We begin the week after a weekend that I hope included rest for you and a proper celebration of the Lord’s Day. Every Sunday is a feast of the Resurrection; we too easily forget the fact, and all that the Resurrection means for us, if Sunday worship is one more thing we have or want to do instead of the pivot for the day and the week.
The readings were particularly rich, as Catholics are in the heart of John’s Bread of Life Discourse, where Jesus says “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” The Lord could not say it any more simply or plainly than that, and, as we will see, many walked away from him on hearing those words — and many still do, rejecting as an utter impossibility that the bread and wine truly become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord’s reference to himself as the Son of Man is critical for understanding the passage. The Prophet Daniel describes the Son of Man as the one presented to the Ancient of Days — the Father — “and to him [the Son of Man] was given dominion and glory and kingdom,” a dominion that is everlasting and a kingdom “that shall not be destroyed” (Dan 7:13-14). Relevant for the consideration of angels, the verses prior describe the multitudes that stand before the Ancient of Days to serve him, which the Apostle John will echo in the Apocalypse. The Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in which the faithful commune at reception of the Sacrament is that of the Glorified Lord, and our consumption of it in no wise diminishes or lessens that Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity: our consumption extends His Presence and His Action in us. It is consumption of that sacrament that makes us fit for the kingdom of heaven; this is why anciently, and now under the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, all three sacraments of initiation — baptism, confirmation, and eucharist — are administered successively in the same rite of initiation.
And this is because of the Resurrection. St. Paul has already told us that if Christ had not risen from the dead, our faith would be in vain. In John’s Gospel, already in the second chapter Jesus foretells his Resurrection, when he says that He will raise up the Temple in three days after its destruction, and to make the matter perfectly clear, St. John tells us that Jesus is referring to the temple of His Body.
Belief in this dogma of the faith requires humility. But this is a humility that is a share in the Lord’s own humility. We don’t often think of God as humble, but God is: He endures the offense of sin against his honor and glory; he endures so many communions received indifferently or even sacreligiously; and if it weren’t enough for him to come to us in the Second Person as the Incarnate Son of God, He comes to us again and again, — daily — in the sacrament of the altar under forms of bread and wine, because his delight is to be with us and his ardent desire is to transform us. We take this for granted at our peril, and we take it for granted because we assume in our pride that it is our absolute right to receive communion almost any way we present ourselves for it.
The function of the choir of Thrones is to help us to grow in humility. The Chaplet’s prayer is that “the Lord infuse into our hearts a true and sincere spirit of humility.” For “who is like God?” Who can create out of nothing, redeem for love, and perpetuate his sacramental and substantial presence on the earth in all the tabernacles of the world? The prodigy of love is beyond comprehension, and yet our tendency as Catholics is to take it for granted, to treat the Mass as a duty to be done and gotten over with, instead of a celebration and banquet of love. We can ask the Thrones, who stand before the King of Kings, to obtain for us the humility we need to stand in his presence and serve him, to receive him with the humility of a slave whose owner might pass him by without fault yet feeds him out of compassion and love, apart from any consideration of service the slave might render him. For the Lord does not need our service: his call to us to serve him is itself a grace, a benefit for us, and he adds benefit to benefit by giving us the very means, the very sustenance we need, to render fitting service.
The choir of Dominions can help us overcome our indifference and familiarity. The Chaplet prays that the Lord would “give us grace to govern our senses and subdue our unruly passions” — those senses that tell us nothing is really happening, because we cannot perceive that something is; that want the homilist to get it over with because he is droning on about something uninteresting; that we want to get out of church as soon as possible for the dinner/outing/game/visit that awaits us next and will really be fun and exciting. The passions are always telling us “me first! my work first! my interests first! my enjoyment first!” In this, they deceive us and lead us to violate the First Commandment, either completely or even partially (we’re “there,” but not really there). The Dominions can teach us the focus we need so that we are spiritually attentive to what is going on.
They can also help us in the performance of our duties, and especially the works of mercy. In today’s Exodus 90 consideration of Tobit, we see how Tobit gives “my bread, my clothing” — not the extras out of his abundance, but what he himself needed for himself — to those in need, and that he buried the dead at the risk o his own life. Surely his passions would have told him to take the easier route, not to give out of his own need, nor to risk his life for the honor of the dead, and yet he overcame those passions of self-preservation and self-centeredness in honor of God and of his fellow Israelites. The exercise of fortitude requires mastery of the passions.
Here we see once again that love of God and love of neighbor go hand in hand: we cannot claim to love God if we do not serve our neighbor. And as the Parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us, our neighbor is anyone who needs assistance and who is in our way.
How can we fulfill the commands?! How can we emulate the examples we have in Sacred Scripture and Church history?! How can we give of ourselves so unstintingly when we are tired, anxious, or self-absorbed? We can go to the Father with praise and thanksgiving, and go to the ministers he has appointed for the specific helps we need.
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