Homily for Sunday, 23 June 2019– The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Readings of the day: Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11b-17

This homily was given at the Hermance Family Chapel of St. Basil the Great at St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.

Have any of us ever received a gift from somebody, or has somebody ever done a good deed for us that we felt we could never possibly repay adequately?

This would happen regularly when I ministered in Colombia, among the poor of Cali and Santa Marta, where the Basilians have a parish and school and had a novitiate house. The people would be so grateful for any good deed or anything we could give them, and even simply for our presence as Basilians among them, that they would often say to us, to mean that they did not have anything to offer us in return for what we had given them, “Dios te pague” (“May God repay you”). More recently, Fr. Paul English, my brother Basilian and a graduate of St. John Fisher College (with whom some of us may be familiar), who knows several Colombian seminarians, both our own Basilian brothers and seminarians of dioceses in which he has served, has occasionally added humorously to his hello or goodbye greetings to these seminarians: “Dios te pegue” (“May God smack you”)!

Our reading this morning from the Book of Genesis places both the king of Salem, Melchizedek, and Abram (later Abraham) in a Dios te pague moment. In Genesis, just before the reading we hear today, four kings who were Abram’s enemies had been making war against kings who were Abram’s allies, including Melchizedek. Even Abram’s nephew, Lot, had been taken captive by one of the enemy kings. Abram pursues Lot’s captors until he is victorious in favor of Melchizedek and his other allied kings, ending the war and recovering Lot and the other captives. Interestingly, the name of Salem, Melchizedek’s kingdom, derives from the same Hebrew root as does shalom. Like many words in ancient languages, shalom, which is usually translated to English as “peace”—so we could think of Melchizedek as a figure representing peace who, in our first reading today, has in fact just won victory and peace, ending a disastrous war—has a greater range of meaning than we often realize. Shalom can mean peace, but also wholeness or completeness, harmony, or prosperity. It may also take on the meaning of a simpler greeting like hello or goodbye. If we were to translate shalom in this idiomatic greeting sense into Spanish, we might say, Dios te pague (“May God repay you”), although hopefully not, unless with good humor, Dios te pegue (“May God smack you”)!

Our reading today from Genesis places us on the scene of a meeting of two representatives of shalom, Melchizedek, king of Salem (or perhaps, appropriately, king of “shalom”), and Abram. This meeting between Melchizedek and Abram, after which Abram has returned goods and prisoners taken by their enemies in the war they have just won, is a shalom moment; a Dios te pague moment.

To thank Abram, what does Melchizedek offer him but simple bread and wine? Melchizedek realizes quickly that he is unable to offer Abram any appropriate gift for having saved his kingdom and his people from the enemy kings who had attacked him and taken his goods and people captive. So Melchizedek offers Abram simple bread and wine, accompanied by a blessing of these gifts. Melchizedek’s offering to Abram of bread and wine, with a blessing, may call to our minds what we do every time we celebrate Mass; every time we celebrate our Eucharist (a Greek-derived word that means “thanksgiving”), especially on this feast focusing on the gifts of the Eucharist, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Like Melchizedek, we offer bread and wine because we can offer no more. When we bring bread and wine to the altar during our Eucharist, we bless it. The priest blesses the bread and wine with a prayer that is often silent, especially at Sunday Mass, but a prayer that hearkens back to Jewish table blessing prayers: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: Fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life… Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you: Fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.”

And then, through our Eucharistic celebration, our offering of bread and wine to God because nothing we might offer to God measures up to God’s goodness to us, something altogether miraculous happens before our eyes: This blessed bread and wine, our all-too-little gift to God, becomes “for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God chooses this simple bread and wine, “work of human hands,” as the sacramental means by which God offers himself, God’s Son, really, truly, and fully to us. This becomes our Dios te pague moment: “May God repay you.”

More than we could ever repay God, God “pays” us with his very self, really, truly, and fully, in our Eucharist, under the form of simple bread and wine. God’s Son Jesus Christ has been offering himself really, truly, and fully since the night he freely accepted being “handed over” in an act of betrayal by one of his own apostles; an act of denial by another; an act of fearful fleeing from Jesus’ passion and death by still others. On that night, Jesus offered us his very self really, truly, and fully: “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me… This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” This deepens our Dios te pague moment and projects it into our history, as it becomes our Church’s celebration “in remembrance” of Christ’s passion and death, until he returns at the end of time.

But this first Dios te pague moment in which Jesus hands himself to us; this Dios te pague moment now projected into our history as Church, did not happen without any previous sign to prepare us for the moment when Christ gave himself to us under the form of bread and wine. This preparatory sign of Christ’s real, true, and full self-offering to us first at the Last Supper is recounted to us in the Gospel we hear today from Luke.

Any sign, any miracle, properly-speaking, is not only a nature-defying action of God, but it involves our action. At the Last Supper, Jesus said to his Apostles as he handed himself over to them, to us, really, truly, and fully: “Do this in memory of me.” What, then, are we to do in memory of him? What could we do; what could we offer God that could measure up to God’s real, true, and full gift to us of his very self?

Nothing we could offer could ever measure up to God’s offering of God’s very self to us: This is precisely the point of the Last Supper. This is precisely the point of Jesus’ miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes of which we hear from Luke today. Still, Jesus says to the Twelve, who have asked him to “dismiss the crowd” following them to buy themselves some much-needed rest and quiet: “Give them some food yourselves.”

This, without a doubt, would have caught Jesus’ disciples off guard. They were unprepared to “give them some food” themselves, out of the little they had to offer; out of their own poverty. For the Twelve, this was not only their Dios te pague moment—“May God repay you”—but, with all the due gentleness and good humor of the Son of God, it was Jesus’ Apostles’ Dios te pegue moment: “May God smack you.”

“Give them some food yourselves.” In other words, Jesus says to us, offer what you are able out of your poverty, and I will multiply it beyond your wildest imagination. But I will wait to multiply your gift; I will wait to work a miracle until you are confronted with your poverty, your inadequacy in offering any gift that could possibly measure up to God’s real, true, and full offering of self. I will wait until you are confronted, “smacked,” with having to bless and offer simple bread and wine, or five loaves and two fish for five thousand people.

I will wait until your Dios te pague moment meets a Dios te pegue moment. Give one another and the world “some food yourselves.” “Do this in remembrance of me.” Offer this world shalom, and only then will I multiply your “work of human hands” beyond your wildest imagination.

Homily for Sunday, 5 August 2018

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Psalm 78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 

What is a sign, and how might a sign point toward the quality of our relationship with somebody?

When we think of signs, we might start with the simplest examples: Traffic lights, for instance. Regardless of where we are in the world, or the language spoken there, the colours of traffic lights and their order are consistent: Red, yellow, green, from top to bottom or left to right. Another simple example of signs might be when we are in an airport in a foreign country with a different language. We need simple picture signs to point us toward the baggage claim, through customs, to our connecting gate, to the bathroom, and so forth.

Yet it is difficult to form a relationship with a sign at the airport or a traffic light. That is, unless I were to consider my impatient grumbling of a few days ago as I sat in front of an interminable red light, with the crossing arms down, lights on and bells sounding (speaking of signs) as three LRT trains passed in front of me. It is difficult to consider this to be an example of a relationship with a sign, unless maybe one of disdain! But this is not usually what we mean by relationship.

When we enter into relationship with somebody, more complex signs allow us to gauge the health of the relationship. When my mom and dad, after forty-two years of marriage, embrace lovingly in what we call public displays of affection, totally focused on each other and the moment, those PDAs are a clear sign that their relationship is healthy. When my brother Basilian priests gather together with joy in one another to pray, eat, or to recreate in community, we see a clear sign that relationships among us and with God are healthy.

One especially important, and undeniably complex, sign of healthy relationship, is the giving and sharing of food. Our Scriptures offer us many instances of the giving, receiving, and sharing of food, and our readings today from Exodus and John’s Gospel are no exception. The ability to give, receive, and share food is an essential measure of the health of relationships in Scripture. The sharing of food is at the centre of our celebration of Eucharist here and our Christian living by works of kindness, mercy, and justice that flow from this celebration. There may be no greater sign of the health of relationships, of love and trust among people and between us and God, than the frequency and quality of our fellowship around food.

Food is essential to love, bonding, and building trust from the first moments between a mother and her newborn child and maybe even before then, while the child is in the womb. Moms and dads: Your children’s dislike of broccoli and love for the Sunday brunch here at St. Joseph’s College probably goes way back! As an uncle, I think of the first time I met my nephew Liam, when he was about two months old, at Christmastime. While the amazing smell of Christmas dinner wafted through the house, my sister Deanna, Liam’s mom, handed Liam and a bottle to me so that I could feed him. How delighted and relaxed Liam was! A few years passed and, once again, my family was together at Christmastime. Liam had developed a taste for corn tortilla chips (a boy after my own heart). My then-toddler nephew, who is now almost seven years old, made a game of repeatedly circling the living room, charming and soaking in the love from everybody, and then, with great anticipation, opening his mouth wide in front of me so I could fill it with a chip. Deanna made the astute observation to me that the way to Liam’s heart was through food. This was nephew-uncle bonding time at its finest!

If only the people of Israel in Exodus or the crowds following Jesus in John’s Gospel had been as appreciative of what God fed them as Liam was of tortilla chips! Instead, when God feeds the people of Israel with a dewy, “flaky substance” in the desert, they look at it sideways and ask “What is it”? They call it “manna.” This strange name the Israelites give God’s food to them is one of the fairly frequent instances in most if not all languages in which a word used one way—in this case “man” or “manna” introduce a question, as in “What?” in Hebrew—may be used in another way, as in the name for something. Here, the Israelites’ question on encountering the food God gives them becomes their name for it: Manna? What is it?

At least by this point in their exodus from Egypt, the people of Israel have progressed beyond complaining about being hungry, longing to sit “by the fleshpots” and to eat their “fill of bread” they had enjoyed in Egypt. But they still do not understand the sign value of the manna in the desert: What did the manna signify about God’s relationship with his people?

God could have abandoned the people of Israel when they “complained against Moses and Aaron” and God, or scolded them, as God did at other times when they complained. But God does not abandon his people or scold them. Instead, God tests them: “Alright, Israel, your constant complaining is driving me crazy! But if I give you food, even a strange kind of food you will not know I gave to you or what it is until you try it, will you recognize me as the God who delivered you out of slavery, who has sustained you for forty years in the desert, and who will lead you back to your homeland? Will you at last learn to trust me”?

And Israel still does not quite pass God’s test. They do not quite understand the sign behind the manna from heaven: That this nourishing if strange food is yet another sign of God’s promise to be with them always, to sustain them, and to save them, whether from slavery or their own ignorance and complaining, no matter what. God’s promise, called a covenant, is greater than the bread that only points to God’s promise of salvation. And so, even if the people of Israel fail the test; fail to understand the covenantal sign of the manna in the desert, God and God’s salvation, and not the people’s failure, will have the last word.

The same is true of Jesus’ encounter with the crowds in John’s Gospel, who continue to look for him after the sign of the multiplication of the loaves and fish. The crowds look for Jesus “not because [they] saw signs, but because [they] ate their fill of the loaves.” Again, they fail to understand the covenant value of Jesus’ sign of the multiplication of loaves; how this fits into God’s ongoing promise to us of sustenance toward eternal life. They fail to understand that God has upped the sign ante, so to speak: Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves shows that Jesus, in our human form, is the same God who saved the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, formed a covenant relationship with them and guided them through the desert under Moses and Aaron to their homeland. Again, the sign points us to something, or better yet somebody, beyond the sign itself: God; relationship with God; God’s continued offer of salvation. No longer should it be any question of “manna”?—“What is it”?—but of our relationship with God, who is behind these earthly signs leading us to salvation, “the food that endures for eternal life.”

The question, then, becomes how well we understand the signs God gives us today to point us toward relationship with God; toward the unbreakable covenant God has made with us to save us. Maybe if God were to try to give us tortilla chips instead of manna or loaves and fish, we might understand the promise of salvation God has tried since the first moments of creation to communicate to us. My nephew Liam would certainly understand that God wants to save us if God were to send us tortilla chips!

How well do we understand God’s signs of salvation, greatest of all our Eucharist, in our lives? Even if we struggle or fail outright to understand God’s signs, as the episodes of the manna and after Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish show us, God will keep trying to strengthen his relationship with us; to point us toward eternal life. And so our failures; our ignorance; even our sin will not have the last word. God and God’s salvation, loving relationship with God forever, will. This is God’s promise to us; God’s covenant with us.

Homily for Sunday, 26 July 2015

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-11, 15-16, 17-18; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

How many of us are familiar with Jesus’ miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish? I expect most of us are familiar with Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. This may be the most popular miracle story in our Scriptures. Today we hear John’s version of Jesus’ feeding of the thousands, but this story is the only one of Jesus’ miracles told in all four Gospels.

Yet how many of us put some distance between ourselves and Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand? We would be right to think: This was a great miracle that Jesus performed! It was so important in fact that it is mentioned in all four Gospels; all four books of our Bible that center on Jesus’ life on earth. Jesus satisfied the hunger of thousands of people on that hillside in Galilee two thousand years ago. These people “followed [Jesus] because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick,” and they were healed and fed in a way greater than they ever imagined. And it all started with only “five barley loaves and two fish.” What an amazing event; a miracle!

But would we not be missing something were we to think of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand as merely a great one-time event in history; a miracle that happened over two thousand years ago? We have many ways in which we can bridge some of the (at least historical) distance between Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and our own time. Might we imagine ourselves as one of the people who witnessed Jesus’ miracle with the loaves and fish? When I was in seminary and worked as a children’s catechist in Toronto, one of my favorite ways of bringing familiar Bible stories alive for the children was to ask the children to imagine themselves as a person in the story. To make the activity fair, nobody could be Jesus or God; they had to “be” somebody else in the story!

So if you were on the hillside in Galilee when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish to feed five thousand people, would you have been one of Jesus’ Apostles? Can we imagine ourselves as somebody like Philip: Truthful; to the point; matter-of-fact? “Two hundred days wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little,” Philip says when he sees the multitudes and Jesus asks where they are to “buy enough food” to feed them. Or are we more like Andrew? Like Philip, we wonder how we will feed so many people with so little food. But, more clearly than Philip (although I have a feeling Philip, too, may have thought, knowing Jesus, that Jesus would somehow provide for the multitude), Andrew is open to any action that may help in this situation.

Andrew sees “a boy” with “five barley loaves and two fish.” He announces to Jesus that this generous boy is willing to give his loaves and fish to the hungry people. This might have been supper for the little boy and his family, after all. Andrew, like Philip, is cautious and practical: “What good are these” five loaves and two fish “for so many”? But Andrew, like Philip, knows that anything is possible with Jesus. And so faithful Andrew gives Jesus the boy’s loaves and fish and watches in amazement as Jesus prays to God in thanksgiving and the loaves and fish are multiplied into an abundant meal!

Or are we perhaps like the little boy who gives to Andrew the five loaves and two fish that are later multiplied? “Mom and Dad just sent me to the market to buy five barley loaves and two fish… And maybe a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, and some vegetables… If I return empty-handed, Mom and Dad will be really upset and we’ll have no supper. But then Mom and Dad have said how much they like this Jesus. They have heard him speak and seen him heal the sick. And Andrew, Philip, and the other ten guys who work for him are really nice, too! Maybe I’ll give Mr. Andrew my bread and fish and see what happens. Mom and Dad won’t know any better if what I bring home are the leftovers”! Sure enough, the boy sees Jesus feed five thousand people from his five loaves and two fish. He is amazed to be the hero (he and Jesus, of course) to the hungry crowd. The Apostles send him home with as much leftover bread and fish as he can possibly carry. Mom and Dad are relieved as their son staggers in the door under the weight of the food, a bit late but safe and sound. Supper is on!

It is good for us, I believe, to put ourselves into familiar events in our Scriptures; especially in our Gospels as somebody in the Bible story. I have done this myself, at prayer, many times: “If I were this person, how would I have experienced the multiplication of the loaves?”, and so forth… But, if we stop at imagining ourselves as other people in these great events in our Gospels, could these events of which we hear in the Bible remain merely distant events in history? Even if we imagine ourselves as one of the Apostles; somebody in the crowd; the little boy perhaps, we could still hear this Gospel story as if it happened once two thousand years ago on a hillside in Galilee.

But this miracle of the feeding of five thousand was not just a one-time event two thousand years ago on a hillside in Galilee. It continues to take place among us here and now. What do I mean by this?

How many of us are connecting in our minds Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand with our celebration of Eucharist here and now? This connection would be quite appropriate. Yet what happens when we celebrate our Eucharist? Yes, we are witnesses to a transformation: By the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus becomes really and truly present under ordinary bread and wine on the altar. We celebrate a sacrament: Christ really present here is also a sign of what awaits us in heaven, when we will be with God forever. We speak of “the holy sacrifice of the Mass”: Christ offers himself to us in our Eucharist as the perfect memorial of his death and resurrection for us. We could even say that, when we celebrate Eucharist, a miracle happens. Gifts of bread and wine and also we are “consecrated” by God; made holy in and through this celebration.

But what also happens when we celebrate Eucharist? We offer something. I know, it does not seem like we offer much: Bread; wine; water; perhaps a money offering to support our parish and broader Church when the gifts (our “offertory”) are brought to the altar at Mass. We offer, if nothing else, our presence and prayerful participation as we are able in our Eucharist. Those who are homebound; who are sick offer their presence with us in spirit, and we as a community offer them our prayers.

This all does not seem like much of an offering. But here is our connection between the events of our Gospel, Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, and this Eucharistic celebration. And so Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish is no longer merely a one-time past event but is made present in action to us here. A few months ago, Pope Francis said this about Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fish: It is indeed a miracle. Yet it is as much about the offering by the people: The hungry crowd; Jesus’ Apostles; the boy who brings the loaves and fish to Andrew… Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish is the people’s “sharing inspired by faith and prayer.”

Is this not what we are doing here: “A sharing”; an offering “inspired by faith and prayer”? Sure, we may not think we are offering much: Our offertory gifts at Mass; our works of peace and justice; small acts of kindness to which we are called by our faith; our sorrow when we have sinned and our trust in God’s mercy especially through the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist itself… But our Lord Jesus asks us; invites us only to offer what we have; to give our best with God’s grace; to entrust what gifts we are able to give to one another and back to God in “faith and prayer,” and then not to be too surprised when God works miracles with what we offer.  

Homily for Friday, 17 April 2015– Friday of the Second Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 5:34-42; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14; John 6:1-15

Is Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes not a very familiar story to us? It is one of the few events of Jesus’ life that is recounted in all four Gospels. Today we hear John’s version of Jesus feeding of the multitudes from five loaves and two fish.

This event is familiar to us on many levels. Perhaps because Jesus’ actions here are at the core of our liturgy; our Eucharist, are we most familiar with Jesus’ taking, blessing, breaking, and distributing the loaves to the people? We hear every time we are at Mass how Jesus “took bread and, giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples.” And so the feeding of the thousands anticipates Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples; his Passion and death; his giving of himself to us under the form of bread and wine. He took; he gave thanks; he broke; and he gave: These actions are openly Eucharistic. On this level, we are familiar with this event of Jesus feeding of the multitudes in our Gospels.

But is there another level at which we are invited to become more familiar with this event; to live this event more deeply in our own lives? On one hand, how often do we consider our talents; our gifts we have been given by God for one another’s good? How often have we, on the other hand, ever complained of a lack of expertise for some tasks, or a lack of resources or time? Can we put ourselves in the place of the Apostles Philip or Andrew in today’s Gospel?

Philip sees the great, hungry crowds and says to Jesus, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” Andrew asks “But what good are these [loaves and fish] for so many”? I do not think that here Philip or Andrew show a lack of faith. Philip and Andrew likely knew at this point that Jesus was capable of a miracle if he willed it. But the two Apostles respond to the immediate need in front of them: Too many people and not enough food.

Remarkably, Jesus does not scold Philip or Andrew but calms them by asking them to “have the people recline.” Have the people take up a communal meal posture that was familiar to anyone in Israel in Jesus’ time. Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes, but in so doing he asks us what he asked of Philip or Andrew: What do you bring to help in this situation? What talents do you have; gifts from God that we are invited to use effectively? What is familiar to us in this situation?

Jesus does not ask us to work miracles. But in order to reach the point at which God can work a miracle, we are invited to give back to God what God has given us: Our gifts, our talents. We give to God what God gives us in this Eucharistic celebration. Is this a miracle before our eyes? Indeed, and yet even here we begin with our gift; the “work of human hands”; bread and wine; again, the familiar with which God works miracles.

Homily for Tuesday, 7 January 2014– Tuesday after Epiphany

Optional Memorial of St. Raymond of Penyafort 

Readings of the day: 1 John 4:7-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8; Mark 6:34-44

Does anyone here recall which important feast day we just celebrated this past Sunday? It was the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. We are familiar with the story of the Epiphany, the encounter of the newborn Christ with the magi. “Epiphany” means a “showing forth.” This past Sunday, we celebrated the Son of God’s first showing forth to the world.

But there are several examples of epiphany moments in our Gospels, let alone in our own lives. We hear of one of these epiphany moments in today’s Gospel reading.

Many of us might question how the feeding of the five thousand can be interpreted as an epiphany moment. Is it not primarily an account one of Jesus’ many miracles of which we hear in the Gospels? The feeding of the great crowd from only “five loaves and two fish” is indeed a miracle, but Mark’s imagery of this incident suggests not only a miracle, but an epiphany; a showing forth of God in the world.

Mark uses the imagery of a shepherd who takes pity on the crowd. This event takes place in “a deserted place.” The number of people, the quantity of food, their organization “by hundreds and by fifties,” and Jesus’ “taking… blessing,” breaking, and giving the bread and fish to the people recall a Jewish banquet scene in Jesus’ time. These images would also have been connected with the feeding of the Israelites with manna in the desert when Moses led them from Egypt.  

Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes shows forth Jesus as the Messiah; as a new Moses who loves, shepherds, delivers, and feeds us, God’s people; as God’s Son who shows forth to us the kingdom of God on earth, a kingdom in which all are welcomed, loved, and fed.

We may, rightly, think of events like the feeding of the five thousand as miracles, but not immediately as epiphany moments. More significantly, though, how often do we miss epiphany moments in our own everyday lives; ordinary events through which God is shown forth to us?

I think of how often I have been asked: “When did you know you were being called to be a Basilian; a priest?” God has called me through so many small moments that I struggle to pinpoint a specific “epiphany” in which my vocation became clear to me. I wonder if those of you who are married, who are in religious orders, or who are single share this struggle to identify one epiphany moment in your lives; a moment when your vocation became clear to you. Epiphany moments can become so ordinary that we miss them.

And so we come to another epiphany moment, in which we take, bless, break, and give ordinary bread, just as Jesus once did for the multitudes in Galilee. Only this bread and wine of which we are about to partake will have become Christ’s body and blood; our Eucharist.

Surely this is a miracle, but how often have we thought of the Eucharist as an epiphany moment? In this gift of the Eucharist, God is shown forth to us, and we are all welcomed, loved, and fed.