Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The past several weekends we have been hearing the Bread of Life discourse from the Gospel of St. John. This weekend we end our journey with the sad reality that because this teaching was hard and required faith and patience many of his followers left him.
Years ago during a Wednesday audience, Pope Benedict XVI gave a fascinating teaching about what our Mass should be like based on a passage from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. I would like to end this reflection by sharing with you the last part of his message and ask you to join me with his prayer request that our Masses reflect the
power of the Eucharist to get to the “heart” of our lives.
Have a blessed week!
in Christ,
Fr. Jim
Excerpt from the Wednesday Audience of His Holiness, Pope
Benedict XVI (November 22, 2006)
Obviously, underlining the need for unity does not mean that ecclesial life should be standardized or leveled out in accordance with a single way of operating. Elsewhere, Paul taught: “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thes 5:19), that is, make room generously for the unforeseeable dynamism of the charismatic manifestations of the Spirit, who is an
ever new source of energy and vitality.
But if there is one tenet to which Paul stuck firmly it was mutual edification: “Let all things be done for edification” (1 Cor 14:26). Everything contributes to weaving the ecclesial fabric evenly, not only without slack patches but also without holes or tears.
Then, there is also a Pauline Letter that presents the Church as Christ’s Bride (cf. Eph 5:21–33).
With this, Paul borrowed an ancient prophetic metaphor which made the People of Israel the Bride of the God of the Covenant (cf. Hos 2:4, 21; Is 54:5–8). He did so to express the intimacy of the relationship between Christ and his Church, both in the sense that she is the
object of the most tender love on the part of her Lord, and also in the sense that love must be mutual and that we too therefore, as members of the Church, must show him passionate faithfulness.
Thus, in short, a relationship of communion is at stake: the so to speak vertical communion between Jesus Christ and all of us, but also the horizontal communion between all who are distinguished in the world by the fact that they “call on the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ”
(1 Cor 1:2).
This is our definition: we belong among those who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we clearly understand how desirable it is that what Paul himself was hoping for when he wrote to the Corinthians should come to pass: “If an unbeliever or an uninitiated enters while all are uttering prophecy, he will be taken to task by all and called to account by all, and the secret of his heart will be laid bare. Falling prostrate, he will worship God, crying out, ‘God is truly among you’ ” (1 Cor 14:24–25).
Our liturgical encounters should be like this. A non-Christian who enters one of our assemblies ought finally to be able to say: “God is truly with you”. Let us pray to the Lord to be like this, in communion with Christ and in communion among ourselves.
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