2006 - 4th Sunday of Easter to 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Sunday 7 May 2006

4th Sunday of Easter - The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone

Two of the apostles Peter and John had confronted the people of Jerusalem with their collective crimes accessories in the Jesus' execution (Acts 4: 8-12). These two apostles, like Jesus, were not only innocent of crime; they had done a good deed by curing a cripple. The priests were affronted. By what authority had the apostles performed this extraordinary cure? They were not accredited by the Temple authorities! 'So what?' Asked the Apostles. They claimed authority from God Himself through Jesus of Nazareth. When they claimed the name of Jesus to be all-powerful, let's be clear that 'name' of Jesus meant to Jews the influence exerted by a person's spirituality.

Our churches invoke Jesus' 'name' regularly. But, are our churches spiritually enlivened, immersed in the spirit of His Gospel? Or are we just very good at the frequent use of the name Jesus? If I had hair, it would stand on end whenever I catch a televangelist telling an audience that all you need to do to be saved is to invoke the name of Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Dangerously that is the source of Christian Individualism and the graveyard of the Church.

Responsorial Psalm 117 links out two main readings: 'The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.'

Thank God for John's version of the Gospel. Only there do we find such insights into the mind of God and of Jesus. The Bible foretold a day would come when God would come to gather together the dispersed sheep, his people, to live in their very own spiritual land. We know Jesus was the promised shepherd come to accomplish what had been announced but, not in the popularly expected way. The Jews thought wrongly, that the promised shepherd would restore material prosperity. That's why they hailed Jesus momentarily as special descendant of David, king of their Golden Age. They had never felt so proud, so nationalistic, as during David's reign. They really expected to be given by the whole world 'almost favoured nation' treatment when God installed an all-powerful Shepherd/King, the Messiah. Alas for them, Jesus insisted that his followers would not be nationalists. He would select from among the Jews, those few who would put all their trust in Him and His new order the Gospel. He would select lots of sheep from other nations, other sheepfolds, to join the few Jews who trusted Him and His way (John 10: 11-18). This is the privilege of the Church throughout history, not to have land boundaries or cultural divisions, but to move freely throughout history, not to be confined to any one nationality or era or civilization.

At Parish level, there are few hired hands, most of whom deeply care. All of us however are called to be good shepherds, especially to the marginalized, the 'Lost Sheep'. Who, exactly, are they? How can I help?

Sunday, 14 May 2006

5th Sunday of Easter - I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people

As far as Paul was concerned, his close encounter, on the road to Damascus, with the Risen Christ was as intimate and definitive as the original apostles had experienced (Acts 9:26-31). Yet, he had a hard time convincing the Jerusalem church, led by Peter, James and John, that he was able to be trusted despite his previous vocation as exterminator of Christians. Until Paul's appearance on the scene, the Church, led by and made up of Jewish Christians, had not gone beyond the Jewish people. Paul was, himself, a Jew but had been educated outside the Jewish environment. He enjoyed Greek culture as much as Jewish. Because of that, and his own exceptional personality, he was to become apostle to the Greeks and the other 'foreigners'.

For three years after conversion, Paul had lived (and preached?) in the Arabian region of Nabatea, which ran south through Transjordan to Sinai, centered on Petra. He was already going his own way. But, he did not separate from the Church, as today's first reading proves. Rather, he went to meet the apostles, especially Peter, at Jerusalem. Still he preserved his independence as he awaited the prompting of the Spirit. Barnabas was the 'broker' of an agreement between, the Jerusalem church and Paul. Thank God! Otherwise there would have been no Catholic Church as we have inherited.

Modern local churches need to be on the alert to recognize and welcome people, like Paul, who can inculturate the Church and Gospel in unsympathetic environments.

Responsorial Psalm 21, links today's two main readings: 'I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.' Today's Gospel passage (John 15:1-8) comes from part of Jesus' intimate speech at the Last Supper. Those who had been close to Jesus for several months would soon need to discover another, equally intimate, way of living with the Risen and present, even though invisible, Lord Jesus. He had already disclosed to them the closeness of the relationship between himself and the Father. That kind of unique relationship would be offered to anyone willing to keep the 'new commandment' 'love one another as I have loved you'. So we know for sure that such a relationship, such spirituality, has to be productive. It has to produce results to be authentic.

Jesus, ever the best of teachers, used an image well known to his friends the grapevine. All Jews saw the vine as a symbol of their nation, under God. Planted from selected, stock cared for by the Lord, it should have produced results of justice and peace, for not only the Jews, but all God's children. The health of the vine cannot be measured by just how big it is. It can only be judged by the excellence of the grapes, the results. Too often, the divinely planted vine, diseased by absorbed national infidelity, produced 'sour grapes'.

Just so, modern secular societies judge Christians by the social results we produce, especially in the area of justice and peace. Secular society might not like, always, the Church at work. It does, however, at its most honest, welcome social criticism from Christian citizens.

Sunday, 21 May 2006

6th Sunday of Easter - The Lord has revealed to the nations His saving power

We haven't many more chances of hearing proclaimed the Acts of the Apostles because, this year, those readings are confined to the Easter season. So, let's make the most of this exciting and inspiring book, popularly attributed to Saint Luke. Today's passage (Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48) highlights an extremely important fresh intervention of the Holy Spirit. Because of it, the early church would break out of the Jewish world and the Gospel would reach other cultural groups. So to our story Cornelius was a naturally good man, a foreigner (not a Jew) who was inclined to believe in the one God in whom the Jews put their trust. We don't know if Peter would normally have hesitated to baptize a non-Jew such as Cornelius. Be that as it may, his hand was forced by a strong intervention of the Spirit, and someone of a race, other than Jewish, was baptized!

Universalism was up and running. In many places today, our Church runs the danger of being confined to a closed social group. Fortunately for our Australian Church, many different ethnic groups have immigrated. I was in a parish last week with members from fifty different nationalities! Local churches must sacrifice prejudices to welcome these beautiful people to the Australian catholic scene. It will be even harder to find a willing and humble form of outreach to old and new Australians with no Catholic background at all. You could say that this large group of people, like Cornelius all over again, challenges us to identify their natural goodness. We could join them in so many ways in their concern for a better world. That could persuade them to join us in World and Sacrament.

The Responsorial Psalm links out two main readings. 'The Lord has revealed to the nations His saving power.'

Again, we turn to John, for help in discovering the Risen Jesus. He takes us back to the Last Supper. Jesus, according to John, made a long and deeply moving speech. Today's excerpt (John 15:9-17) is about permanent union between the disciples and Jesus and the means of preserving and developing that relationship. For the purpose of our discussion, let's translate the word religion as relationship. In this sense of the word, Our Lord can be seen to be the founder of new religion, which is all about a unique relationship between God and humanity. However, in the sense that the Old Testament itself describes, over and over again, God's loving advances to specially chosen individuals and to Israel as a people, Jesus' style of religion isn't new. Sadly, since love had gone out of the affair between God and Israel (no fault of God's!) and because ritual and regulation had usurped God's central position, then Jesus was a new beginning, a new testament. A dominant, spiritual feature of this loving relationship was, and is self-sacrifice.

A Christian is obliged to become totally dependant on the Lord and His was by interiorizing Jesus' attitudes. We call this process our spiritual life. That is what 'keeping my commandments' means. Local churches (parishes) and spiritual movements are called by God to ensure that ritual observance and law and order are subservient to the highest spirituality of sacrificial love.

Sunday, 28 May 2005

Ascension Sunday - God mounts his throne to shouts of joy

Today's passage (Acts 1:1-11) is a beautiful summary of Luke's Gospel; right up to the incident we celebrate today. It even mentions the confusion, still in the Apostles' minds, about the real purpose of Jesus' mission. Some still expect Our Lord to inaugurate an earthly kingdom, with them playing lead roles in government. This confusion had to come to an end. The apostles had to face up to their responsibilities and get on with the job. So, it was essential to draw to a definitive close the physical presence of Christ on earth. Other incidents of the Bible, such as the ascension of Elijah and also, the glorious presence of God leaving the Temple, suggested to Luke the spatial imagery he used to tell of our Lord's departure. The Lord would be 'seated at God's right hand', meaning He alone would be in control of the continuing plan of salvation, through the Spirit, unrestricted by time, space or culture.

The Ascension and Pentecost, together, mark the beginning of the universal mission of the Church. The Church is provisional, so to speak, the pilot light of the Kingdom. 'Our attitude to Church should be neither the admiration nor criticism but belief because we do not yet see the Kingdom' (Guide to the Christian Assembly).

Our Responsorial Psalm 46 links our two main readings. 'God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets to the Lord'.

We should be glad Jesus is no longer physically present among us. It means he has entrusted to us, the Church, the Father's work of salvation for all. Probably, today's Gospel account of the apparition to the eleven (Mark 16:15-20), fuses into one episode, a whole series of experiences and discoveries during the 'forty days' after the resurrection. It includes a selection of the marvels already wrought by the apostles, and account should be taken of the readiness of spectators, culturally to accept 'magical' things. This analysis, of the final New Testament text about the Ascension, offers an opportunity for reflection on the attitude of the earliest churches towards the Ascension and the strength of their faith. These church communities needed to summarise all that had happened to them since the disappearance of Jesus.

Baptism of converts, preaching by the apostles and their successors, missionary adventures among other than Jewish villages all these were noted as faithful, essential activities of churches under the influence of the risen ascended Jesus. The early Church was gradually 'institutionalising' itself. Mark is very blunt in his presentation of Christ's message. Are there members of my family or circle of friends for whom simple kindness is, indeed, great love?

Sunday, 4 June 2006

Pentecost Sunday - Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth

In today's first reading (Acts 2:1-11), Luke gives us several clues as to the similarity between the Sinai Pentecost and the Jerusalem Pentecost. For example, the disciples were all gathered in one room, just as the ancient Hebrews had gathered around Sinai. Wind and fire played a big part on Sinai, as in Jerusalem Pentecost. God's law was given to the Hebrews on Sinai. God's own Spirit was given in Jerusalem. The list of nationalities assembled in Jerusalem is meant to teach that God' Spirit is discernible in all cultures and generations.

The Church from the beginning was meant to become missionary, without prejudice, to be inclusive, Catholic, not exclusive of any time or place. Not long after the Pentecostal experience in Jerusalem there was another at Joppa where Peter witnessed the Spirit engulfing an entire non-Jewish gathering at Cornelius' house.

How apt are the words of our responsorial psalm 103: 'Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth.'

Today's Gospel (John 15:26-27; 16:12-15) provides some of John's deepest insights about what Our Lord had to say to his disciples on the night before he was executed. He promised them the abiding presence of the Spirit, the third person of the one and only 'communitarian' God.

From Pentecost on, it is the Spirit who teaches the Church. It will be always necessary for the Church to be humble and self-sacrificing to allow the Spirit to govern it. Church history gives us many unfortunate examples of the contrary. That same history let us be honest, even as it unfolds today, proves beyond reasonable doubt, that the Spirit alone inspires Church in the vast majority of cases. Without adding anything to the Father's 'word', this greatest witness to the Risen Lord continues to lead all Christians of every generation into Gospel truth.

The 'many things' that Jesus had to say, but did not, because 'they would be too much for you now', are being gradually imparted by the Spirit wherever and whenever. Church people are open enough, adventurous enough, to hear and discern them. And, not only Church people but all people of good will! Throughout her long history the Church has gone on discovering the implications of her universal mission. St Paul thought it would work within his time: today we realise that it has scarcely more than just begun. Our latest most dramatic example of the work of the Spirit surely is the groundswell of public support for reconciliation with our Aboriginal fellow Australians.

The AFL is to be thanked for giving a lead nationally.

Sunday, 11 June 2006

Trinity Sunday - Happy the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

At the risk of over-simplification, the book of Deuteronomy can be summarised as: One God, one people, one sanctuary. The most important teaching of this book is that Israel must always be monotheist, faithful to the one God who had inspired the patriarchs. This same God had visited the Jews in Egypt to lead them out of slavery, through the desert, into their own homeland, Canaan. The whole book is one of the most important for elaborating, what we call salvation history.

We may, naturally, be disappointed, in hindsight, that this book encourages 'tunnel vision', because it deals with only promises made by God concerning Canaan. No account is taken of the Universalist promises involving Abraham's descendants eg, 'All the nations will bless you.'

Catholics who hear this text (Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40) proclaimed this weekend can have complete faith that God is immersed in contemporary history, in Suva, in East Timor, indeed wherever the struggle goes on for reconciliation, justice and peace. Secular societies need to be confronted by churches, called to be good people, God's people.

Responsorial Psalm 32 links our two main readings: 'Happy the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

In very few words, today's Gospel (Matthew 28:16-20) is a superb mix of Old and New Testaments. It may help recall that the ancient book of Daniel had already suggested the existence of a 'trinity' by mentioning as well as God Himself, a 'Son of Man' and a powerful 'Angel'. So it was up to Jesus of Nazareth to re-position God as 'community' calling the human family to communion and with Him and within itself.

Jesus commissioned the apostles to launch an expedition whose aim would be to break down the barriers wherever and whenever uncovered. The new order of universalism would need to be based on Christ's unique commandment of reconciliation. This is a simple definition of a key Catholic concept and theological insight - evangelisation. Jesus knew his disciples, and, they knew him, by sharing everyday life. The same holds true for today's Church. Evangelisation implies interpersonal sharing. To evangelise means to help someone (or some group) to reflect on former experiences until s/he can recognise in the person of Christ, in His death and resurrection, the truth that lights up his own life.

That's what local churches today need to do when they reveal to secular society the meaning, not the politics, of this life of ours, especially its tensions. Only Jesus Christ, from the midst of the Holy Trinity, is empowered to reveal to us the way of communitarian reconciliation.

Sunday, 18 June 2006

Feast of the Body of Christ - "I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord

The commandments of God were written by Moses, according to one tradition, on slabs of stone. This code of belief and conduct was presented to the Israelites who, as a federation of 12 clans, accepted by unanimous vote that they would adopt the divine law as their rule of life - in perpetuity (Exodus 24:3-8). As was the custom, Moses sprinkled the blood of sacrificed animals on a stone altar, built for the occasion, then the assembled people were also, sprinkled.

Moses' words are very important, because Jesus would later use those same words to launch the New Covenant: 'This is the blood of the Covenant the Lord has made with you'. Judaism at its best had, thereafter, the living God at its core. At its worst, the law became 'a god' and the living God was not at home there.

Responsorial Psalm 115 'I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord'.

I should say that God was not at home with Jewish officialdom, which made ritual, and observance of rules such an unbearable burden ordinary people to carry. It was, on the contrary, Jesus' mission to identify and call to renewal all those Jews who had kept faith in God but lost faith in 'the system'. Let's be honest the same can be said of Catholicism in too many times and places down the centuries. So, according to our Gospel (Mark 14:12-16, 22-26), according to Saint Mark, Jesus, on the eve of his death, remembered the first covenant made at Mount Sinai. He intended to gather around Himself for a start, a people of God, a few, a minority who would feel committed to God's work and to whom God would commit Himself.

Paul would later develop the idea, the theology, to describe this minority as the body of Christ, Corpus Christi, in Latin. The Spiritual bloodline of Jesus. The 'Grail'. This body, or family, would no longer be identified with a certain race, but would be a family of believers pardoned of their sins: that is, the Church. Moses, at Sinai, had used animal blood to seal the original covenant. Jesus would offer Himself his own body and blood, to seal the new covenant.

Whenever we celebrate the Eucharist (or Mass), we renew this sacrificed meal in which Jesus offers Himself as the bread of life. By this sacramental encounter with the Risen Lord, we reaffirm our identity as the living Body of Christ.

Sunday, 25 June 2006

12th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Give thanks to the Lord. His love is everlasting

We've been through Easter and Pentecost, together, and the 'high' feasts of Trinity, Body of Christ, Ascension and Sacred Heart. Not only did these liturgies give us a chance to assemble and remember, as do many secular occasions, but they're meant to provide us with personal and collective experience of God and ourselves as family and circle of friends.

Today's first reading (Job 38:1, 8-11) from Job starts our annual routine reappraisal of our place in church and neighbourhood. It's called 'Ordinary Time'. What else! So we listen to a God who's down to earth enough to swap ideas with a not particularly religious man, once rich and powerful, now down on his luck. 'Why me? What kind of good are you?' God doesn't show his own wisdom, but he forces humans, like Job, to admit that they don't know anything. We're getting better (science and technology) at knowing WHAT. We still don't know WHY. A cat's or dog's strange eye contact, children at play or just the shape of a leaf are enough to show forth the mystery of creation. The world of the senses is not all of reality.

Job, reduced to sensual poverty in one way and enhanced in another unexpected way, caught a redemptive glimpse of the divine wisdom. All beauty, goodness and truth have their roots there in that ultimate reality.

Celebrate this unfathomable and unmarketable mystery in Sts Peter's and Paul's this weekend.

Psalm 106 helps get us from Job to Jesus. Give thanks to the Lord. His love is everlasting.

Mark, indeed all the gospel writers, wrote to reassure Christians, especially convert Jews, that everything would turn out alright. Today's gospel story (Mark 4:35-41) does the job. Who cares what happened or how! These gospels are bequeathed to us to activate the question 'why?' Jesus, notice, didn't reprimand the disciples for their fear of the storm but for not overcoming their fear.

We church people get a chance, today, to admit and confront our many fears the world's collapsing around us, the church's falling to bits, we're failures because we can't measure up in countless ways. But we, together with Jesus and the disciples are working for the Kingdom, which evolves in perceptively whatever goes on around it. Jesus' disciples admired him greatly, as we admire a champion, hero or, even, celebrity. Yes! As fickle as that! But, on the night he stood up for them against the storm, their eyes were opened. Remember, we need not to care about how or what but WHY. From that dramatic occasion on to Calvary, the disciples enjoyed Jesus not only as teacher and friend but the one to whom they had entrusted their very SELVES. Exciting but Scary!

Sunday, 2 July 2006

13th Sunday of the Year - I will praise You, Lord, for You have rescued me

The book of Wisdom was written in Egypt between 80 and 50 before Christ. The Author was one of the many Jews living in foreign lands deeply under the influence of Greek culture. In the last centuries before Christ, that culture, spread by Alexander the Great, had penetrated the nations of the Middle East. Greeks contributed a new way of looking at the freedom of the individual and the nobility of the human spirit. They promoted scientific research and highly esteemed physical beauty and skills enshrined in, for example, the Olympic Games. The book of Wisdom is the first serious effort to express the faith and wisdom of Israel, not only in Greek but also in a way adapted to Greek attitudes.

Today's first reading (Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24) enshrines the basic Wisdom truth: God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves! God is humanity's friend who wants everyone to live life to the full. So, we are urged to look to God with confidence: to think well of God is to fly in the face of all criticisms of Him, like 'Why does God allow suffering and death?' The closer one gets to God, the more convinced one becomes of His concern for human spiritual and material welfare. Secular society is naturally confused about the right to life. It prefers to debate the right to die. The Christian church, emerging from Judaism and respectful of all theologies and philosophies, is the guardian of all God's wisdom about life and death.

Responsorial Psalm 29 links our two main readings: 'I will praise You, Lord, for You have rescued me.'

Today's Gospel selection (Mark 5:23-43) must be kept in context. Herod was plotting against Jesus: John the Baptist had just been executed; the great ordeal was looming on the horizon. Confronted by a most distressing, even senseless, sickness and the equally disturbing death of a young woman, Jesus revolted against these humanly hopeless situations. Miracles were often His way of protesting against the vulnerability, the woundedness, of the human condition. Jesus knew, as did the author of Wisdom, that God wanted people to live life to the full. Sickness and death were not God's doing, nor are they today. In the case of the adult woman, we can discern the trusting attitude we encounter today in so many people who entrust themselves, health and all, to a devotional or popular, Catholicism. This may be superficial or naive, expecting great results, from touching images and religious objects - Jesus' garment in this Gospel incident. But as Jesus did, we should respect such religious expressions of Catholicism. In the same way, we should try, like Jesus to help people discover deeper dimensions of their faith, of their discipleship. Just say that the 'little girl' of the Gospel story personifies Hope. In each of us she lies asleep: she must be woken up regularly, made to get up and walk around. It's only made possible by faith in the One who can make our darkest nights give away to light.

Sunday 9 July 2006

14th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Our eyes are fixed on the Lord

In the days when Ezekiel wrote, the 500s BC, people really believed that their 'Gods' were confined to specific sanctuaries, some natural, some man-made. Thus, the Jews believed that the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their God, was not to be found outside the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews, therefore, exiled in Babylon, far from that Jerusalem temple, were soon given to despair. Ezekiel had the divine vocation to convince these exiles, so rebellious against Gods abandonment of them that God did dwell, indeed, in the Jerusalem Temple BUT he was no less present among them in distant Babylon (Ezekiel 2:2-5).

Of course, we now know that five hundred years after Ezekiel, the Word of God would become flesh and dwell among his disciples Jesus with us. In preparation for that 'Incarnation', it was Ezekiel's task to launch theology that would become the indelible mark of 'true believers' throughout human history. Religious people who resent this closeness of God and keep Him prisoner, they think, in some lofty, inaccessible (except to them!) place are not 'true believers'. The Babylonian exiles were meant to take Ezekiel's message back to Palestine to revitalise religious institutions.

Responsorial Psalm 122 links our two main readings: 'Our eyes are fixed on the Lord', pleading for a fair go (mercy) 'I will praise You, Lord, for You have rescued me'. This Gospel passage (Mark 6:1-6) shows Jesus offering an alternative to the model of religion on display in Palestine at that time. Over the preceding 800 years the Jewish prophets had regularly called their leadership to ditch over-emphasis on worship and choose merciful service towards the widow and orphan. Were I making up this point of view, I could well be struck off the list of priests commissioned to preach!

The same kind of advice was being offered right across the known world according to Karen Armstrong in her The Great Transformation, by sages in China and India and Greece all during the 800 years BCE. Later, during Mohammed's compilation, albeit verbal, of the Quran in late 600s AD, the Prophet will demand that his followers take almsgiving as seriously as prayer! How are we to faithfully preach today's gospel from Mark? Are we to scrap it in rich Parishes and explain it away in poor Parishes? Was Jesus a revolutionary? I think He was an 'evolutionary' bringing out the 'best practice' of prayer and almsgiving hinted at by the prophets, ignored by the clerics, practiced by people like Mary and Joseph.

Sunday 20 August, 2006

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Practice good, seek peace, pursue it

When Palestine had settled down to become some kind of peaceful society (thanks mainly, to king Solomon) a new kind of literature emerged. Thoughtful Jewish writers took advantage of the lull between struggles to develop what we now call wisdom literature. These religious 'philosophers' reflected on human behaviour, how people could live together in harmony, the moral consensus, the role of wealth, the different fates of the good and the bad.

As an aside, there is a great hunger in our own times for such philosophical writings and discussions. Many people are looking for more than a trip along the super-highway of information.

Our first reading (Proverbs 9:1-6) comes from what was written about the 2nd Century before Christ. (Keep your eyes open for Jesus' own use of the new' style in his 'banquet parables'.) All people are called to change their lives; yet, the one thing we all love to avoid is change. The book of Proverbs talks about Wisdom. Jesus himself is Wisdom, the very personification of God. This Old Testament book presents God as always present in out lives. He gives Himself and nourishes us. We're invited to open our hands to accept whatever He offers, learning to trust it will all be for the good. Each day He gives us whatever, spiritually; we need to solve our human problems, individually and collectively.

John would later develop this theology in both his version of the Gospel and in the Book of Revelation. Today's Gospel extract (John 6:51-58) ends Christ's discourse about the 'bread of life'. He had tried, ever so hard, to break gradually to his audience the good news about the 'bread of life'. Surely, at least, parents among them would have understood the deep meaning of what Our Lord had to say about self-sacrifice. When parents offer bread to their children, they really offer themselves. Especially in times and places where bread is made at home or bought with saved money with great difficulty, parents are sacrificing themselves for the family.

Indeed, Jesus introduced 'family' into his discourse about the Eucharist, as is clearly demonstrated in today's Gospel emphasis on the Father. John, alone, conveys this deep spiritual insight. The eating and drinking of Christ's flesh and blood is a graphic expression about sharing divine life with the Father through him. Another member of the Family, the Spirit, achieves all these sacramental wonders. So, the Family of God, the Trinity, is not just a dogma for us; it is a living relationship enshrined forever within Eucharist celebration and sharing.

We've heard many times the modem health adage: 'We are what we eat'. Never have those words meant more than in John's teaching, at great length, about eating and drinking the Body and Blood of the Lord.