Columban Reflection / The Body and Blood of Christ, Feast, year A

Dt 8,2-3.14 b-16: 

I fed you with manna which you did not know and your fathers

Psalm 147: Praise the Lord, Jerusalem

1Cor 10:16-17: 

The bread is one, and so we, though many, are one

Jn 6:51-58: My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink

Today we proclaim Jesus, Bread of life, who satisfies our hunger in our desert, He gives us his body, the true manna, as a gift from the Father to humankind. 

All other breads: money, sex, consumerism, fame and power, never fully satiates the hunger of the human heart, but leave us hungrier. 

The words and deeds of Jesus, his kingdom and his alliance with us opens for us a world in solidarity and full of possibilities to sharing ourselves so no-one need feel left outside hungry.
Before entering the Promised Land, Moses gives the people three great and solemn speeches recorded in Deuteronomy, which some call the "Testament of Moses", his last words, full of anointing and deep spirituality. Moses invokes the past to make sense of the present in every generation.

Saying “remember” he tells us that to remember is to keep the memory alive, to connect to the glorious past, to be part of the history of faith or salvation. God has done this in the history of his people and has been present in all their happiness and sadness, never abandoning them. 

The ordeals in the wilderness (a purifying act of faith) were necessary to mature, to trust more in Him, to live alone with Yahweh and without human support. Hunger confronts them with their basic needs and prepares them to grow in a stronger faith, to trust in the God who fully satisfies. Later, when they became affluent and consumerist they forgot to be the trusting people of Yahweh. With his words, Moses reminds them that "people does not live by bread alone, but by what comes from the mouth of God", and since then, fasting takes a deeper meaning. Matthew retakes this verse and uses it in the temptations of Jesus. 

The believer no longer lives for himself, he is consecrated and possessed by a presence that transforms, makes eternal and gives him a full meaning to his existence. 

The Gospel relates this special and unique food with the sacrifice of Jesus: In it we eat his body and drink his blood. 

At Communion we not only receive the body and blood of Christ, but we identify, join and are especially trained by Christ to give and offer ourselves, to promote a decent life for all, like the one whom we are in communion with.

Paul warns about the dangers of a divided community. He Opens the true spirit of the Eucharist and gives some practical applications to enjoy it. He Affirms that the Chalice, the bread.. must "unite" all in the blood, in the body of Christ. In Spirit and in truth, we all are united in the Eucharist, in the body and blood of Christ, we are in communion (common - union) with Him and with all. Drinking His wine, eating His bread, we give true meaning to our faith committed for unity, brotherhood, love, solidarity and selfgiving to brothers and sisters in Christ. 

If we are not united, our Masses are empty of meaning, it becomes a merely personal religious rites. Paul never taught his community to celebrate Eucharist in that way. The Apostle “reminds” them that "even though we are many, we are one bread". 

At communion "we become one body." The unity and universality, becomes real and actual. This "united body" expresses the sacramental dimension of the Church in the diversity of races and cultures and makes visible the whole Christ.

In Chapter 6, San Juan explains his "Eucharistic discourse." The word "will live forever", is present at the beginning and end of the verses 51-59 that we use in this Sunday readings. Jesus reveals himself by saying, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven." The Jews did not understand it, not many of us do today. You need faith to understand this great mystery. 

Yet explained by Jesus himself, without faith it is impossible to grasp the meaning of his words and their power to our lives.  

Only through faith, we can truly say that Jesus is the Bread of Life, which has come from above, from God, to feed this insatiable and limited world, to satisfy the deepest hunger of the human heart. He quenches our dissatisfactions, our tired life, the senseless search and the deepest desires of our hearts. This bread of life gives us a healthy remedy. It Changes the place of loneliness and isolation into a room of communion of life.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, you who left and broke
your bread, your wine, your body and your blood,
your whole life,
and on the eve of your death did it symbolically
in the breaking of the bread.

Help us to realize that 

every time we do the same "in memory of you"
we will renew our determination
to continue breaking and sharing, like you,
in everyday life,
our bread and our wine,
our body and blood,
everything we are and have. 

We ask this from you,
who gave us an example for us
to do the same, always. Amen.


My Body is food

My hands, those hands, your hands
We make this gesture, sharing
the table and the destination,
as brothers, as sisters.

We are lives in your death and Your Life.

United in the bread, the many grain,
we will learn to be the united
City of God, City of humans.

By eating you we will learn to be food,
The wine of His veins challenges us.

The bread they have not yet summons us
to become with you the daily bread.

Called by the light of Your Memory,
We march to your Kingdom making History,
A fraternal and subversive Eucharist.
(Pedro Casaldáliga)

Columban Reflection, Feast of Pentecost / Cycle A

We celebrate the feast of Pentecost, 50 days after Easter. 

Feast of the Holy Spirit
and the "beginning" of the mission of the Church.

Acts 2:1-11: all were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
Psalm 103: Send forth your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth
1 Cor 12:3 b- 7.12 -13:
We have been baptized in one Spirit into one body 
Jn 20:19-23: Receive the Holy Spirit

In his book of Acts, Luke tries to explain why the disciples, like Jesus Christ, have the power to do the wonders they do. Luke uses the "feast of weeks" of ancient Israel that celebrates the commemoration of the arrival of the people to Mount Sinai where Yahweh gave the tables of the Law to Moses in the middle of thunder and lightning. Both, the symbolic elements of Sinai and of Pentecost are symbols of cosmic resonance that manifest God's intervention.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul highlights the work of the Spirit in the lives of believers and in the construction of the ecclesial community. The Spirit links the mission of the Church to the mission of Jesus. Paul knows of the divisions within this community, that is why he insists that gifts, charisms, ministries and services come from the same Spirit.

He says that all the charisms, gifts and ministries are given for the growth of the Church. The action of the Spirit makes the mission of the Church a Mission for the world and not just for individual sanctification.

John presents two contrasting scenes. 1) The disciples at dusk, locked in a house full of fear. 2) Jesus entering, communicates to them peace and shows his wounds as a sign of his real presence. This fills them with joy and gives them the Spirit who makes them ready for Mission. Jesus transforms his fear, darkness, isolation and confinement into: peace, joy and a missionary spirit. The mysterious and transforming action of the Spirit within the believer and in the community makes the resurrection, ascension, eruption of the Spirit and ecclesial mission are a closely and articulated action. They are not isolated but simultaneous, progressive and facilitating moments within the community of believers.

Jesus promised his disciples that he will soon return, that He will never leave them alone; and he fulfills it! He said that the Holy Spirit of God will assist them to make them understand everything he told them; and that happens! By blowing on them as God breathed to create the human being, Jesus tells them that the Spirit creates and makes everything new. They are the new people of the creation restored by the loving self-giving of Jesus.

- With the advent of the Holy Spirit in human history begins a new way to experience God´s presence.

- Pentecost is the beginning of the final stage in the history of salvation.

- it is the starting point of the preaching of the gospel by the Apostolic Church.

- The Spirit pushes the Church beyond geographical, social and cultural boundaries, everyone understands the message in their own language. All countries known until then indicate that the Gospel message is universal.

- The Spirit comes in community, when the disciples are gathered, and his announcement opened a new community.

Sometimes, violence, injustice, poverty and corruption of society fill us with despair, fear and discouragement. We see no outputs and we lock ourselves in our individual issues and forget the big issue that is Jesus. Then, suddenly, he breaks into our interior, pierces the doors of our heart and enlightens our understanding, helping us to realize that He has not abandoned us, He is still present in the believer's life, in the community and in the world.

We recognize Him and His Spirit acting in many people and organizations who fight against all forms of sin that dehumanize and alienate us. The Spirit of God keeps acting in our history even when we do not perceive it , He does it silently and often we do not feel Him because He acts in a simple way through gestures that may go unnoticed. The daily rush and worries prevent us from hearing  and recognizing Him. We must make space for a deeper prayer time, trying to hear the motions that the Spirit inspires in me, in my community and the world, in the commitment of love, in the care for the poor.

PRAYER

Beautiful God, elusive Spirit, Light of all lights, love ever present in all love,

Life and Force who blows on all creation:

empty Yourself out, again, today,
on all creation and all peoples,

so that in beyond the different names
that we use to invoke You,

we may find you, and we could meet each other
in You, united in our love
for all that exists.  

You who live and make live, everything,
for ever and ever.