The Feast

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, C                                                            September 1, 2019
Fr. Albert                                                                                St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette

Jesus likes food so much, he actually became food. Even before giving the Eucharist to his Apostles, you can see it in his ministry. Here he is at dinner with a pharisee and offers two lessons involving food. Really, they are more about about the occasion: a meal, a gathering to share food and company. And that is, in part, what we do here at Mass. The past two weeks have been about what you do before Mass – repentance – and what you bring to Mass – your time and effort. Now it’s time to focus on what we receive at Mass.

Remember that, whenever he teaches us how to live, Jesus always lives out his own teaching. He commands us to take the lowest place. When Jesus comes to the banquet of human life, he comes as a poor carpenter born in a stable who is eventually executed as a criminal. In this humbling of himself on the Cross, God the Father raises him up to a place of honor, to be king of heaven and earth and the final judge of all.

When he tells us that we should invite poor, crippled, lame, and blind people to our banquets, we should realize he did the very same thing when he invited us to this banquet, to the Mass. That’s what the second reading means by saying we have “approached… countless angels in festal gathering.” Festal means a feast and the angels are here rejoicing with us. We are the poor, blind guests who cannot possibly repay Jesus Christ for this feast. We cannot repay him, but we can at least enjoy it, be grateful, and share it with others.

That starts with showing up when we’re invited. It does mean admitting that our sins make us blind and crippled and that we are poor in what matters most. That’s why Jesus tells us to choose the place of least honor when we go to a feast. Apparently, most Catholics think that means they should sit as far back in Church as possible, or even stand in the foyer! Well, since the back of church is so popular, maybe that’s the place of honor that we should avoid!

No, the point is not location, but disposition. Do you approach this feast with attentive humility? And I don’t just mean communion. Yes, the Eucharist is the bread of life, it is Jesus himself, and it is the only time we actually “eat” at Mass, but the whole Mass is a banquet. You have to go to Mass every Sunday, but you only have to receive communion once a year. There is a reason that your Sunday won’t count if you just show up right after the Gospel and leave after communion.

That’s partly because the feast begins with the readings. We are nourished by God’s Word, we feed on the truth it reveals to us, but we do have to listen. Would you take a girl out to dinner and then completely ignore everything she says? That’s a great way to end up alone, without love.

It’s not a matter of memorizing this or that verse. It’s not a lecture or a class and we’re not studying for a test. The Word of God is living and effective. Like an infant who doesn’t understand but is still fascinated by his parents’ voices, hearing Scripture nourishes the soul even if the mind doesn’t fully understand. That’s because, whenever scripture is read at a liturgy, God himself speaks. The Holy Spirit given to you at Baptism makes it possible for you to encounter God in this way. The very act of trying to listen to God’s word is and act of love on your part and a chance to receive the love of God. It will make you holier, it will help you to love more!

When I do my job correctly, the homily is supposed to help us understand God’s word a little better, but the word itself is more important. That’s why I often include direct quotes from Scripture. My words might be moving or clever, but His word is living and effective. As the first thing you receive at Mass, it’s important to feast on God’s word, to learn to enjoy hearing him speak.

And then there is the Eucharist. How can I possibly do justice to this spiritual food? How many times can I preach about the importance of reverence and humility when you receive Him? If the U.S. president or the queen of England invited you to dinner and offered you the best steak in the world, how would you dress, how would you act? The Eucharist is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, the source of infinite grace. After hearing a priest preach about the Eucharist, a Baptist minister once said, “If I believed what you Catholics believe about the Eucharist, I would crawl to Church on my hands and knees!” Yet we show up in shorts and a T-shirt to absent-mindedly pop it into our mouths and fling crumbs all over the floor…

Instead of taking it for granted, we ought to humbly offer our best. Humility is not thinking we are terrible. Humility is recognizing the truth of our own limits and of God’s goodness. When faced with the profound reality of the Eucharist, it is not pride but humility that says, “we should put that inside golden bowls and chalices.” Humility says, “we should kneel before this gift in awe.” In the presence of holiness, Christian humility doesn’t run far away. No, it begs for mercy and it longs to get closer, not farther away.

You cannot repay Jesus for the gift of this feast, but you can make him happy by receiving it worthily and reverently, by enjoying the fact that God has been so generous. Then, you can show gratitude. The word Eucharist even means “thanksgiving.” For the few minutes after we receive communion, God lives in us in a special way. What better time than that to pray, to sing, to silently adore God? Once Mass is over, do you take a moment to thank God for this feast that you can never repay? Finally, what better way to show gratitude than to go forth and do for others as God has done for you?

The Mass is the source and summit of our faith, but it is not everything in between. The only way to repay God for this great feast is to do what Jesus teaches. Feed the poor and the crippled. Give to those who cannot repay you because you have been given what you cannot repay. Heaven is a wedding feast where the food is love. But if you’ve never tasted that love in Scripture and the Eucharist, if you’ve never shared a meal of love with those in need, will you even want to go to the heavenly feast?