6th Sunday of Easter

What’s your favorite meal?

 

On Saturday we had two First Communions and it is a joy for the children, catechists, CRE Director and teachers in both schools and of course me. A few years ago at one of the rehearsals for First Communion in a different parish, I asked the children “what’s your favorite meal?” Of course I got lots votes for pizza, spaghetti, tacos, one child answered sushi—2nd graders are becoming so sophisticated today.

However, isn’t Communion our favorite meal? We look forward to receiving and sharing because of what it does for us. It unites us more fully in the Lord and with one another as we remember what is truly important in our lives.

We bring to HIS table our cares, worries, aches, pains, problems, sadness, to be fed and nurtured by a love that surpasses all others. We come to receive Jesus more fully and in the hopes of becoming what we eat, the Body of Christ.  So that we can take on all those parts of life once more and know that he remains with us.  It is the message of our readings today.

Jesus states to His disciples that whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father. Jesus is telling us that he is the face of God; Jesus is the way that we come to know God personally.

We can see God’s hand in all creation and in the beauty that surrounds us in nature, animals, trees, birds, sunsets and star filled skies. However, it isn’t until we meet Jesus that we can feel God’s hand around us and God’s true love for us personally, because Jesus humanizes God for us, makes God available.

We see God in Jesus, in the life Jesus led, His love of others, His gift of healing, His love for children, those who suffer in poverty and all who felt on the fringe of society—outcasts–alone and isolated. That is how Jesus the Christ teaches us what God is like—His immense love–that is a way we are to live in Him.

As we hear in our readings, the Spirit gives us the gift of memory for the message of Jesus.   The poor Spirit has to break through to us– our busyness and details and teach us; help us remember that God loves us and how we are to witness that love.

There are so many powerful witnesses for all of our Church/church from youth to elderly. Also we are so blessed to have so many young Christian/Catholic families today—I don’t know how they do it. They are so jammed with activities and tasks– the car fixed, the laundry, shopping, the bills paid, and the doctor’s appointments on the calendar and remember to pick up the children–where and when. Even if you completed that long list of things to do–it can feel like something is missing.  There can develop a lack quietude to connect to our lives– the peace Jesus promised to us through the action of the Spirit¾ to enter our thoughts and lives. We have to stop long enough to look back, to reflect, and to remember how God is at work and a part of the ordinary events of our lives.

Miracles in the ordinary include why we are here. Jesus tells us each time you eat His bread and drink His cup “you do it in memory of me.” How many of us will remember the sacred Meal and our time together in the Lord, when we leave church or even the next day?

Very often, I tell people, the best view of God’s hand in our lives is through our rear-view mirror. When we stop and pause from the bombardment, take repose, sit and connect ourselves to our own lives, and reflect on God’s hand and love for us, peace enters–the peace of Christ, the peace from the Spirit, we get just how much God is at work in our lives, in the small miracles that we can so easily overlook and too easily forget.

TAKE THE TIME FOR PEACEFUL REMEMBRANCE! And what His meal means to us—we are forgiven, made whole and become one in the Lord.

Let us remember the joy that comes through being a part of the Body of Christ that draws us through the love of family, friends and the church into the mystery of just how much God loves us. Let us live “communion,” which means “a shared or mutual participation.” Communion isn’t a word that we find in the Bible. It comes from the word “community.” We see that there is a shared or a mutual participation of the redeemed community; therefore, communion—being the Body of Christ for Him with one another. We also use the term Eucharist particularly in the Roman Catholic tradition. Eucharist comes from a Greek word meaning “to give thanks.” Jesus gave thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples; raised the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples. It is a thanksgiving feast in the Roman Catholic Church tradition. Communion in Thanksgiving—life to the full! If there are reasons in your life that have prevented you from receiving, please come see me. There are always ways to help. Blessed Communion—the best Meal! Fr. Gordon