Bulletins from June 2023

Hospitality can be underrated. Being welcoming is a virtue that is often overlooked. At the same time, when we are recipients of hospitality, we feel valued and inspired to be just as welcoming of others. When asked what makes for good liturgy, Catholics repeatedly mention these three qualities: Good Music, Good Preaching and Real Hospitality. Perhaps hospitality should be first on the list, because it is what we experience the moment we arrive at church for Mass, or even when we drive into the parking lot. Whether we are visitors or long-time parishioners, are we ever greeted or made to feel welcome? The ministry of hospitality was a victim of the pandemic, but it is time for a renewal at Saint Clare. In this way, we can respond to the words of the Lord in today’s gospel reading: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

“Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.” Using imagery of God’s love and care for all creation (“Yet not one [sparrow] falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.”), Jesus urges his listen-ers to have faith in the God whose love has no limits. It is difficult for us to live without fear. In fact, fear is an important compo-nent in steering us away from dangerous or reckless behavior. Fear of failure encourages preparation and study; we try to avoid accidents by following the rules of safe driving or walking. But Jesus’ instruction to His followers, “Fear no one,” is an encouragement of irrational fear, the fear that is not founded in reality or logic. This the paralyz-ing fear that makes our normal functioning impossible. It is the kind of fear we encounter when we awake in the middle of the night, the kind that, thank-fully, evaporates with the light of day. So many times in the gospels, Jesus announces that “Fear is useless; what is needed is trust.” These words should not be wasted on us. To paraphrase Václav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic, our faith is not the conviction that everything will turn out right, but that however things turn out, it will be alright. His words are a call to all to trust in God, the only One Who makes all things right. Perhaps these words will aid us as we journey through Summer 2023.

“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” It was with this instruction that Jesus sent the Apostles to continue the work that he had begun. The “gift” that is so freely given is a reminder that God’s own life in us, which we call “grace,” is given to us so that we can just as freely share with others. We remember that every gift and blessing that comes our way is destined for another, that we are stewards of all that is ours. Jesus continues to summon us, to gather us as His very own: “The harvest is rich, but the laborers are few.” By virtue of our Baptism, each is commis-sioned by the Lord to share His work, whatever we do and wherever we go.

The Eucharist is God’s greatest gift to humanity, “the Lord’s presence in His absence.” In this year of Eucharistic Renewal, Catholics are invited to focus and pray over the words, “My flesh is true food, my blood is true drink.” The “living bread that came down from heaven” pledges eternal life. . . “unlike your ancestors who ate [manna] in the desert, whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup will live forever.” In the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, Jesus is really present. The Church has long described this in terms of the ancient term, “transubstantiation,” which is not easily grasped by most of us. When we ask our young people who have been well-prepared to receive Holy Communion whether or not the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of the Lord, the responses are generally split right down the middle. A number of years, a survey of American Catholics came upon some ambivalence regarding the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. Some decried this as a lack of faith on our part; it is probably fairer to state that there is a misunderstanding about how the consecrated Bread and Wine are signs and symbols of what they truly are and what the truly signify. To put it in the words of a class on liturgy that I took long ago at SCU, a symbol embodies that for which it is a symbol. It is not merely a sign that points to another reality. The symbol is the other reality. As such, the bread and wine of the Eucharist are not only signs of the Body and Blood of Christ; through the power of the Holy Spirit and the prayer of the Church, they truly become what they signify. They become the Body and Blood of the Lord. That is how and why the consecrated Bread and Wine are in actuality the very realities of which they are signs: the Body and Blood of the Lord. When we say our “Amen” to the minister who distributes the Host, our Amen is our assent to two dual realities: that which we receive into our hands and, at the very same time, the Body and Blood of Christ, which we are called to be-come! Finally, it has been said often that “the Eucharist makes the Church.” A corollary of this is that if there is no Eucharist, so goes the Church. That is why we are invited and challenged to celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, or at least as often as our health allows.

Saint John’s most precise description of God is: “God is love.” This does not mean simply that God is loving, but that it is God’s nature, before all else, the essence of God is love poured out. Love is the bond among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is the source of all that is, all that has been and will ever be throughout the entirety of the universe or even the sum of all possible universes. To be anything other than love cannot be. God’s love is not a selfish love, as though God were looking into the mirror and is pleased. Saint Augustine describes it this way: God is the Lover, the Beloved and the Love that is between Lover and Beloved. The Father loves the Son, and the Son the Father and the bond of their love is the Spirit, which is poured into our hearts. That love is so great that Creation was the result – It is another great mystery, how something came into being from nothingness. This is what we celebrate this weekend as the foundation of all and, at the very same time, as the goal of our lives: to be love as God is love.