What Exactly Are We Celebrating On Independence Day?

 

(Thirteenth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on June 30, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Galatians 5: 1, 13-18.)

 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Thirteenth Sunday 2013]

 

 

What exactly are we celebrating this coming Thursday?

This coming Thursday is, of course, July 4—Independence Day: a day when we commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and thank God for our political freedom as a nation.

But that still doesn’t completely answer the question about what we’re REALLY celebrating on this holiday.

I say that because many contemporary Americans have some very strange ideas as to what freedom really is.  So yes, everyone will say that we’re celebrating our national freedom and the gift of freedom.  But the word “freedom” definitely means different things to different people these days.

For example, many Americans today believe that freedom means doing whatever you want to do without any restrictions, without any constraints.

That is a false view of freedom—and its falsity is very easily illustrated.  Just think of what the internet has done to the lives of so many people.  Now don’t get me wrong, the internet can be a great blessing and can provide quick and easy access to lots of helpful information.  I use it all the time.  But it can also be a snare for many people, especially when it comes to pornography.  I read the other day that 40% of all Americans are regular visitors to porn sites on the internet.  That’s an astounding—and depressing—statistic!  And many of these people are regular visitors because they’re addicted.  There’s a part of them on the inside that wants to stop, but there’s another part of them that wants more—and it’s that part of them that usually wins the battle.

But, if you’re someone who says that freedom means doing whatever you want to do without any restrictions or constraints, then you have to come to the conclusion that these porn addicts are the freest of the free!  After all, they’re doing exactly what they want to do without any outside interference!  They have no restrictions and no constraints whatsoever.

Of course, the reality is that these men and women are enslaved—deeply enslaved!  This is what St. Paul was getting at when he said in today’s second reading, “You were called for freedom, brothers and sisters.  But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.”

And so, from one perspective at least, you could say that the opposite of freedom is “addiction.”  Most people would probably say that the opposite of freedom is slavery—but every addiction (be it to pornography or drugs or alcohol or something else) enslaves us.

But that’s not the only erroneous belief about freedom that’s present in our country today.  For some of our citizens—and this includes a good number in political office—freedom means violating your conscience.  The most obvious example of this is the HHS mandate (part of Obamacare), which tries to force employers and organizations like the Catholic Church to pay for medical services and procedures that those employers and organizations consider to be immoral!

This is why our bishops have called for yet another Fortnight for Freedom this year—fourteen days of prayer and action to promote and secure religious liberty in our country—which we’re in the middle of right now and which ends (appropriately enough) on the 4^th of July.

Religious freedom, by definition, means not being forced to violate your conscience!  We need to pray that more of our civil leaders will come to understand that.

And then we have those in our country who believe that freedom means keeping your religion out of your civil discourse.  In other words, they say, “Keep your mouth shut about your religious beliefs—and especially about your moral beliefs that are rooted and grounded in your religious beliefs.”  That is, of course, unless the issue is deemed politically-correct.  For example, it’s fine to use religious arguments if you’re speaking out in public against racism or against violence towards illegal immigrants, but don’t you dare use a religious argument to speak out against abortion or embryonic stem cell research!

Of course, we don’t need to use religious arguments to attack those evils—scientific reasons will do just fine, thank you very much!—but in a free country people should be allowed to use them, if they so choose.  

And speaking of those evils, the last erroneous notion of freedom that I’ll mention today is this one: Freedom is the right to do what is wrong.  I remember hearing Alan Keyes use that expression in a speech he gave a couple of years ago, and it stuck with me.  He said, “You do not have the right to do what is wrong.”  And he was right.  Of course, you need a moral standard—like the Ten Commandments—to distinguish right from wrong, and we’ve lost that standard in modern America.

And therein lies the real problem.

When it’s illegal in a nation to display the lines, “Do not kill,” and “Do not steal,” in front of a county courthouse, you know that nation is in trouble!

We need to get back to the notion of freedom that St. Paul had, and which many of our Founding Fathers also embraced.  Paul said in that text from Galatians 5: “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”

Paul is speaking here to men and women who had recently been baptized and come to faith in Christ: people who were once big-time slaves of sin.  (No, they didn’t have the internet back then, but it’s not only the misuse of the internet that enslaves.  We can be slaves to our anger, our greed, our sloth—or any of the other 7 deadly sins.  As St. Peter said, “A person is enslaved by whatever overcomes him.”) 

So the freedom Paul is talking about here is not the freedom to do whatever we like (when these Galatians were doing what they “liked” they were slaves!  They were “sin addicts”!).  Rather, the freedom Paul is talking about here is the freedom to do what we ought to do; it’s the freedom to do what’s right; it’s the freedom to get on (and stay on) the road to heaven; it’s the freedom to live in the power of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the many temptations of this world.  No, the temptations will never go away, but we have power available to us in Jesus Christ (a power which comes to us especially through the Eucharist) to overcome the temptations.

Of course, it is possible to live in this state of true freedom, and then fall back into slavery, which is why Paul adds those words I quoted a few moments ago: “You were called for freedom, brothers and sisters.  But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. . . . I say then: live by the Spirit, and you will certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

So what exactly are we celebrating this coming Thursday?

I’ll close by answering that question for myself:

Yes I’m celebrating the political independence of our nation, which began when the Declaration of Independence was adopted and later signed by our Founding Fathers; but at a much deeper level I’m celebrating true freedom—the kind of freedom St. Paul talks about here—the kind of freedom that our nation used to stand for (at least to some extent).

I pray this morning that we will someday—in the very near future—stand for it again.

A Lesson from King David: What Happens When a Father “Spurns the Lord”?

King David confronted by the prophet Nathan.

 

(Eleventh Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on June 16, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read 2 Samuel 12: 7-10, 13.)

 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Eleventh Sunday 2013]

 

 

What are the consequences of a father “spurning the Lord”?  In other words, what happens when a father turns away from God?

We find out in today’s first reading, and in the events of King David’s life that occurred before and after his famous conversation with the prophet Nathan, part of which we heard in this text from 2 Samuel 12.

This seems like a very appropriate topic for Father’s Day.

First of all, it would be good to review briefly the events that took place just prior to those recorded for us in 2 Samuel 12:

One evening after he had been anointed King of Israel in place of Saul, David was taking a stroll on the roof of his palace.  As he was walking along, he happened to catch sight of a beautiful young woman bathing in the distance.  The woman’s name was Bathsheba. 

Well, unfortunately lust got the better of him at that moment, and David decided to invite the young woman over to his place to “see his etchings” (as Bishop Sheen used to put it).

Bathsheba came to the palace and she and David committed the sin of adultery.  Not long afterward she found herself pregnant with David’s child.  She knew it had to be David’s because her husband, Uriah, had been away for some time fighting for Israel in a war.

Well once the king found out about the pregnancy, he immediately called Uriah away from the fighting and he told him to go home to see his wife.  Obviously David was hoping that Uriah would sleep with Bathsheba and end up thinking that he was the father of the child.  And since there wasn’t any DNA testing at the time, David’s devious plan had a very good chance of succeeding. 

But Uriah was a good soldier who happened to be at war.  And good Israelite soldiers at war were not supposed to go home to see their wives and families.  So Uriah didn’t.  Instead, he slept in the courtyard of David’s palace.

The next day, David got Uriah drunk and told him a second time to go home, but once again Uriah slept in the palace courtyard.

At that point, David had had enough.  He immediately wrote a letter to his general, Joab, and he told him to put Uriah on the front lines in the next big battle.  Then he said to Joab, “When the fighting gets really fierce, pull the rest of your troops back, so that Uriah will be killed.”

Unfortunately, David’s plan worked this time.  That made him guilty of two capital sins: adultery and murder.

And he felt no guilt about either of them, until the prophet Nathan presented him with a problem that supposedly involved someone else.  Nathan said, “David, what do you think about a very rich and powerful man who had flocks and herds in great numbers, but who went out and stole a ewe lamb from a poor man—the only lamb the poor man owned—in order to feed his hungry friend when his friend came for a visit?”

David became livid and said, “The man who did such a thing deserves to die!”

Nathan replied, “Well, it’s interesting that you should say that, David, because that man IS YOU!!!”

Then Nathan uttered the words we heard a few moments ago in our first reading.  Listen to them again, now, in their proper context:

Nathan said to David: “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king of Israel.  I rescued you from the hand of Saul.  I gave you your lord’s house and your lord’s wives for your own.  I gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.  And if this were not enough, I could count up for you still more.  Why have you spurned the Lord and done evil in his sight?  You have cut down Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you took his wife as your own, and him you killed with the sword of the Ammonites.  Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife.’” 

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” 

Nathan answered David: “The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die.”

So what happens when a father “spurns the Lord”?  What happens when a father turns away from God in his life?  The answer is: the same kinds of things that happened to David and to the people around him.

(Now before I tell you what some of those things are, let me add the point that what I’m about to say applies to spiritual fathers (i.e., priests) as well as to physical fathers.)

First of all, when a father turns away from God he finds it very easy to lie—first to himself, and then to the people with whom he shares his life (many of whom he claims to love!).

Once David had lied to himself by rationalizing what he had done with Bathsheba, and how he had plotted the death of her husband, he had no trouble living the lie!  As I said earlier, he felt no guilt whatsoever until Nathan challenged him directly on the matter.

When a father turns away from God he also tends to focus on everyone else’s faults and not his own—like David was focused on the rich man and his evil actions in Nathan’s story.  The King should have been focused on his own bad behavior, but, unfortunately, that was the last thing on his mind!

When a father spurns the Lord he also causes strife in his family—which affects not only his present family members, but also, indirectly, future generations of his family (as David’s sin affected future generations of his).  In the case of a priest, by the way, this truth applies to his parish family.  The fact is, a bad priest can have a negative impact on a parish for many, many years, even long after he’s retired, or been transferred—or died.

When a father spurns the Lord he also kills his conscience—which leads him to multiply his sins.  That was certainly the way it was for David: once the King had silenced his conscience concerning his adultery with Bathsheba, he didn’t feel any hesitation whatsoever about having Uriah, her husband, killed!

One serious sin led very quickly to another.

A father who turns away from God also typically leads others into sin—even members of his own family.  Notice how David tried to get Uriah to commit the sin of drunkenness, and to violate the Law by going home to be with his wife while the nation was at war.

That’s not surprising, given where David was at spiritually.

And finally a father who spurns the Lord does tend to kill.  Here we need to remember that there are different ways to kill people.  There’s the kind of killing that David engaged in (which, thankfully, is relatively rare); but there’s also an emotional and spiritual kind of killing that can occur, especially in a home.  A father, for example—if he turns away from God and the things of God—can “kill” the loving atmosphere in his home by his words and actions.  He can “kill” his relationship with his wife; and he can “kill” the spirits of his children.  That’s why Colossians 3:21 says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”

Now I know that most of what I’ve shared with you in this homily today would have to qualify as “bad news.”  However, I’m ordained to preach to you the “good news”—so that’s the kind I’ll leave you with.

If all of what I’ve just said to you is true—if a father who spurns the Lord can cause all these problems and difficulties for himself and for his family, then the opposite must also be true: a father who honors the Lord (or who returns to the Lord after spurning him, as David repented and returned to God in his life)—can be a light and an irreplaceable blessing to his wife and children!  That means he’ll be, for the most part, the exact opposite of what David was during his days of sin.  He’ll be honest—with himself and others.  He’ll be humble and repentant (especially when he hurts the members of his family).  And he’ll be a moral and spiritual leader in his home—a leader who brings love into his family, and who builds up the spirits of his children.

My prayer for all of you dads on this Father’s Day is that you will always honor the Lord in your lives, and that each of you will be this kind of father to your sons and daughters.  And so that you won’t forget this message we have a little gift for you today, which we’ll give out after the blessing in a few minutes.  It’s a key ring with a little flashlight on it (gifts for dads always have to be practical and useful!).  But what’s really important is what’s written on the side of the flashlight.  It reads, “Blessed is the father who lets God light the way.”

May all the fathers here this morning be so blessed, so that their families will be blessed.

 

 

 

The PLANS of Young Mike Rogers, Jr.--and the PLAN of God

Fr. Mike Rogers, S.J., celebrating his First Mass at St. Pius X in Westerly on June 9, 2013

 

My remarks after Communion at Fr. Mike Rogers’ First Mass on June 9, 2013, at St. Pius X Church.

 

[For the audio version of this talk, click here: Closing Remarks]

 

I’m grateful to Fr. Mike for asking me to say a few words at the end of his first Mass.  And don’t worry, it will be just a “few words”—relatively speaking.

When I sat down to pray about what I would say to you all this afternoon, what came to mind almost immediately was a homily I gave here at St. Pius way back in 1997.  I entitled that particular homily, “God’s plan; our plans.” 

I began by saying that, in case you haven’t noticed, those two realities don’t always align themselves perfectly!  Sometimes they do—and we usually rejoice in those rare moments when the alignment happens; but, more often than not, our personal plans do not fit neatly into the Lord’s plan for our life.

And sometimes they don’t fit at all.

How appropriate it is that we have this text from Galatians 1 as our second reading today, since St. Paul makes it very clear in this passage that, before his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, his personal plans did not include becoming the great Christian apostle to the Gentiles!  The great persecutor of Christians—yes!  The great apostle and evangelizer—definitely not!

But Paul is not alone in Christian history.  The members of the Society of Jesus can correct me later if I’m wrong, but from all that I’ve read on the subject, I think it’s safe to say that, prior to his battle injury and long convalescence, a young soldier named Ignatius did not have any plans to found a major religious order in the Church!

And speaking of Jesuits, it’s pretty clear that Cardinal Bergoglio’s plans earlier this year did not include an extended stay in the city of Rome!—given the fact that, when he arrived in Rome for the Conclave, he had his return ticket in his briefcase and his Easter homily all written and waiting for him back in Argentina.

We definitely thank the Lord that his plan and the Cardinal’s plans were different in that regard!

And while we’re on the subject of Jesuits, I know for an absolute fact that, prior to a beautiful bus trip out to Steubenville, Ohio, one summer in the mid-1990s, the plans of a certain Michael Rogers, Jr., did not include the events of the last two days!  They did not include many of the events of the last 11 years, for that matter!

But God’s plan did!  And for that we rejoice and thank the Lord this afternoon.

The challenge of priestly ministry is the challenge to say yes to the plan of God, even when it doesn’t include the plans we’ve made for ourselves.  That’s actually the challenge that every Christian faces in his or her life.

It’s easy to say yes to the plan on days like this, Fr. Mike; it will not be so easy on others.  I can certainly attest to that fact.  Believe me, my personal plans for my own priestly ministry did NOT include dealing with Parkinson’s Disease!

I tell people all the time, “When I used to pray the prayer, ‘Dear Lord, make me a priest like John Paul II,’ I did not mean, ‘Lord, allow me to get Parkinson’s!’  I meant, ‘Lord, make me a good and holy priest like John Paul II.’”   

If I didn’t know any better, I would think that the Lord misheard me on that one!

My point here, Fr. Mike, is that the cross, in some form, is always a part of the heavenly Father’s “plan” for us (clergy and laity alike)—as it was part of his plan for his divine Son!  Jesus, of course, accepted his cross, and he used it to save the world.  And the good news is, if we accept ours and use ours as priests, we become very effective instruments of Jesus for the salvation of souls!

Like John Paul II was.

The founder of your order, Fr. Mike, understood this as well as anybody.  That’s why he wrote the words of this very famous prayer:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will,

All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.

To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.

Give me only your love and your grace.

That is enough for me.

That prayer, like so many others, is really easy to say but very hard to live!  And yet, it is possible to live it, by the grace of God—as Ignatius of Loyola and the other great saints of the Church have shown us.

My prayer for you today, Fr. Mike, is that you, too, will always live that prayer in your priesthood.  As you said yes to God’s plan on that famous bus trip so many years ago, so may you say yes to God’s plan every day of your priestly life—and, in the process, may you help many others to say yes to God’s plan in theirs. 

Ad multos annos!

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

This was the homily I gave at our parish Masses that same weekend:

 

I want to begin by congratulating our parishioner, Mike Rogers, Jr., on his ordination to the priesthood, which took place yesterday at Fordham University in New York City.  He was ordained there because he’s a Jesuit (the Jesuits, of course, are the largest religious order of men in the Church—and they run Fordham!).

Michael’s journey to the priesthood was fueled by the prayers and example of his parents, Mike, Sr. and Mary Ellen, as well as the prayers of all of you.  Fr. Mike has been prayed for at weekend Masses here at St. Pius since he entered the Jesuits 11 years ago, after his graduation from Holy Cross.

But what also made a big difference for Fr. Mike was his participation in the Steubenville high school youth conferences in the mid-to-late 1990s—and his involvement with our parish youth group.

Now those of you who know his story will recall that he went to his very first youth conference in a state of anger (some would say “rage”!) and with a very bad attitude.  Steubenville, Ohio was the last place on earth he wanted to be that weekend in mid-July.  But, as has happened for so many others, on Saturday night he opened his heart to Christ, and had a powerful, spiritual experience that transformed his life!  Last year he wrote about it on his blog.  He said this:

One of my Christology professors at the Gregorian [University] says that all faith begins in an encounter, and he is right, of course. If faith begins with an encounter, then, in a real sense, my faith began that night. I am not sure if I can explain or describe what happened that night under that tent. There is a famous story that one day St. Augustine was walking along the shore taking a break from writing a book on the Trinity, and he saw a young boy using a shell to pour water from the Mediterranean into a little hole that he had dug in the sand. When Augustine asked the young boy what he was doing, the boy responded, “Trying to empty the sea into this hole.” Augustine smiled and told the boy gently that that was impossible. The boy responded, “So is trying to understand the Trinity.” That Saturday night is much like what this story describes. It would be impossible to really say what happened, other than that for the first time in my life I had an encounter with God. There was Eucharistic adoration and singing, but somehow I just became aware that God was alive, real, and wanted to love me, if I would let him. That moment was a turning point in my life, without which I would not be here [studying for the priesthood].  I knew in my heart who the living God was, and, at 15, I wanted to follow Him, whatever the cost.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Prior to this experience at the conference, the plans that young Michael Rogers, Jr., had for his life did not include the events of the last two days!  They did not include many of the events of the last 11 years, for that matter!

But God’s plan did!  And for that we rejoice and thank the Lord this weekend.

How appropriate it is that we have this text from Galatians 1 as our second reading today, since St. Paul makes it very clear in this passage that, before his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, his personal plans for his life did not include becoming the great Christian apostle to the Gentiles!  The great persecutor of Christians—yes!  The great apostle and evangelizer—definitely not!

God’s plan; our plans—those two realities don’t always align themselves perfectly, do they?  Sometimes they do—and we usually rejoice in those rare moments when the alignment occurs; but, more often than not—as was the case for Fr. Mike and St. Paul—our personal plans do not fit neatly into the Lord’s plan for our life.

And sometimes they don’t fit at all.

The challenge of living as a disciple of Jesus Christ is the challenge to say yes to the plan of God, even when it doesn’t include the plans we’ve made for ourselves. 

Now it’s easy to say yes to the plan of the Lord when the plan involves something pleasant, something that we like.  It’s much more difficult when it involves some kind of suffering.  That I know from my own experience!  Believe me, my personal plans for my own life and priestly ministry did NOT include dealing with Parkinson’s Disease!

But obviously God’s plan did.

I tell people all the time, “When I used to pray the prayer, ‘Dear Lord, make me a priest like John Paul II,’ I did not mean, “Lord, give me Parkinson’s!”  I meant, “Lord, make me a good and holy priest like John Paul II.”   

If I didn’t know any better, I would think that the Lord misheard me on that one!

Of course, I know he didn’t.

The cross, in some form, is always a part of the heavenly Father’s “plan” for us, just as it was part of his plan for his divine Son!  Jesus, as we all know, accepted his cross, and he used it to save the world.  And the good news is, if we accept ours and use ours, we become very effective instruments of Jesus for the salvation of souls, and also for the betterment of our families and our world!

Think, parents, of how many acts of service you have to perform for your children each and every day.  Many of those acts of service are crosses—you’d much rather be doing other things—but when you accept them as part of God’s plan for your life as a mother or a father, your children are greatly blessed! 

The founder of the Jesuit order, St. Ignatius Loyola, wrote a beautiful prayer about accepting God’s will—God’s plan—in life.  It reads as follows:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will.

All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.

To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.

Give me only your love and your grace.

That is enough for me.

That prayer, like so many others, is really easy to say but very hard to live!  And yet, it is possible to live it, by the grace of God—as Ignatius Loyola and the other great saints of the Church have shown us.

My prayer today for Fr. Mike Rogers is that he will always “live it” in his priesthood by accepting God’s plan, and by being the Lord’s effective instrument in this world.

And may all of us do the same in our lives.

 

The Health of a Body Determines its Ability to Process Natural Food; the Health of a Soul Determines its Ability to Process SPIRITUAL FOOD (i.e., the Holy Eucharist!)

(Corpus Christi 2013 (C): This homily was given on June 2, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; Luke 9:11b-17.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Corpus Christi 2013]

The health of a body determines its ability to process natural food.  This is a truth we all understand, but probably don’t think about too often.

I was reminded of it the other day, when a man came to the rectory to ask me to go and anoint his mother, an elderly woman in one of our local nursing homes whose health was deteriorating pretty rapidly.

He also came by to ask me what the Church teaches about end-of-life issues.  For example:  When is a person morally obligated to undergo a certain medical treatment, and when is it morally permissible to say no to that same treatment?  What’s the difference between extraordinary and ordinary means of maintaining or restoring health?  Are we morally obligated as Catholics to do everything we can to stay alive, even if there’s little or no reasonable expectation of recovery (barring a miracle)?

These were some of the questions I tried to address with this man during my conversation with him that day—along with the very important topic of nutrition and hydration.  Back in 2007, the Bishops of the United States asked Rome to clarify whether or not feeding and giving water to a sick and dying person were to be considered extraordinary or ordinary means of care.  (That’s a very important issue because we’re only morally obliged to use ordinary means.)  The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith answered by saying that food and hydration are ALWAYS to be considered ORDINARY MEANS.

ALWAYS!

This means it is never morally permissible to withdraw food and water from someone, EVEN IF THOSE THINGS HAVE TO BE ADMINISTERED BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS—unless the dying person’s body is shutting down, and is no longer able to process them (which does happen when a person is very close to death).

That’s a crucial teaching for us to be clear about, because, in all honesty, I think some doctors withdraw these things much too quickly these days—such that the person’s death certificate should actually read that they died of “malnutrition and dehydration” and not from whatever illness they had.

Let me read to you now what it says about this in our diocesan end of life guidelines booklet: “Food and fluids should always be provided until it is found that the organs can no longer assimilate them, a sign of the onset of natural death.”

I share this with you today, not to give a full-blown teaching on end-of-life decision making, but rather to illustrate the truth I stated at the beginning of my homily: The health of a body determines its ability to process natural food. 

When our bodies are in good health, natural food has its proper effect: it nourishes us and makes us strong.  But when a person is seriously ill and very close to death, their bodily systems begin to shut down, and natural food—even the best natural food on the planet—has no positive effect.  Because the person is so sick, their body can no longer process the nourishment—even if it’s given artificially through a feeding tube.

Not surprisingly, there’s a spiritual parallel here, which relates directly to the Holy Eucharist.  St. Paul reminds us of the reality of the Eucharist in today’s second reading when he says, “I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.’  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

St. Paul makes it very clear there: the Eucharist is NOT a symbol!  After the words of consecration are spoken by the priest at Mass, the bread and the wine, become, substantially, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

That’s what every Catholic is supposed to believe.

And yet, people have very different experiences when they receive the Blessed Sacrament, don’t they?  For some, it’s a deeply spiritual experience that strengthens them to live the gospel more faithfully in the world; but, for others, sad to say, it’s an experience that means little or nothing.  They’re no better—no more loving, or patient or forgiving or compassionate—after they receive than they were before they received.  And many people have an experience that’s somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

Why the difference?  Why do some people experience such incredible blessings through their reception of the Eucharist, and others experience very few blessings or none at all? 

I would explain the difference by saying that what’s true of the body is also true of the soul.  As I said a few moments ago, the health of a body determines its ability to process natural food.   Well, by the same token, the health of a soul determines its ability to process spiritual food (i.e., the Eucharist!).  A healthy soul is open and receptive to the graces of Holy Communion; a sick soul is not.

This means that the level of our spiritual health ultimately determines our ability to profit spiritually (and even physically and emotionally) from our reception of the Blessed Sacrament.

For example, if we’re in the state of mortal sin because we’ve missed a Sunday or a holy day Mass without a good reason, or because we’ve committed a serious sexual sin, or because we’ve committed some other serious offence like harboring intense hatred for another person, then it profits us nothing to receive Holy Communion.  In fact, by receiving in that spiritual condition we’re actually committing another serious sin—the sin of sacrilege!

This is why St. Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 11: 28, “A man should examine himself first; only then should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

But it even goes beyond this.  The level of our spiritual health at the time we receive Holy Communion is also determined by the quality of our relationship with God—a relationship that we’re supposed to develop and work on every day. 

It’s likewise determined by whether or not we approach the altar with expectant faith—believing that Jesus really is present and will give us the graces we need for our daily lives.

And it’s determined by what we do after we receive!  If we walk right out of church, or if we don’t pray and pray fervently, then we should not expect to experience many blessings through the Blessed Sacrament.  To use a biblical expression, we will “squander what we have received.”

Some of you will recall the acronym I shared a few years ago which can guide us in our post-Communion prayer.  I heard this once from another priest and thought it was really good.  The acronym is ALTAR.  The “A” in altar stands for ADORATION: we should spend some time after Communion adoring Jesus—praising Jesus—from our heart.  The “L” in altar stands for LOVE: we should then tell the Lord that we love him, and that we want to love him more.  The “T” in altar stands for THANKSGIVING: we should then spend some time thanking God for all the blessings he has given us (and he has given us all many graces and blessings!).  The second “A” in altar stands for ASK (which is the only thing some people do when they pray)—but actually asking should come only after we’ve given the Lord praise, professed our love for him, and spent some serious time thanking him.  That brings us to the final letter in the word altar—the “R”—which stands for RESOLUTION.  At every Mass we should make a resolution: a resolution to be better—to be different—to be more faithful to God in some way—through the grace we receive in the Blessed Sacrament.

Remember, just as the health of a body determines its ability to process natural food, so too the health of a soul determines its ability to process spiritual food (i.e., the Eucharist!).

Today, therefore, we should pray at this Mass for good health—good health for ourselves and for one another: good physical health, yes—but even more importantly, good health for our souls, so that we will all be greatly blessed EVERY time we receive Holy Communion.