Saturday, July 28, 2012

Eucharistic Community - a Homily for Today

Two weeks ago today I had the pleasure of accompanying our parish youth (mostly Confirmation students) to a Catholic Heart Work Camp in Davison, MI. The trip took two pretty good days of bus travel and we arrived there on a Sunday at about 2:00 p.m. While we were on the way I was wondering just how the organizers of the work camp would go about turning us into a "community". As I observed our kids, I noticed how they each had their little cliques and there wasn't a whole lot of "common" bond between them. Besides our group, there were going to be many others there and the whole lot of them would need to be transformed from individuals and little bands into one body if the tasks of service before us were to be accomplished. 
What I witnessed after we arrived and started participating in the programs and meetings that were scheduled was nothing short of miraculous. Within one day the 317 attendees were bonding into a working community. By the end of the second day the kids were no longer hanging out exclusively with their own friends but had discovered new ones to get to know. At the general meetings you could no longer pick out one parish group from another because the kids were all mixed together. Through hard work, common meals, shared suffering (long lines for showers and meals, working in extreme heat), shared fun and participating in the Mass together every day a "new creation" had been formed. You might say that we had become "the Body of Christ".
In this new form our community accomplished a great deal, completing over 80 projects in the Davison/Flint area and touching the lives of dozens of people. The message from the organizers on the first evening we arrived was to go out into the mission field and "set the world on fire"! By working in peoples homes, praying with them and serving them above and beyond the call, our kids did just that.
On the last evening, the people who had been served were invited to come to the program and tell of their experiences. What moving testimonials they gave! They talked of their renewed confidence in the youth of our country and they were most grateful for what YOUR kids did for them. They had indeed set the area on fire!
In today's Gospel, Jesus performs this miracle of feeding the 5,000 with only 2 fish and 5 loaves of  bread. I wonder what kind of community was formed among the people receiving this "Eucharistic" meal? As they discovered how this food had been mysteriously multiplied by Jesus there had to be a lot of conversation among them. I imagine that they were initially setting in their family groups but gradually spread among each other as the news of this astounding event spread. In receiving this meal and sharing their experience they became the Body of Christ!
Which brings us to today. We have all arrived here from different homes, families and neighborhoods with the hope of "being fed" on the Word and on Eucharist. If we receive them well we can become personally transformed and strengthened in faith. But, to what end? Is this the entire purpose of the Mass? Of course not! In sharing this experience together, the idea is that we will become bonded in a special way. The personal blessings we receive are not just for us as individuals but for the good of this community. As we take in Jesus in Word and Sacrament the idea is that we will become the Body of Christ. Jesus KNOWS we need each other if anything good is going to be accomplished in the world. Our kids could never have succeeded in their mission trip had it not been for the community that was formed in Davison, MI. The same is true here. If we leave here with the same attitude with which we arrived, namely that we are individuals and that this community doesn't make much difference we will NEVER be able to do what Jesus expects of us.
Our Eucharistic prayer admonishes us to "become one body, one Spirit in Christ". When we come forward today and the minister presents Jesus to us and says "The Body of Christ", we say "Amen". With that response we are not only saying that we believe in Jesus' physical presence, we are saying "yes" I am in communion with everyone here and with the whole church. We are staying that we believe in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic mission of the Church and that we want to be a part of it.
Today, allow the grace of Jesus Word, Body and Blood to transform this assembly into the very Body of Christ so that we can go forward from here and "set our families, our work places, and our neighborhoods on fire" with the LOVE of Jesus Christ.

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