away anything that is blocking me from being a loving person (anger, spite, anxiety, etc).
Do those prayers work? I guess so. You’d have to ask the people with whom I live and work and associate. They’re in a far better position to judge. If we follow the old adage that “We are what we eat,” then I certainly hope that eating the Body of Jesus and drinking His Blood is making me more and more like Jesus in my ways of thinking, acting, praying, etc.
Have a peaceful day!!!
Fr. Herb, C.S.C.
