Dear Parishioners and Friends,

G K Chesterton, one of the premier Catholic intellectuals of the 20th century  once wrote: “There comes a time, usually late in the afternoon, when the little child tires of playing policeman and robbers. It’s then that he begins to torment the cat!” Mothers, with young children, are only too familiar with this late afternoon hour and its particular dynamic. There comes an hour, usually just before supper, when a child’s energy is low, when it is tired and whining, and when the mother has exhausted both her patience and her repertoire of warnings: “Leave that alone! Don’t do that!” The child, tense and miserable, is clinging to her leg. At that point, she knows what to do. She picks up the child. Touch, not word, is what’s needed. In her arms, the child grows calm and tension leaves its body.

That’s an image for the Eucharist. We are at times that tense, a tired child, tormenting the cat. There comes a point when words are not enough. God has to pick us up, like a mother to her child. Physical embrace is what’s important and needed. 

In Jesus’ ministry, he used powerful words. Through words, he brought God’s consolation, challenge, and strength. Indeed, his words stirred hearts, healed people, and moved people to transformation. However, something more was needed. So on the night before his death, Jesus went beyond by giving us the Eucharist, his physical embrace, a ritual within which he holds us to his heart.

Jesus clearly places giving us his Body and Blood to eat and drink in the context of his ultimate passing over from death to life. His gift of the Eucharist is an ongoing expression of this total gift of self and the ultimate sign of his physical embrace and the receiving of the fullness of Life.

 A novelist, used to say: “Without the Eucharist, God becomes a monologue.” 

The Eucharist is God’s kiss. Like a kiss, it needs no explanation and has no explanation. Skin needs to be touched. This is what happens in the Eucharist and that is why the Eucharist, and every other Christian sacrament, always has some very tangible physical element to it—a laying on of hands, a consuming of bread and wine, an immersion into water, an anointing with oil. An embrace needs to be physical, not only something imagined. God knows that. It’s why Jesus gave us the Eucharist. 

Amen. 

Peace and good,

Fr. Jimmy