Reflection for Sunday – August 18, 2024

Denise MackSunday Readings Homilies

Readings: Proverbs 9: 1-6; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58 
Preacher: Deni Mack

We sang Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord (Psalm 34: 2-7) at our parents’ funerals. That psalm defines us.  Daily Mass consoled my father for the three years he grieved my mother’s death.    

Not long after my dad’s death an African priest told me, “Where I come from, each priest serves so many Mass centers that we can’t get to them even once a month.”  I cannot imagine not tasting the Eucharist for weeks on end.  What do people do?  The Synod for the Pan Amazon Region (2019) tells us many people fast from Eucharist as there are too few priests.  Catechists, in Brazil and elsewhere, gather the community for prayer; many have not seen a priest in months.    

Riding on rutted dirt roads in Kenya with Joanne and Bill Cala’s Journey with Hearts and Hands made real, for me, the difficulty priests have traveling to many far-off Mass centers.  We accompanied the Congdon family to a parish in Kenya to dedicate a four-classroom school built with the funds donated to Hannah Congdon’s memorial fund.  Despite the grief we felt over Hannah’s death never had we experienced the Eucharist with more joy than in Kenya. Hundreds of people brought their gifts to the altar.  They sang praise with dance.  Several brought half-filled jugs of a water that our priest later used to water a dozen trees he’d planted during drought. 

Years later the Calas and Congdons report the trees are thriving as are the parishioners and students at Christ the King church and school where they joyfully sing, Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord.

Our first reading today from the ancient book of Proverbs tells of Lady Wisdom building her house, setting her table and preparing her meal.  She calls all who lack understanding to come and eat her food and drink her wine.  Today’s letter to the Ephesians urges us to make the most of opportunities to deepen understanding.  “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons, but as wise…do not continue in ignorance…the days are evil.” (Eph 5: 15-20)

How can our ignorance be transformed?

Lady Wisdom’s feast is for everyone.  God’s nourishment overflows in love for others.  Our spiritual ancestors found Wisdom served practical knowledge to her guests. Wisdom taught them to discern what is good. She guided them in right living, but we live in a secular age and few of our neighbors are aware of this feast, this understanding, this invitation to walk with Jesus.  Might they be blessed as we carry Jesus in our very beings to our neighbors in every workplace and gathering because in each Eucharist, we, spiritually, place ourselves with Jesus’ broken body on the altar. The Holy Spirit transforms the bread and wine into the Christ.  We become what we eat. 

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus says, “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  In Matthew, Mark and Luke ,Jesus says, “This is my body, which shall be given for you; do this in memory of me.” In John’s Gospel, Christ gives himself to us in the Word we hear in our assembly and in his presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist we share in our assembly.  Through Word and Sacrament in our worship, and in our lives of faith, Jesus remains in us, and we remain in him.  Jesus in the broken bread and cup pours out in love for us all.  Eucharist empowers us to take the life of Christ we have received into the world. Eucharist empowers us to put our faith into action. 

Vatican II reminds us of New Testament days where Prisca and Aquilla, Junia and Andronicus, et al. linked worship with the moral call to do love and justice!

Eucharist feeds us to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and become community. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male nor female; for you are all one in Christ, Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

We open our hearts to encounter Jesus in the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, and one another: St. Michael’s Church on North Clinton Ave. feeds 300 people breakfast and dinner every Saturday where Wisdom serves her feast to many including refugees from the Ukraine. Wisdom still gives practical assistance through St Joseph, Penfield, Holy Trinity, Webster, St Theodore’s, Blessed Sacrament, St Mary’s on Washington Square and many more. 

As we ask Jesus to abide in us and we in him our understanding deepens and our attitude shifts. We’re not mere providers; we become lovingly attentive to the tone of voice and to the anxieties of people we welcome.  Together we Taste and See the goodness of the Lord.   

Denise Mack
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