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What does your early morning inbox look like?
I wake up to reflection upon reflection, most from Jesuit sources, on the readings of the day. It’s a good way to begin the day, especially when the second most numerous posts in the inbox are often from news outlets. Praying helps keep things in perspective.
This week some writers admitted they were unsure how to craft their reflections as the scripture they were commenting on was difficult to understand. I appreciated their honesty because I feel the same way at times. Yet they attempt to make sense of it and what they have to say usually focuses on aspects of faith and life I might not have considered.
Today’s readings begin with Moses reminding his people how God cared for them, gave them food and water, and protected them from the hazards all around them as they wandered in the desert. All God asked was that they live by the commandments given to them through Moses.
We can relate to this. Somehow and somewhere deep in our souls when we have wandered God has eventually been found and we have felt that care our ancestors felt. We may not struggle with food and water, but our struggles are nonetheless painful. Our children stray, our parents disappoint us, or our jobs feel impossible, yet at the end of the day when our heads hit the pillow God emerges, waiting, soothing and offering hope and unconditional love. We live very differently from those in the time of Moses, yet we seek the Divine as they did.
In the gospel Jesus explains that he is “the living bread that came down from heaven”. It is his flesh and his blood that will sustain us. This caused havoc in his day as we can well imagine it would and continues as a topic under discussion today.
In the past I focused on the words, “flesh” and “blood” in this gospel which if I am honest are somewhat gruesome. I sympathize with the Jews quarreling among themselves on who this man was to speak in these terms. I have come to understand that Jesus meant he was giving himself, body and soul, flesh and blood, his entire being human and divine to us.
Each time I hear the words of consecration I try to imagine being there around the table with Jesus as he spoke assuring everyone assembled not to worry, he had their back. He would be with them always and forever. Picturing the scene, the table, the food, the people sharing the meal with him and imagining he is talking to me, as he was to them, is powerful.
So much of our faith is shrouded in mystery. We can’t quite figure out what Jesus meant or who God is. Yet there is a longing, a holy longing that brings us back day after day to the belief in God, the amazing Holy Spirit of God, and gratitude for Jesus who taught us so well. Three visions of God and altogether God.
This evening at Mass, I paid special attention. It was the first-time communion was offered under the species of both bread and wine since the pandemic. What the people in the long communion line believe cannot be known except to them yet there they are approaching the altar quietly in reverence to receive Jesus. What they believe about the process is not nearly as important as the fact that they – we – return, in faith. If we are honest none of us has the answers, even the most educated among us. We gather, we pray, we sing, and we receive holy communion with hope and a deep undefinable knowledge of God.
Peace,
Anne
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