+ Last Sunday we celebrated the "summary" Sunday of the Most Blessed Trinity: One God who is Three Divine Persons: each Distinct, Separate and Real; but One, Equal, Holy and Essential Being. This is the "uncreated God" who is an eternal dynamic relationship of love – having no beginning, and no end – who exist in an eternal now of supreme joy and peace! We said last week that this amazing Being – completely sufficient and content within itself – had no reason whatsoever at all to go outside Itself EXCEPT for the fact that BEING LOVE – they wanted to share what they have with other beings, who they would create, to be like them, created in their image: meaning, PERSONS sharing their GLORY and their POWER. That is where Adam, Eve and their children - that is, you and I - came from.
It was an amazing relationship that they had – Adam and Eve – until they were tricked by the Devil into demanding something that they already possessed: life in the divinity of God himself. They were already like God, created in his image; but Satan twisted it 180 degrees and told them that he could make them gods in their own right, after their own imaginings and likes and dislikes– quite divorced from any dependent relationship on anyone, most especially GOD THE FATHER! And that was it! Like a great clap of thunder sin cut though the family relationship between God and his children. Mankind was mortally wounded – and would be for all time, unless a totally unprecedented event took place: a Man-God offering his very life for the likes of sinful men!
It was the offended, God the Father, who went so far as to devise the plan and send his only-begotten Son to be the one to die for the salvation of the human race! What a tremendous reality the Divine Heart of God is! He loved and loves his creations so very much. And then thanks to the effectiveness of the action of the Holy Spirit who has been present to the community of believers in God's love, his salvation and the whole process based around the person of Jesus, his Son – access to the Divine Life is now once again possible by means of the Sacraments of the Church which begin with BAPTISM!
When one chooses to be baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" an entirely super-natural event takes place: the son or daughter of Adam, becomes instantaneously a son or daughter of God himself (once again) by means of the grace of reconciliation merited by Jesus Christ who is not only our Savior, but also our Brother and our Friend. This is amazing! We, of course also, become members of the Church, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, Branches of the Vine, a community of believers! But first and foremost and most magnificently WE BECOME CHILDREN OF GOD! We become children of God! Everything follows from that!
And the great message of today's feast is that God provides for his family: he provides the greatest spiritual food that could ever possibly be imagined: food which is the spiritual Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the same Savior and Lord, Brother and Friend who promised to stay with his people, his Church, his Body, his Bride throughout all of human history, until the very end of the world: CHRIST JESUS, his Son. This angelic food, this Bread of Life, this Eucharist that was instituted on the night of the Last Supper, contains also the very death of Jesus on the Cross the next day because Jesus had exactly the same intention at both events: to lay down his life completely for his only then potential and possible brothers and sisters: so that they could have life and have it to the full!
It is absolutely necessary to eat this bread and drink this cup, in order to gain everlasting life. Jesus says this quite plainly and he means it. That is why it is vital for all of us to get the message out that this is so: that fullness of life must be tasted and experienced here, before it can even be recognized, tasted and experienced later in heaven. While baptism is also a requirement for salvation – and alternative ways of being baptized are recognized by the Church – there is only the slightest way around not eating and drinking the bread and wine consecrated by a duly ordained priest of the Catholic Church - whose ordination is verifiable in the true apostolic line of succession. There is surely a legitimate means of "spiritual communion" for those who cannot in any other way avail themselves of the true Eucharist in their lifetimes directly!
Just as Baptism creates holy childhood of God in us and Confirmation strengthens it and gives it gifts to use for the good of all in the family: so Eucharist completes the initiation process with a family meal that can be partaken of daily if wanted, weekly as prescribed for our own spiritual welfare by the Church. It is of extreme importance to know that the Divine Life begun at Baptism and strengthened at Confirmation would quite literally die if it is not nurtured and nourished by participation in the Holy Eucharist, and by prayer and works of charity done for love of God. Perhaps this is why so many lukewarm and fallen away Catholics, and members of other religious persuasions who have baptism as part of their initiation rites seem so miserable, disjointed and generally unhappy: their own unattended, neglected, forgotten but spiritual lives are smothering them!
Let us prune ourselves, if necessary, let us pray, let us help others for love of Christ and let us appreciate the depth of love that went into the creation of the Most Blessed gift of Eucharist - for the Divine Life of our very souls – and let us eat and drink and proclaim the death of the Lord joyfully and happily until he comes again – so that we can go with him home and live forever in our Father's house!
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