Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Mark 12:38-44

In the course of his teaching Jesus said to the crowds, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: The gospel for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time contrasts two kinds of religious people. In the first part of the passage, Jesus describes the scribes, who learned in the Law of Moses and theological questions, live ostentatiously, entirely conscious and protective of their privileged positions in the society of other believers. In the second part of the passage, Jesus comments on the poor widow, who without ostentation, gives of everything she has to support the work of the Temple.

This passage of the gospel comes at the end of Jesus’ public ministry and introduces the account of the Lord’s passion and death. In a way, it sums up everything that has come before. Throughout the gospel to this point, Jesus has decried the falseness of religious people who act outwardly as though God were important in their lives but in their hearts suffer from pride and arrogance. He repeatedly has taught that those who are small in the eyes of the world are great in the eyes of God. In Jesus’ attack on the scribes and his praise of the widow, the passage encapsulates Jesus’ teaching. Moreover, the widow’s willingness to surrender everything she has for God anticipates Jesus’ own sacrifice and willingness to suffer the loss of everything to achieve God’s purpose.

A side note is worth considering. Christians rightly have seen in the widow’s sacrifice something estimable. After all, her heart taught her to give completely and trust that God would provide. But it is possible that the passage has another lesson to teach. The wealthy with great fanfare give fortunes of donations to the Temple without eating into their capital. It is at least possible that their example led the widow to do something imprudent, to give all she had to survive, and a part of the corruption of the wealthy was their leading the widow to do something which injured her.

Spiritual reading: Reading is prayer—it is searching for light on the terrible problems of the day, at home and abroad, personal problems and national problems, that bring us suffering of soul and mind and body. And relief always comes. A way is always opened, “Seek and you shall find.” (“On Pilgrimage – July/August 1973″ by Dorothy Day)

Holy Trinity Diocesan Retreat

The Holy Trinity Diocesan Family Retreat is a time to get away and focus more intensely on who we are in relationship to God and one another. All family members can join the fun; there will be separate sessions for adults and children.

We seem to stumble through life as if in the dark, we search for answers but can’t seem to find our way. Let Christ be our light as we gather for a time of prayer, discussion and reflection starting Friday evening, Nov 13 and during Saturday, Nov 14.

We will have hiking, yoga and other fun activities to treat the body as well as the soul. You can also use break times for private confession with one of the priests or reflection in the Eucharist Chapel. Meals and lodging are provided so bring your comfortable clothes and an open heart. Don’t forget to bring linens (or a sleeping bag), pillows and bath amenities.

Christ is our Light

FRIDAY EVENING 11/13
7:00-8:00 pm Check-in time (OPTIONAL)
8:00 pm Christ Be Our Light Campfire Gathering (S’mores and more)

SATURDAY 11/14
7:00 am -7:15 am Morning Prayer

7:30 am 8:30 am BRAKFAST (4-H Center Cafeteria)

9-9:45 am Session 1 Will someone turn on the lights?
Reflection: Who are we in relation to one another and God?

Break: 45 minutes

10:30-11:15 am Session 2 Make haste slowly (Festina Lente)
Reflection: What is it we need to move forward?

12:00 Noon LUNCH (4-H Center Cafeteria)

1:00-1:45 pm Session 3 Connecting the Dots
Reflection: What is our relationship to our community?

Break: 45 minutes

2:30-3:15 pm Session 4 This Little Light of Mine
Reflection: What is our relationship with the world?

Break: 45 minutes

4:00-5:00 pm Closing Liturgy

6:00pm DINNER (4-H Center Cafeteria)

Departure

SUNDAY….. Share the Good News at Holy Trinity, St Andrew’s and St Charles of Brazil

Finding Value in the Valueless

I’m in the midst of a discernment process regarding my ministry. A friend suggested I apply to be a chaplain in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system, something that never really crossed my mind. As I’ve been praying over this opportunity I began to consider the need for someone who cares, to serve those who are now considered outcasts within our society. It is really a Jesus “thing,” he constantly inveigled himself with those on the margins of society: Samaritans, women, children, tax collectors, Roman soldiers, the demonically possessed and lepers, “heretics,” thieves and murderers – a real collection of characters.

In our everyday lives we are cautious about those with whom we deal. Yes, it is prudent to avoid going where it is not safe to walk, ride or live. However for many that is not an option. It is not with a little apprehension that I am considering this move. In one sense, it is like entering a monastic community, a very regulated environment with set times for work and meals, cells and dormitories, shared facilities and no real possessions to differentiate one from another. Unlike a monastic community, the individuals in the prison system are not there by their own volition, they come with a lot of “unhappy baggage” and are unwillingly separated from those who care about their welfare.

Now it’s probably easy to just say that these individuals are there by their own fault and must pay the price for their misdeeds and write them off. A very dear friend of mine spent two years as an unwilling “guest” of the system. It was during his time of incarceration that I began to understand the anxieties and brutality of imprisonment on the life of the individual. I think for him the most difficult part was separation from his wife. In his letters printed with a “golf” pencil on small pieces of paper he shared his feelings about what happened to him. I suppose a ministry began at that point wherein weekly letters passed between us as a small thread to the outside world.

In Jesus’ time, there were few threads which held the dispossessed together with those in the outside world. Isolation, whether enforced by prison walls, deafness, blindness, prejudice, disease, social status or poverty is devastating to those whom we are asked to treat as brothers and sisters. The first step we must take is to learn to find value in what society and our own prejudices cite as valueless. We are told that God values all things from the lilies of the field and the sparrow to the hearts of all humanity into which the Son was incarnated.

What is the value of the “valueless?” It is simply this; they share with us the very image and likeness of the creator. By his adoption, we are brothers and sisters of the same Lord Jesus Christ and heirs with him to the kingdom of heaven. It is for this reason that we are obligated to treat one another with the same reverence and respect we do our own blood relatives. Rather than begrudgingly caring for the poor and homeless we should be feeling pride that we can be of service to them. An article in the newspaper recently talked about how one man began a company designed to give those recently released from prison a second chance at life. Second Chance Coffee company was founded to help those who wanted to get back into society like those cured of leprosy, blindness, and demonic possession in Jesus’ time.

We as Christians can re-value the “valueless” by how we not only respond to their needs but by also anticipating them. Cooking meals for the homeless shelter is great, making that meal special by going out of our way to provide an extra treat, share our musical talents, or just listen to them is even better. It is when we find value in others that we will begin to find the real value in ourselves.

As noted on the blog, Ecomythsmith, in discussing micro-banking as a means of helping the poor, “One of the problems with different perspectives on problems and proposing new solutions to long-term issues is that there is no experience to indicate if they will work and tremendous resistance to change that alters existing approaches (even when those approaches are not working). Moreover, when an idea or solution is counter-intuitive to axiomatic constructs, the barriers to their adoption can be huge. It is gratifying then when new solutions are put into place despite “official” scepticism and even more gratifying when those approaches become the new standard for implementation.” We as Christians are called to be counter-intuitive counter-culturalists, willing to go beyond ourselves, our pre-conceived ideas and prejudices to care for one another in the same way Jesus does.

Perhaps the prayer of Thomas Merton is one to help us on our path:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Mark 10:35-45

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” He replied, “What do you wish me to do for you?” They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.” When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John. Jesus summoned them and said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: Jesus asks a question this week that we will hear him ask again next Sunday, “What do you wish me to do for you?” Just as Jesus addressed this question to his followers James and John, he addresses this question to us. Many of us will respond to the Lord with what it is that we need now, whatever it may be: a job, the next mortgage payment, whatever urgent need immediately presents itself. But such needs, while important and unavoidable, do not go to the core of who we are as people who have received the Lord’s baptism.

As this passage opens today, Jesus has just made the third prediction of his suffering and death, and yet James and John ask him for the privilege of sitting at his right and left. It is clear that they have not understood what the Lord said. They still imagine an earthly messiah, one who will enjoy political glory, one who will restore David’s throne and throw off Roman oppression. They have missed the point of Jesus’ life and ministry, and by implication, the point of their lives and ministries.

So Jesus tries again: he replies that insofar as he can honor their request, their lots will be to share in his suffering: as Jesus metaphorically styled it, they will drink the cup he drinks and be baptized with his baptism. One of the Church’s ancient traditions, in fact, suggests James and John did do just that, being martyred in a persecution in Jerusalem in 44.

The answer to the question of, “What do you wish me to do for you,” in the light of the gospel then, is, “Will you, Lord, let us drink from the cup from which you drink and be baptized with the baptism by which you are baptized.” It is only in our pouring ourselves out for the gospel, in whatever charism God has given us, that we realize the import of Jesus’ question for our own lives.

Spiritual reading: In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instructions through the holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While meeting with them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the holy Spirit.” (The Acts of the Apostles by Luke the Evangelist)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Luke 12:1-7

At that time, so many people were crowding together that they were trampling one another underfoot. Jesus began to speak, first to his disciples, “Beware of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees.

“There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one. Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: Jesus says in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, May your light so shine before men that they may see goodness in your acts and give praise to your heavenly Father. It is exactly this transparency of the Christian who lives the gospel that Jesus infers today when he condemns the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and says that every secret we have held in the darkness will open eventually before the light. We should endeavor, then, to be people through whom the light of God shines.

Saint of the day: Gerard Majella is the patron of expectant mothers. He was born at Muro, Italy, in 1726 and joined the Redemptorists at the age of 23, becoming a professed lay brother in 1752. He served as sacristan, gardener, porter, infirmarian, and tailor. However, because of his great piety, extraordinary wisdom, and his gift of reading consciences, he was permitted to counsel communities of religious women.

It seems that God had given him, in particular, the special power to help mothers in need. In life and since his death, he has helped so many women who have prayed to him during labor that he earned the nickname the “Saint of Happy Deliveries.” Many mothers from all over the world have even named their child Gerard after him in gratitude, and have adopted him as their patron in the joys and fears of childbirth.

This humble servant of God also had the faculties of levitation and bi-location associated with certain mystics. His charity, obedience, and selfless service as well as his ceaseless mortification for Christ, made him the perfect model of lay brothers. He was afflicted with tuberculosis and died in 1755 at the age of twenty-nine.

Spiritual reading: To love God much, always united to God, to do all for God, to love all for God, to conform myself to his holy will, to suffer much for God. (Gerard Majella)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 19:3-12

Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.” They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?” He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” His disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered, “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: Jesus provides in this passage a hard teaching about divorce, but when his disciples question him about it, Jesus does not paint this teaching in white and black. He acknowledges that not everyone can live by this teaching because the Master understands the ambiguity of our existence. We do well to imitate him.

Saint of the day: Maximilian Kolbe was born Raymond Kolbe. He took the name Maximilian when he became a friar. He is known chiefly for the manner of his death in Auschwitz, but his life was also noteworthy. He was born in 1894 near Lodz in a part of Poland then under Russian rule, of parents who worked at home as weavers. In 1910, he became a Franciscan, taking the name Maximilian. His parents then undertook the monastic life, his mother as a Benedictine and his father as a Franciscan. His father left the order to run a religious bookstore, and then enlisted with Pilsudski’s army to fight the Russians. He was captured and hanged as a traitor in 1914.

Maximilian studied at Rome and was ordained in 1919. He returned to Poland and taught Church history in a seminary. He left the seminary to found an association named for the Virgin Mary and dedicated to spreading the Roman Catholic faith and assisting those who held it to learn more about it; and to establish a printing press and publish a periodical for the members of his association, consisting largely of Christian apologetics. He built a friary just west of Warsaw, which eventually housed 762 Franciscans and printed eleven periodicals, one with a circulation of over a million. In 1930 he went to Asia, where he founded friaries in Nagasaki and in India. In 1936 he was recalled to supervise the original friary near Warsaw. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, he knew that the friary would be seized and sent most of the friars home. He was imprisoned briefly, then released, and returned to the friary, where he and the other friars sheltered 3000 Poles and 1500 Jews and continued to publish a newspaper encouraging its readers.

In May 1941 the friary was closed down and Maximilian and four companions were taken to Auschwitz, where they worked with the other prisoners, chiefly at carrying logs. Maximilian carried on his priestly work surreptitiously, hearing confessions in unlikely places and celebrating the Lord’s Supper with bread and wine smuggled in for that purpose.

In order to discourage escapes, the camp had a rule that if a man escaped, ten men would be killed in retaliation. In July 1941 a man from Kolbe’s bunker turned up missing and was assumed to have escaped. (In fact, he was found later to have drowned in the camp latrine; it is at least possible that it was a suicide.) The remaining men of the bunker were led out and ten were selected, including a Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek. When he uttered a cry of dismay, Maximilian stepped forward and said, “I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.” The officer had more use for a young worker than for an old one and made the exchange. The ten men were placed in a large basement cell and left there to starve. Maximilian encouraged the others with prayers, psalms, and meditations on the Passion of Christ. After two weeks, only four were alive, and only Maximilian was fully conscious. The four were killed with injections of carbolic acid on August 14, 1941.

Spiritual reading: Every man and woman in this world has been assigned a mission by God. In fact, ever since God created the universe, he arranged the first causes in such a way that the unbroken chain of their effects should create the most favorable conditions and circumstances for each person to fulfill the mission that God had assigned him. Therefore, every person is born with abilities that are proportionate to the mission he or she has been entrusted, and through each person’s whole life, the environment, circumstance and everything else will contribute to make it easy and possible for him or her to reach that purpose. (Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 14:1-12

Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”

Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet. But at a birthday celebration for Herod, the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests and delighted Herod so much that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests who were present, he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. His disciples came and took away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.

Reflection on the gospel reading: Matthew narrates that Herod Antipas believed Jesus to be John the Baptist’s reincarnation: that John’s spirit had returned to punish him. Almost as an aside, Matthew recounts how Herod came to kill John, that he executed John in an act that demonstrated his moral weaknesses. Matthew almost invites us to compare John’s death to Jesus’: a weak leader, be it Herod or Pilate, cravenly collapses before his better instincts to execute a person who witnessed to the truth, be it John or Jesus. Matthew in today’s gospel sets before us the examples of expediency and authenticity almost as an implicit question about what we shall choose for ourselves.

Saint of the day: Alphonsus Maria De Liguori was born 1696 at Marianelli near Naples, Italy. A nobleman, he was one of the leading lawyers in Naples. He never attended court without having attended Mass first. A priest at age 29, Alphonsus was a preacher and missionary. He was a writer on asceticism, theology, and history. A master theologian, he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Liguorians or Redemptorists). Bishop of Saint Agata dei Gotti, he was afflicted with severe rheumatism and often could barely move nor raise his chin from his chest. He vowed never to waste a moment of his life, and lived that way for over 90 years.

When he was bishop, one of Alphonsus’s priests led a worldly life and resisted all attempts to change. He was summoned to Alphonsus and at the entrance to the bishop’s study, he found a large crucifix laid on the threshold. When the priest hesitated to step in, Alphonsus quietly said, “Come along, and be sure to trample it underfoot. It would not be the first time you have placed Our Lord beneath your feet.” He died in 1787 at Nocera.

Spiritual reading: We must show charity towards the sick, who are in greater need of help. Let us take them some small gift if they are poor, or, at least, let us go and wait on them and comfort them. (Alphonsus Ligouri)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 9:32-38

A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: Today’s gospel continues Matthew’s depiction of Jesus’ reaction to the problems that afflict human beings. In the gospel, Jesus makes a mute man to speak. The narrative ends the section of 10 healing miracles we have visited the last couple of weeks with a description of Jesus’ sense of the troubles and abandonment that afflict human beings, that we are like sheep without a shepherd. He tells the apostles to pray that the Father will send laborers into the field. It is true that every generation needs its priests and religious, but all of the baptized are potentially laborers in the vineyard.

Saint of the day: One of eight children born to a wealthy, upper-class family; Maria Romero Meneses’s father was a government minister. Educated by her family, tutors, and at the local Salesian Sisters’ school, she could play piano and violin. She studied drawing and loved to learn. At the age of 12, she spent a year extremely sick from rheumatic fever and was paralyzed for six months. As a result of the illness, her heart was permanently damaged. She was cured by the intercession and apparition of Our Lady, Help of Christians, during which vision she understood her vocation to be a Salesian sister.

On December 8, 1915, Maria joined the Marian Association’s Daughters of Mary. She joined the Daughers of Mary, Help of Christians in 1920, and on January 6, 1929 in Nicaragua, Maria made her final profession as a Salesian. She transferred to San Jose, Costa Rica in 1931. Maria taught music, drawing, and typing to rich school girls. She trained catechists and trades for the poor. Many of her students were won over to her way of life, and she labored to help the poor and abandoned.

Maria developed a ministry of fund raising and of showing the wealthy practical ways to bring their charity to the poor. She began to set up recreational centers in 1945 and food distribution centers in 1953. She opened a school for poor girls in 1961 and in 1966, a clinic staffed by volunteer doctors. In 1973 she organized the construction of seven homes, which became the foundation of the village of Centro San Jose, a community were poor families could have decent homes. An excellent teacher, manager, and fund-raiser, she was known for her way of bringing God to people one on one as well as bringing love and devotion to the Eucharist to social improvements.

Spiritual reading: Far from being irrelevant, prayer, meditation and contemplation are of the utmost importance in America today . . . (and) have an important part to play in opening up new horizons.

If our prayer is the expression of a deep and grace-inspired desire for newness of life–and not the mere blind attachment to what has always been familiar and “safe”–God will act in us and through us to renew the Church by preparing, in prayer, what we cannot yet imagine or understand. In this way our prayer and faith today will be oriented toward the future which we ourselves may never see fully realized on earth (Contemplation in a World of Action by Thomas Merton)

Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘ Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Reflection on the gospel reading: It is a good thing on this feast of Corpus Christi to proclaim that we believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. But the devotion to the Real Presence in the Eucharist over and against the other modes of the Real Presence in the Eucharistic assembly curiously points to areas where we Christians continue to have need for conversion.

We rightly see in the bread and the wine the the Lord’s presence, but in the children that fidget in front us at church and in the strange homily that knocks at the stone in our hearts, we perhaps grow annoyed or even anxious. Our blindness to Christ in the assembly, our deafness to Christ in the Word, and our resistance before Christ in service evince the continuing need for our conversion. May a prayerful and meditative attentiveness to the implications of our Eucharistic faith on this wonderful feast lead us to recognize Christ in all the ways he offers himself to us.

Spiritual reading: We cannot love God unless we love each other. We know him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet, and life is a banquet too – even with a crust – where there is companionship.

We have all known loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community. (Dorothy Day)

A Feast for Us!

June is a month of special feasts, including that of the Body and Blood of Christ formerly known as Corpus Christi.  It was created at a time when people lost the belief of the Eucharist as being Christ present among them.  During the reformation this belief was challenged and became for many at best a symbolic action.   During the early 1930’s a movement within the Catholic community began to again look at our Sunday liturgy and recapture the importance of Christ in the Eucharist.  The end result was the revision of the Mass as we know it today, harkening back to an earlier liturgical style yet making it more accessible to 20th century people.

There is a danger, however, that we can get caught up in the rules or go off on making it a multimedia event.  Both have their place in making the Eucharistic liturgy meet our needs yet we should always focus on what it is that makes it special.  Perhaps the story of Babette’s Feast is a good metaphor to help us understand what Eucharist means.

The story concerns two sisters, Martina (named for Martin Luther) and Philippa (named for Luther’s friend and biographer Philip Melanchthon) who live in a small village on the remote western coast of Jutland in the 19th century. They are the daughters of the now deceased pastor who founded his own strict Christian sect. The sect draws no new converts and the aging sisters preside lovingly over their dwindling flock of white-haired believers.

Each in their youth was a ravishing beauty  courted by an impassioned suitor who fell desperately in love, developing grand plans both for themselves and their “angels.”  Each daughter eventually deflects her pursuer, choosing, instead, a life of quiet piety and Puritanical simplicity following in their father’s footsteps. Their father was of the belief that marriage and happiness as such is a falsehood.

Many years later Babette Hersant appears at their door. She bears a letter from Philippa’s former suitor, explaining that she is a refugee from revolutionary bloodshed in Paris, and recommending her as a housekeeper. The sisters take Babette in, and she spends fourteen years as their cook, a modest but benign figure who gradually eases their lives and the lives of many in the remote village. Her only link to her former life is a lottery ticket that a friend in Paris renews for her every year.

One day, she wins the lottery of 10,000 francs.  Rather than return to her former home she instead decides to use the money to prepare a delicious dinner for the sisters and their small congregation on the occasion of the founding pastor’s hundredth birthday. More than just an epicurean delight, the feast is an outpouring of Babette’s appreciation, an act of self-sacrifice with Eucharistic echoes; though she doesn’t tell anyone, Babette is spending her entire winnings on her gesture of gratitude.

The sisters agree to accept Babette’s meal, and her offer to pay for the creation of a “real French dinner”. She leaves the island for a few days in order to return to Paris where she personally arranges for supplies to be sent to Jutland. The ingredients are plentiful, sumptuous and exotic, and their arrival causes much discussion amongst the group. As the various never-before-seen ingredients arrive, and preparations commence, the sisters begin to worry that the meal will be, at best, a great sin of sensual luxury, and at worst some form of devilry or witchcraft. In a hasty conference, the sisters and the congregation agree to eat the meal, but to forego any pleasure in it, and to make no mention of the food during the entire dinner.

The last and most relevant part of the story is the preparation and the serving of an extraordinary banquet of royal dimensions, lavishly deployed in the unpainted austerity of the sisters’ rustic home.

Although the other celebrants do their best to reject the earthly pleasures of the food and drink, Babette’s extraordinary gifts as a Chef de Cuisine and a true connoisseur break their distrust and superstitions, elevating them not only physically but spiritually. Old wrongs are forgotten, ancient loves are rekindled, and a mystical redemption of the human spirit settles over the table – thanks to the general elation nurtured by the consumption of so many fine culinary delicacies and spirits. The Eucharistic celebration around the table portends the grace God has been allotted to them.  For them and us it is an ever present hope for the coming of the kingdom we proclaim.

The menu is a true feast with caviar, turtle soup, quail in stuffed pastry shells, a delightful salad and Blue Cheese, papaya, figs, grapes and pineapple. The grand finale dessert is a rum sponge cake with figs and glacéed fruits). Numerous rare wines along with various champagnes and spirits, complete the menu. Babette’s purchase of the finest china, flatware, crystal and linens with which to set the table ensures that the luxurious food and drink is served in a style worthy of the famous former Chef of “Café Angalis.” Babette’s previous occupation has been unknown to the sisters until she confides in them after the meal.

The sisters assume that Babette will now return to Paris, and when she tells them that all of her money is gone and that she is not going anywhere, the sisters are aghast. Babette then tells them that dinner for 12 at the Café Anglais has a price of 10,000 francs. Martina tearfully says, “Now you will be poor the rest of your life”, to which Babette replies, “An artist is never poor.”

God has prepared a feast for us too through Jesus who is both the reason for the feast and the feast itself.  It is too easy to allow the ritual to become a rote action or to make it into the personal action of the priest and ministers.  This is a feast to which we are all invited to taste of the choicest of food and the finest of drink.  Jesus tells us “My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”  let us be mindful of what we do, and say and enjoy this feast which the Lord has made for us for when we east this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes in glory.