20h Sunday of Ordinary Time- Homily - 1
Last Sunday after the Masses I got in my car, and drove down the 401 to visit my parents in St. Thomas. But I needed some gas! But before leaving town, the gas price was pretty high, and I know from experience that gas prices are always at least a nickel cheaper in St. Thomas, so I looked at my little gas mileage calculator thing on my dash, and the reading I got told me that I basically had just enough gas to get to St. Thomas, with maybe 10km to spare. So, away I went!
But I have to tell you, that ended up being a stressful trip! The gas gauge was basically on ‘E’, and all I could think was, what if that calculator is wrong – what if I run out of gas? Then around Ingersol, the dash started to beep at me, telling me I had about 80km of gas left, and that you better fill up. So I pulled off in Ingersol, but gas prices there were even higher than they were in Waterloo! So, I thought, ‘well, it says I still have 80km left’, so I got back on the highway, because I am pretty cheap! But the rest of the trip was very stressful, wondering if I would make it, and getting angry at myself for causing all this stress to maybe save $5 worth of gas!
The good news is, I made it with about 30km of gas left in the tank, but I realized that for an hour and a half of driving, I was worried, I was stressed, and a little on edge, getting angry at drivers around me that I thought were going too slow! Yes, I had a bit of gas in the tank and was fairly certain that it would be enough, but I would have saved my self a lot of anxiety and heightened sense of road rage if I would have just filled my darn gas tank in Waterloo.
Why do I tell you this story? Well, the same is true in our spiritual lives – yes, we can probably muddle our way through with a little bit in the tank, but when we can ‘fill up’ on Jesus every Sunday, our weeks go much more smoothly!
Today we continue to read from John chapter 6, Jesus’ beautiful ‘Bread of Life’ discourse which is unmistakably Eucharistic. He continues to repeat that he is the ‘Bread of Life’, the true bread of life given for the life of the world. He instructs his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood – to which the crowd quite understandably question this odd statement. But he doubles down, not clarifying his statement by saying ‘oh, you misunderstood, I was speaking metaphorically’ – no, he restates his assertion that unless you eat his flesh and blood, you will have no life in you. And in this clarifying statement, the verb he uses for the word ‘eat’ is more intense, meaning more like to ‘gnaw’ or to really devour like an animal might eat. He doesn’t want the people to miss his point – that he is the bread of life that will be given for the life of the world.
It all becomes more clear when he institutes the Eucharist at the Last Supper – when he miraculously turns the bread and wine into his body an blood, and asks his apostles to continue this which we have through the priesthood for 2000 years. He wants to give his very life to the world through us, by filling up our tanks so that we can be commissioned to go out to the world to be Jesus’ hands and feet in the present moment and time.
For Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, the Eucharist was always central to everything they did. The first thing they do every morning before going out to do their important work among the poor is to spend an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and to celebrate Mass together. They fill up their ‘tanks’ so to speak with Jesus so that they have something to give when they go out to serve the poorest of the poor. They know from first hand experience, when we go out on an almost empty spiritual tank, we might be able to get the job done and go through the motions, but things certainly won’t go quite so smoothly. I have certainly experienced that in my own life – if I don’t spend time in prayer in the morning before I come into the office, there is certainly something missing in my day, and when I try to do things on my own without inviting Christ into my work and day-to-day activities, I’m driving with a tank on empty, not giving my best, filled with anxiety and agitation, and holding back our Lord’s ability to work through me.
Back to Mother Teresa, she had a rule for anyone new wanting to enter her community – their first day there, after the morning Mass and a time of prayer, the first assignment for anyone new would be to go and spend the day at their Home for the Dying. She would say to the new person, ‘Okay, you have received Jesus with attention and reverence at Mass, now go and serve the dying poor with that same reverence and attention, because it is Christ himself that you are serving and caring for.’ She asked them to fill up on Jesus in the morning, and then take Him to the streets, which is why the Missionaries of Charity have been so successfully – they serve the poorest of the poor in our world in some unimaginably horrible conditions with joy, because their tanks are full, they are away the our Lord is with them, and they have a very acute sense that they are truly serving Christ in everyone they encounter.
The Eucharist that we celebrate today and which has been celebrated every day for the last 2000 years is the great banquet feast of heaven, a beautiful description of which we hear about in our 1st reading. It’s the great banquet feast where all are invited, not just the privileged few. There are no head tables or social structures – we are all invited to God’s table – all cultures, all ages, all socio-economic situations – we’re all called to feast at the Lord’s table at every Mass, because we are all equal in God’s sight, and we are all filled up and nourished through this Eucharistic feast so that we can leave these doors and go out to bring Jesus to the world on a full tank, not only allowing ourselves to be spiritually nourished, but to freely bring his love, mercy and compassion to everyone that we encounter in the same abundance that God has given to us through this great heavenly banquet. Is your tank on empty? It’s time to fill it up…