Hello Everyone,
1. Masses
As I mentioned yesterday, the bishop is allowing 5 people at every Mass, not just the Sunday liturgies. You can sign up by calling, emailing, or filling out the google sheet. Also, if you're in touch with anyone who is not big into the emailing / internet scene, feel free to spread the word and even sign them up if they would like. Here's the link to the sheet:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-bKcQr7kx8KBN0Z3TtGYWeUG5dkX6amKRNV7BunBSrc/edit?usp=sharing
2. Same goes for confessions, available tomorrow (Friday):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x2Kiau-oaA8Kofyl2WdNoORi4DFK6-zZjbqhPOo3Eu4/edit?usp=sharing
3. Mass was offered for all of you, the parishioners, as well as for Nancy Catherine Shaffer Brown Jones (by Carolyn Kelly)
4. If you missed it live, you can watch the episode of Through Saintly Eyes on St. Pope Pius V, which I did this time with my sister (!), on the parish facebook page
Reflection
(http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings/043020.cfm)
The first readings continue to march through the book of Acts; the Gospel passages, meanwhile, are now moving through John chapter 6, the famous Eucharistic chapter. John's Gospel is structured heavily around the sacraments; the sixth chapter highlights his Eucharistic theology. In the course of the chapter, John records these words of Jesus: I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.
From the earliest times of the Church, the bishops and priests and emphasized the astonishing gift that the Eucharist is. I wanted to share with you today a particularly powerful passage from an early Father of the Church, St. Irenaeus, who lived from about 130 - 200 AD. This is what he teaches:
If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the Eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.
We are his members and we are nourished by creatures, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall. He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the Eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man, for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body.
The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of man and when they receive God’s word they become the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the Eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness.
Two lines emphasizing the same theme stand out in particular. One is "How can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life?" and the other is when he compares our bodies to that of wheat and a vine, and says, "In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the Eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time." It's a vivid reminder of the power of the Eucharist. Receiving the Eucharist is like forming us into a seed. A seed dies and is buried, but then comes to life again. We ourselves become true seeds, by receiving the Easter-power hidden in the Eucharist.
As we begin to see more and more of Springtime life reveal itself around us, let us recall that this is but a faint image of the eternal life that Christ our Lord bestows to us in the Eucharist, with his Resurrected body.
God bless you all!
Fr. Matthew