Breaking the Word: Never To Let Us Go

Sunday, June 11, 2023

Never To Let Us Go

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ (A)

Readings: Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14-16; Psalm 147: 12-15, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17; John 6:51-58

Picture: Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Well, you only need the light when it's burning low,

Only miss the sun when it starts to snow,

Only know you love her when you let her go…

And you let her go…

My dear friends, do these lines sound familiar? They're from a song by the English singer-songwriter, Passenger. They speak of a man’s regret at having taken his lover for granted, at realising what she really means to him, only after she’s gone. Released in 2012, the song eventually topped the charts in many countries around the world. Perhaps a sign that many of us know what it feels like to forget to cherish the people we love… until it’s too late. Sadly, this tendency to take love for granted often extends beyond the people in our lives, to include even the God who keeps us all alive.

Isn’t this why, in the first reading, Moses anxiously tells the Israelites to remember how God had led them for forty years in the wilderness to humble them, to make them understand that man lives on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord? Moses has good reason to worry. For the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land, a place where milk and honey flow. It had been difficult enough for them to obey God in the wilderness, where they were often hungry. What more in a land of plenty, when their bellies will be full?

Well, we all know the story, right? We know that the people did, indeed, forsake God. But the good news is that despite their forgetfulness of God, God refused to forget them. Again and again, God sent prophets to remind them of their need for God. And when they rejected these, God even sent God’s only Son. And when he too was persecuted and put to death, God not only raised him to life, but also made him forever present and accessible to God’s people–to all of us–especially in the celebration of the Eucharist.

As the second reading reminds us, the blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a communion with the body of Christ. By partaking in the Eucharist, we draw life from Christ, just as he draws life from the Father. Enabling us to become part of the corpus christi, the body of Christ, here on earth. Giving us power to live as he lived, and to love as he loved.

Isn’t this what we are celebrating today? Not some obnoxious obligation to drag ourselves out of bed on a sleepy Sunday morning, but a powerful expression of a love that refuses to let us go. Which brings to mind these words from another song. A song not of regret, but of wonder and praise, of gratitude and hope…

Could the Lord ever leave you?

Could the Lord forget his love?

Though a mother forsake her child,

He will not abandon you…

Sisters and brothers, the Eucharist is a precious gift from a Lord who refuses to let us go. What must we do to keep clinging ever more tightly to him, today and everyday?

1 comment:

AnonymousMon Jun 12, 06:56:00 am GMT+8
Thank you Father Chris.
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Breaking News: Christmas Season

Next to the yearly celebration of the paschal mystery, the Church holds most sacred the memorial of Christ's birth and early manifestations. This is the purpose of the Christmas season. The Christmas season runs from Evening Prayer I of Christmas until the Sunday after Epiphany or after 6 January, inclusive. The Mass of the vigil of Christmas is used in the evening of 24 December, either before or after Evening Prayer I. On Christmas itself, following an ancient tradition of Rome, three Masses may be celebrated: namely, the Mass at Midnight, the Mass at Dawn, and the Mass during the Day.[R6] Christmas has its own octave, arranged as follows: a. Sunday within the octave is the feast of the Holy Family; b. 26 December is the feast of Saint Stephen, First Martyr; c. 27 December is the feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist; d. 28 December is the feast of the Holy Innocents; e. 29, 30, and 31 December are days within the octave; f. 1 January, the octave day of Christmas, is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. It also recalls the conferral of the holy Name of Jesus. The Sunday falling between 2 January and 5 January is the Second Sunday after Christmas. Epiphany is celebrated on 6 January, unless (where it is not observed as a holyday of obligation) it has been assigned to the Sunday occurring between 2 January and 8 January (see no. 7). The Sunday falling after 6 January is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, nn 32-38

From 36th Jesuit General Congregation

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

From 35th Jesuit General Congregation

From General Congregation 35

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.
- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.
- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.
- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.
- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.
- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.
- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.
- Decree on Obedience, n. 19