The Body and Blood of Christ: May 29 Readings: Genesis 14:18-20, Psalm 110:1-4, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Luke 9:11-17
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N Sunday (rather than on Thursday) we celebrate the solemnity of Corpus Christi, and the readings for the feast suggest an approach to this powerful and rich mystery, namely that we must always understand it as a gift from God that enables us to cope with the mission that we are given. The first reading is the mysterious encounter of Abram with Melchisedek, as he returns from an expedition against a gangster called Chedorlaomer who has kidnapped his nephew. All we can say is that it is a matter of the blessing of God the Most High on this very ordinary episode in his existence; the reason it has been chosen for today may simply be that Melchisedek “brought out bread and wine”, the guise under which Christians have encountered their Lord ever since that first Easter Sunday, and blessed him: “Blessed be Abram by God the Most High, who established heaven and earth.” And we notice that Abram “gave Melchisedek a tenth of everything”; God is at work in the very ordinariness of our human existence. The same pattern is detectable in the psalm for next Sunday: “YHWH’s oracle to my Lord: sit on my right hand, until I make
Mystery of the Eucharist your enemies a stool for your feet.” This is a “royal psalm”, where the singer sees the newly enthroned monarch as protected, and even fathered (“I begot you like the dew”), by God; and this is guaranteed: “The Lord swore an oath, and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever, in accordance with my word to Melchisedek’ (this last phrase picking up our first reading).” Here we link the body and blood of Christ with God’s unfailing protection of us. The rich mystery is linked in the second reading to what happened “on the night when the Lord Jesus was being handed over”. The context here is Paul’s anger with the Corinthians, because they were preserving their social divisions at the Eucharist, which for him (and of course for us) should be a place of unity. So he reminds them, in the words that we know by heart and perhaps do not sufficiently reflect upon, how he “received from the Lord”, then “he took bread, and gave
thanks and broke and said, ‘This is my body which is for you’.” After this (as in our first reading) there is wine as well as bread: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”. And Paul goes deep into the meaning of today’s feast: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you are proclaiming the death of the Lord, until he comes.” The mystery of the Eucharist runs very deep indeed, more profound than anything that we can grasp. So (here a word of warning) any time you find yourself restricting the mystery of Christ’s body and blood to just one aspect of this many-faceted jewel of ours, be careful, for you are on the verge of heresy. The Gospel for the feast this year is Luke’s story of the feeding of the five thousand; and it starts (this is typical of Luke) with a word that means “hospitality”: “Giving them a welcome, he started to speak to them about the Kingdom of God.” Then it gets late, and the Twelve want him
Marking an anniversary W
Conrad
HAT we cease to celebrate we will soon cease to cherish. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of the religious congregation to which I belong, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who are, of course, also very active in many parts of South Africa. We OMIs have a proud history of ministering to the poor around the world. This merits celebrating. As a writer, I don’t normally highlight the fact that I am a professed religious, just as I don’t usually highlight the fact that I’m a Roman Catholic priest, because I fear that labels such as “Catholic priest”, “Father” or “Oblate of Mary Immaculate” attached to an author’s name serve more to limit his readership than to increase it. Jesus, too, was pretty negative on religious labels. Mostly, though, I avoid writing under a specific religious label because I want to speak more through the wider prism of my humanity and my baptism than through the more specific prism of my priesthood and vowed religious commitment. It’s a choice I’ve made, while also respecting the choice of others. With that being said, I want to break my own rules here and speak more specifically through the prism of my identity as vowed religious. So I write this particular column as Father Ronald Rolheiser OMI, proud member of The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Let me begin with a little history. Our Congregation was founded in southern France in 1816 by Fr Eugene de Mazenod, declared a saint by the Church in 1995. Eugene was a diocesan priest who immediately upon entering the ministry saw the Gospel wasn’t reaching many of the poor, and so he began to focus his own ministry very much on reaching out to the poor. It takes a village to raise a child, and soon enough he realised that it takes more than one person to bring about effective change. It takes a community to make
compassion effective: What we dream alone remains a dream, what we dream with others can become a reality. So he sought out other like-minded men, diocesan priests like himself, and called them together around this mission. Eventually they began to live together and formed a new religious congregation dedicated to serving the poor. That was 200 years ago and the Oblates (as we’re commonly called) have had a proud, if not always comfortable, history since. Today we are ministering in 68 countries on every continent on earth and our mission is still the same. We serve the poor.
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hat’s why you’ll find us ministering mainly on the margins of society, where mainstream society prefers not to cast its glance, on the borders with migrants, in immigrant areas of our cities, in tough inner-city places where the police are reluctant to go, and in developing countries where access to food, health, and education are still scarce commodities. Our mission is not to the privileged, though we try to bring them onside with our mission, and our members themselves are often drawn from among the poor. Our message to the young men entering our ranks is: “If you join us, consider what’s not in it for you!” And we’re missionaries, meaning that we understand our task to be that of establishing communities and churches, helping them to become self-sufficient, and then moving on to do this over and over again. That may be a noble task, but it’s also a formula for heartache. It isn’t easy on the heart to be forever building something only to give it over to someone else and move on. You don’t ever get to have a permanent home. But there’s a compensation: as a missionary, after a while every place is home. We aren’t a large congregation, we’re
Nicholas King SJ
Sunday reflections
to get rid of the crowd “because we are in a wilderness place here”. They are making it quite clear that they do not understand what Jesus is doing; for any time when you want to get rid of people because they are a nuisance, you are not understanding the rich mystery of the Eucharist. Jesus challenges them (and us): “You lot give them something to eat yourselves.” In response, they simply jeer at their Master, who takes no notice, but tells them to “make them lie down in groups of about fifty”. Do you see how the Eucharist is all-embracing? That is what “Catholic” means. So the disciples manage to do that, and Jesus “took the five loaves and two fish and looked up to heaven and blessed them and broke and started giving to his disciples to offer to the crowd”. Then comes the remarkable consequence: “And they all ate and were filled.” The Eucharist that we celebrate on this solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is a very rich mystery indeed. Let us pray to grasp what it is we are about today.
Southern Crossword #707
Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI
Final reflection
only about 4 000 members scattered in some 68 countries, humble in comparison to the likes of the Jesuits, Franciscans and Dominicans. Indeed in an early version of the famous French Larousse dictionary, we were described as “a kind of mini-Jesuit found mostly in rural areas”. We are flattered by this description. Our call is not to be in the limelight, but to be at the edges. No accident that it’s there, at the edges, in a rural area, where I met the Oblates. We also pride ourselves on being robust, practical, earthy and close to those we serve, and our dress often betrays this. Our families and close friends are forever buying us clothing to try to upgrade our lessthan-stellar wardrobes. It’s not that we deliberately cultivate an image of being somewhat unkempt; it’s more that we tend to draw men to our ranks who have other priorities. And our founder? He wasn’t an easy man, obsessed as he was—as sometimes saints are—by a single-mindedness that doesn’t easily tolerate weaknesses among those around him. He could exhibit blessed rage sometimes. I’m secretly glad that I never met him in person, fearing his judgment on my own weaknesses; but I’m wonderfully glad for his charism and for that motley group of men, often over-casually dressed, who continue his mission.
aCroSS
1. At Jacob’s, Jesus met the Samarian woman (Jn 4) (4) 3. Act with it when you’re resolute (8) 9. Let me again find source of wood (3,4) 10. The shrine of Mecca (5) 11. The way to spend parish funds frugally (12) 13. Straight way to get credit (6) 15. Metallic sound from dull sky (6) 17. Hold on to the creed (4,3,5) 20. The man who was a Gittite (2 Sam 15) (5) 21. The ... ... made them all (hymn) (4,3) 22. I rerig at getting the water (8) 23. Here I am, ... me (Is 6) (4)
DoWn
1. Non-working periods for Mass obligation (8) 2. Kind of dance for pagan babies? (5) 4. A letter from Siberia to Spain (6) 5. Exert yourself (4,2,6) 6. Given authority to do (7) 7. King of Persia (4) 8. Gin coup Percy disturbed, filling his mind (12) 12. Hands due to be in sunlight (8) 14. Go back inside (2-5) 16. Alpine chapel? (6) 18. Fireplace (5) 19. Short skirt for the car (4)
CHURCH CHUCKLE
A
N old priest was dying. He sent a message to the parish banker and lawyer to come to his home. When they arrived, they were ushered up to his bedroom. As they entered the room, the priest held out his hands and motioned for them to sit on each side of the bed. The priest grasped their hands, sighed contentedly, smiled, and stared at the ceiling. For a time, no one said anything. Both the banker and lawyer were touched and flattered that the priest would ask them to
Solutions on page 11
be with him during his final moments. They were also puzzled; the priest had never given them any indication that he particularly liked either of them. They both remembered his many long, uncomfortable homilies about greed, covetousness, and avaricious behaviour which made them squirm in their seats. Finally, the banker said: “Father, why did you ask us to come?” The old priest mustered his strength and then said weakly: “Jesus died between two thieves, and that’s how I want to go.”
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