This weekend in Indianapolis, tens of thousands of people are gathering for the 10th National Eucharistic Congress.  As is the case so often, different terms can kind of throw us.  We can hear “Congress” and American-centered minds think about the legislative branch of the government.  But the word congress is also simply another word for gathering and meeting, but for something more intentional and important.  So from time to time, these “National Eucharistic Congresses” have taken place to help foster more profound love, reinvigorate our understanding and reverence for the Eucharist:  one of the greatest treasures of our Catholic Faith – where we believe that the bread and wine at Mass through the power of the Holy Spirit becomes the actual body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.  That quite, remarkably, God invites us to eat and drink His Sacred Body and Blood.

Thanks so much for stopping by to read this homily for the 16th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, July 21, 2024.  I appreciate your sharing this on your social media posts and your feedback and comments…  I’m also grateful for all those who’ve asked for the audio version and share them as well at SOUNDCLOUD click HERE or from ITUNES as a podcast HERE.  May the Lord be glorified in your reading and sharing- Father Jim

We can lose sight of how remarkable that, in fact, truly is.  We have to go back and remember that for our ancestors in the Faith, the Jews, who we call our elder brothers and sisters of the Covenant, God had revealed Himself in many spectacular ways…   Those stories we’ve learned from Catholic School or CCD – or remember from movies like the classic Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” or the more recent animated version “The Prince of Egypt,” which gave just glimpses of some of the mighty signs that God demonstrated through his servant Moses to call and lead His Chosen People out of slavery in Egypt to freedom.  But throughout the Old Testament, the holiness, the sacredness of God is a constant.  The people could not speak His name.  In fact, the word “Lord” was basically used to refer to the Holy Name of God without actually uttering His name.  God’s name was treated so solemnly that the people were so cautious and careful and would never want to utter God’s holy name irreverently or treat it casually and be guilty of blaspheming.  Something that we Catholic Christians really need to recapture for sure with how some use Jesus’ name or even invoke God in our everyday language for things that, if we really thought about, we probably wouldn’t want Him to see or hear.   That was a response of the people to how anything connected to God needed to be seen and treated.  The Holiest things of God on this earth – were contained in the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the Ten Commandments on the original stone tablets that God’s hand had inscribed those laws for Moses and the people, some manna, the holy bread that God rained down from the heavens to feed His people when they were in the wilderness awaiting their entry into the promised land, and the priestly rod of Moses brother Aaron.  The people themselves could not even touch the Ark that held those things.  It had to be moved under precise and incredibly specific rules by the priests who were called the Levites.

For the people of the Covenant, God’s name and presence were highly revered.  The Ark of the Covenant, containing the tablets of the Ten Commandments, was kept in the innermost part of the Temple in Jerusalem, making it the holiest place in the world at that time.  God communicated with his people through prophets, and they believed that their obedience to His Commandments kept them connected to Him.  However, after Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden, the intimate connection they once had with God was lost, leading to devastating consequences.  But God had never abandoned His people.  God was moving with, still speaking, still working with His people.  He kept promising that there would come a day when that chasm, that valley between God and man, would be bridged, that obstacle, that mountain of separation would be leveled.

Jeremiah spoke about this in the first reading which came about 6 centuries before the birth of Jesus.  In the reading, God promises to shepherd His people, gather them, care for them, and bring them back.  God says through Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous shoot.” For the people of Jeremiah’s time, this was an indictment of the leaders who had become lukewarm and indifferent to God’s law.  They were merely going through the motions, not honoring, loving, and serving God, which was the whole point of their liberation from Egypt.  The people had become lukewarm due to the abuse of power by secular leaders and religious authorities.

Jesus is that shepherd.  Jesus is that righteous shoot.  In Jesus’ death and resurrection, that chasm between man and God has been bridged.  In Jesus those mountains that keep God at a distance has been leveled.  God’s name could be spoken once again by Human beings and there’s power and authority in His name being spoken by His followers- (St. Paul tells us that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in the heavens, on earth and under the earth…”) In Jesus, God’s presence is no longer limited to a single place thousands of miles away that we need to make pilgrimage to in a temple in Jerusalem.   We have Jesus’ sacred Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in every one of our churches in that tabernacle – which is why that candle is burning in front of it all the time to remind us of His presence.  But even more remarkable – we are invited to “take and eat” His body, blood, soul and divinity.  The saced and powerful presence of God Himself is no longer distant but abides in us.

That’s what the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis is all about.  This call for “Eucharistic revival,” which after all the awful COVID mandates and the isolation of the pandemic had previously unimaginable to our minds, created a new distance between God and man by depriving the people of God, Mass, and receiving the Eucharist.  We need to recapture a sense of wonder and awe for this treasure of our Faith.  To recognize that there is nothing more essential than Jesus.  Because there is nothing more important to Him than you and me.

That’s one of the things that this Gospel today really highlights.   We hear that the apostles, after returning from preaching to people about the need for repentance, to open their minds and hearts to conversion, and performing powerful cures and healings, casting out demons through exorcisms, the guys come back, and Jesus can see they are tired.  So He’s calling them away for some rest and refreshment.  But immediately as they get to the place of their retreat, the crowds have found them and are waiting.  On the surface it seems like every self-help guru and mental health experts worst nightmare as Jesus immediately begins to minister to them.  The understandable concerns that people have for burnout and proper boundaries seem to be ignored.

And for sure, as a priest, I can confess that’s a struggle.  Because as a priest you go between knowing the need to be radically available for the people of God to bring Him to be Him to those who need Him.  At the same time, I’m constantly reminded of my humanity, my sinfulness, and my weaknesses on physical, emotional, and even spiritual levels.

But I’m reminded of this quote from a book called “the Soul of the Apostolate.”  The author makes the argument that:

“if the priest is a saint, the people will be fervent;
if the priest is ferent, the people will be pious;
if the priest is pious, the people will at least be decent;
if the priest is only decent, the people will be godless.
The spiritual generation is always one-degree less intense in its life than the one who begets it in Christ.”

That’s not to minimize each person’s individual responsibilities to respond to God or to pass the blame for people’s diminished faith as the fault of an individual priest. But there’s a truth to those words that I know to be true.  I greatly appreciate and was inspired and challenged by the saintly priests who, by their example, demonstrated the importance of allowing Jesus to overwhelm their lives. That real presence of Christ in the Eucharist became more obvious because I saw it and experienced it in the priest, not just at Mass on Sunday, but in the ordinary and day to day as well.

This is why the National Eucharistic Congress and this call for revival are so urgent. It reminds us of what is most essential to our lives. It’s not just about our faith lives, where we compartmentalize things and try to make it to Mass on Sunday. Rather, it’s about making Sunday the high point of the week, truly a Sabbath, where what we’re doing here is understood as the most important thing of every week – where God himself draws near, humbly and silently. Our awesome, all-powerful, eternal God makes Himself little and vulnerable.

Let’s not only pray for more men to be open to hearing His voice and courageous in responding to the call to priesthood, but also that they, and all of us who are already ordained, will strive for holiness. Together, let’s accompany one another, encouraging and supporting each other to become living tabernacles now and saints in God’s eternal heavenly kingdom.