Sunday 19 (B-2006): Creation and the Eucharist

John 6:41-51

I have a question for you.

Would the Son of God ever have become man if Adam and Eve had not sinned?

Don’t worry: I also have some kind of an answer for you!

Jesus certainly came to save us from sin. However, the saving work of Jesus did not simply return us to the way Adam and Eve were before the fall.

The Church has always taught that the condition of the human being brought about by the Savior is far greater than that enjoyed by Adam and Eve before they sinned.

The grace given to us through Jesus is not measured by the amount of human sin.

No, the grace of Christ infinitely surpasses the sum total of human sin.

As St. Paul puts it, “where sin has abounded, grace has super-abounded.” The gift far outweighs the guilt.

Think of the prodigal son: he sinned greatly, but on his return the Father showered him freely with so many more gifts.

It is not wrong, then, to say that the Son of God, from before time began, intended to assume our flesh even if mankind had not sinned.

            The next question is: why would he do that?

The New Testament makes it clear that the whole of creation was created not only by the Son of God, not only through the Son of God, not only for the Son of God, but in the Son of God.

That is a difficult notion for us to grasp, i.e. creation “in” Christ, because we are inclined to think only in terms of physical space.

But in these matters we have to try and think of spiritual space as we do, for example, when we talk about our souls.

The soul is “in” the body, but no surgeon or technology can pinpoint its location.

In a similar way, we can say that creation exists “in” the Son of God: in him it lives and moves and has its being, as Scripture says.

The material universe has its origin “in” the spiritual God! It proceeds from his power, that is, from the exercise of his freedom. Not the material, then, but the spiritual has the last word – even about the material.

There is, therefore, a certain divine “logic” in the notion that the Son of God would become human. Union with the beloved is of the essence of the lover. It can be no different for the Lover of the beloved universe. Indeed, it holds above all for the first One who first loved!

The Son becomes human so as to manifest to the whole of creation that he loves it and desires always to be united with it, giving it life and beauty and joy.

Certainly, the sad reality of sin, and its threat to the life, order and peace of creation, gives the Son of God all the more urgent reason to become man.

St. Paul takes that into account when he explains that the whole of creation, especially humanity, seeks reconciliation and complete unity in Christ.

Christ alone can lead creation to its ultimate destiny to share in the life of the Trinity.

If you like, you might say that, within the Trinity, creation is in a special way the Son’s responsibility.

He “takes it on” as his special project, passion and love.

And so he also takes on the bitter task of purifying it of sin and death by taking all of it unto himself in a human body, destroying it by the power of his faithful love even to the point of dying himself in order to rise again, thus marking the beginning of what can only be called a “new creation.”

Christ not only destroys sin and death in his flesh but, in so doing, opens up the way for a death-less and sin-less creation.

He makes it possible for humanity to become immortal and immaculate “in” his risen body!

If before he became man we had to speak of creation existing “in” that spiritual space which was the Son of God, now, after his incarnation-death-resurrection, that spiritual space has also become a physical space, namely, his risen body!

His risen body is now the focal point of the life of creation and therefore of humanity which is creation’s crowning beauty.

If we wish to breathe again beyond death we must draw that breath from the immortal flesh and blood of the Risen Christ.

The DNA, the genetic code, the genome the ultimate particle of life is no longer to be found in the physical constitution of the world, but in the living and life-giving flesh and blood of the Lover, the Creator, the Savior of all creation.

And how are we to access this sublime reality of risen life?

Jesus himself asked that question long before us; and he answered it, too, by giving a hint of it in the manna of the desert.

By the same power with which he first created the universe and with which he rose from the dead he created something completely new, unheard of, unsuspected, beyond the mind of man, deeper than his heart. And what was that?

Nothing other than the Bread of Life, the Cup of Salvation, the Eucharist or Holy Communion!

By the power of the Holy Spirit, he took flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary.

By the power of the same Spirit that same flesh and blood, not now in its mortal form, but in its immortal, risen reality, takes on the appearances of bread and wine.

Just as Jesus looked only like a man, but was in fact also true God as well as true man, so the Eucharist looks, tastes, feels and smells as if it were but bread and wine, but in fact it is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

Just as the Son of God became man by a process we call the incarnation, so that selfsame man, risen from the dead, assumes the appearances of bread and wine by a process we call transubstantiation.

And he entrusted this sublime miracle of love to those Twelve men who would be the foundation of that body of believers called the Church.

Their task was to “feed the sheep” who would be gathered into that fold, not with perishable goods, but with the glorified body and blood of Christ.

The Church, then, lives from the Eucharist and itself becomes, through a mystical yet real communion, one body with Jesus. That is why we call the Church the Mystical Body of Christ.

The Church does not survive because of capital campaigns and appeals, nor because of diplomacy and politics, nor because of some clever self-organization. If the Church depended only on such things, she would have collapsed a long time ago.

The Church was born from the pierced side of Christ and she lives and grows from the food and drink of the Bread and Wine of eternal life. Through the Church, the Son of God offers that life to the world.

It is therefore in the Church and through the Church that Jesus renews creation! This is what we do, this is what we witness, this is why we come to Mass!

It is here that Christ renews your marriages and gives you strength and hope and confidence to persevere in the labors and challenges of life.

It is from this altar that he sows within the lowliness and fragility of our bodies the seeds of eternity, preparing your beautiful children not just for a happy “successful life” but for the glories of his Kingdom.

Through the Eucharist the Risen Christ stands, as it were, at the final horizon of our personal lives and of human history as a whole, drawing all things and all people inexorably to himself as their final goal and fulfillment.

When we celebrate the Eucharist, the Mass, we not only make present here and now the historical death and resurrection of Jesus, but we draw the Christ of the future into this here and now.

Indeed, we are ourselves drawn to that future because in the Risen Lord there is no past or future, but only the present: all of time, all of our lives and the entire course of history stands before his gaze.

The Mass is the center of history because it is the fulfillment of history.

There is no person or event of history which will not ultimately be judged by the Mass, for the Mass is Christ’s judgment upon history.

Whatever or whoever cannot be reconciled with the love of Calvary, which lives on truly and fully in the Mass, will be judged by their failure to love.

How immense is the depth of meaning and love in the Mass!

In it and through it the Creator and Redeemer rescues and redeems human hearts and the entirety of history and creation.

How sad it is when Mass is said to be boring or imposing, a waste of time or mere routine and ritual! How pathetic, how blind, how unheeding when it is sidelined because of a ball game, a trip to the mall or to some such banality!

As in Gospel times, people today still murmur about the Mass and ask cynically, how can we be given Christ’s flesh to eat? How can we be expected to believe that? How counter-cultural, how antiquated, how unpragmatic is that!

Without a heart open to faith in the Mass and to love for the Eucharist, it is no wonder that sin gains ground and seeks to ruin lives, marriages, priests and religion itself.

Christ asks no-one to surrender what is truly good in this life: he asks only that all those goods be recognized as coming from and leading to the supreme Good: the gift of himself in the Eucharist.

And so, I have another question for you.

After all I have said, are you willing to make the Eucharist the foundation, the center and the goal of your life?

This time, I can give you no answer ...

Msgr. Peter Magee

Sunday, August 13^th, 2006

Annunciation, DC: 8.30 & 10.00 am