| June 17 2001 Genesis 14:18-20 + 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 + Luke 9:11-17 |
| Anyone of us who has ever engaged in a conversation about religion that eventually moves toward Mass and the Eucharist gets asked the question. If it isn’t asked, someone in the conversation has been holding back. If it isn’t asked, it is certainly thought; and the question. “Do you really believe that?” |
| A few weeks ago, I asked that question of the children making their first communion. They all insisted that they did believe that the communion they would share was the Body and Blood of Christ, but they have also believed in Santa Clause, Easter Bunny’s and Tooth Fairies. So, I wasn’t too impressed with their response. What I suspect really matters, is whether or not you believe that; and the annual celebration of this Feast brings me to ask myself the same question. |
| An important aspect of the Catholic imagination, that is to say, the way Catholic Culture views and interprets human experience, events, and memories is its ability to hold many meanings of an event in creative tension instead of isolating a single interpretation. Let me give you an example that is very much to the point: there is the belief and the authentic tradition that the Eucharist is an act of praise and thanksgiving to God expressed in ritual and song. There is an equally authentic tradition that the Eucharist is the “Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.” There is also an equally authentic tradition that says Eucharist is a meal shared in ritual. Any of these traditions can be distorted by exaggeration. Our faith says that the Eucharist is truly a banquet for the multitudes, a memorial of the last meal of a condemned Christ, and the covenant that binds those who share that meal into the relationship which the Incarnation initiates. Any distortion or exaggeration of these equally valid traditions leads to a private appropriation by individuals, and that is contrary to belief. |
| So, when I ask: “Do you really believe this?” You’ve got to think about and know about what there is to believe.Do you really believe that in touching this food you are in immediate, physical contact with the divine, and that by this food you are freed from sin, redeemed, and made worthy to be God’s own child?Do you really believe that by sharing in this meal, you share in the |