I’M HUNGRY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “I’m Hungry.”

“I’m Hungry.”

Some thoughts for this feast we celebrate this Sunday – the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – Corpus Christi.

If I asked you, “Why are you here?” at Mass right now, what would you answer?

I think down deep most of us would answer, “Because I’m hungry.”

50 years ago, people might have answered: “To fulfill my Sunday obligation” or “To avoid mortal sin” – but I’m not sure if that is true. Making these kinds of statements plead for or cede to research. Sunday Mass attendance has certainly gone down. Would the people who come to Mass today say they have moved from have to, to want to – from obligation to appreciation? Would most people, if they sat back and thought about why they are here at Mass answer, “I’m here, because I’m hungry”?

I’m hungry for God. I’m hungry for inspiration – for a word, for a prayer, for a song, for an insight that will help me this week. I’m here to deepen my faith. I’m hungry for the Bread of Life, communion with Jesus, who brings me to the Father. I’m hungry to be with others who have these same hungers. I’m like the crowd in today’s gospel, listening, questioning, hearing Jesus again at this moment. He’s saying to me, as he said to them, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

There are many reasons for coming to Mass.

There are many reasons, why we do, what we do.

There are many hungers in the human heart?

Is the hunger to live forever, the deepest hunger?

Today's gospel certainly triggers that question.

I’m hungry for assurance – that my life will not have an end. The second number on my tombstone – my death year – is just for the stone and the obituary column and the death card. I want to go on forever. There, I said something, I don’t say to myself enough. I hunger to live forever. Is that one of the biggest reasons for coming to Mass? Is that what Jesus is promising in the last 7 words from today’s gospel: “… whoever eats this bread will live forever”?

MOONSTRUCK

Some scenes, in some movies, for some reason, stick to us. Think of the movies and the scenes and the lines you remember. Talk to each other about your favorite movies and favorite scenes. Write them out on a piece of paper. They are your scriptures. Do an inner homily or sermon to yourself on them – and you will receive an insight – a revelation about yourself and about life.

I often think of the 1987 movie, “Moonstruck”. The part that I remember the most is Rose Castorini’s Question. Rose is played by Olympia Dukakis – who received an Oscar for best Supporting Actress for her part in that movie. She keeps asking why husbands cheat – why her husband is having an affair.

The Internet is great. I typed into the Google search box, “Moonstruck” and got the scene and the lines I was looking for. It’s a conversation between Rose and a guy named Johnny Cammerari, played by Danny Aiello. He is to marry Rose’s daughter, Loretta, played by Cher - who received the Oscar for Best Actress of 1987 for her part in this movie.

The scene:

Rose: Why do men chase women?

Johnny: Well, there's a Bible story... God... God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. Now maybe men chase women to get the rib back. When God took the rib, he left a big hole there, where there used to be something. And the women have that. Now maybe, just maybe, a man isn't complete as a man without a woman.

Rose: [frustrated] But why would a man need more than one woman?

Johnny: I don't know. Maybe because he fears death. [Rose looks up, eyes wide, suspicions confirmed]

Rose: That's it! That's the reason!

Johnny: I don't know...

Rose: No! That's it! Thank you! Thank you for answering my question!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Two more scenes. I also found two more scenes.

Rose is with her husband Cosmo Castorini, played by Vincent Gardenia.

Rose: I just want you to know no matter what you do, you're gonna die, just like everybody else.

Cosmo: Thank you, Rose.

The next scene – once more Rose is talking to her husband Cosmo ….

Rose: Have I been a good wife?

Cosmo: Yeah.

Rose: I want you to stop seeing her.

[Cosmo rises, slams the table once, and sits down again]

Cosmo: Okay.

Rose: [pauses] And go to confession.

As priest, when dealing with people who are going through affairs and marriage struggles – when I keep reading about how men can become addicted to pornography – having image and imaginary affairs with women – women who are unnamed, unreal, unknown, unmet, objects, that message from “Moonstruck,” keeps hitting me. Why? Why do men get themselves into these addictive traps. Is the answer, the answer that Rose Castorini came up with: “He’s afraid to die.”?

I don’t know.

And sometimes they don’t know.

Why? What’s behind the scene with lust? Is it hunger for recognition – to prove to himself that he exists – he’s still alive, that he is here? Is it the hunger to be loved, appreciated, wanted?

Why do people try to satisfy their hungers in ways that makes them more hungry?

Addictions: scratch them. Visit their basements. Open up their bottom drawers – and you’ll see hunger as a bottom line. Listen! You'll hear, "Feed me!"

Addictions: food, shopping, stuff, on and on and on. We’re hungry – so we stuff ourselves.

I remember hearing an alcoholic say, “There’s an old saying in AA: ‘I was looking for God at the bottom of a bottle.’”

I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. Feed me! Give me to drink.

These are basic human feelings, sounds, needs, we make every day.

The title of my homily is, “I’m Hungry.”

Hear, chew on, digest the Scriptures with these mutterings in mind.

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s readings are placed on the table for us to bite into.

The first reading from Deuteronomy has Moses talking about the Israelite desert experience of hunger and thirst in the desert. God supplies water from the rock. God provides manna, “a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

The second reading from The First Letter to the Corinthians talks about the Eucharist – the Mass – the Early Christian community celebration of the cup of blessing that we bless, and the bread that we break. It’s a participation of all of us together – as one – the one body of Christ. We are a gigantic loaf of bread here in this church this afternoon. We are blessed and consecrated, and then we go out and let people as Mother Teresa used to say to her nuns, “Let the people eat you up.”

At Mass, when I say as priest, “This is my body…. this is my blood …. most of the time – unless I’m spaced out – I’m saying this not only over the bread and the wine – but over all of you – all of us.

When we have baptisms in our newer church building, St. John Neumann, the baptisms are in the back – in the vestibule or narthex. When the baptisms are at our older church building, St. Mary’s, the baptisms are done in the front of the church. Well, somewhere along the line, it hit me when doing baptisms at St. Mary’s, with the altar right there, why not after the baptismal ceremony is over, ask the parents to come around to the front of the altar and place their newly baptized baby on the altar. Place the child right there where we place the bread and the cup. Then I ask the parents to repeat after me holding their baby: “This is my body. This is my blood. We’re giving our life to you.”

I’m trying to connect all of this and all of life to the Eucharist.

This must be a bit novel – because families then want to take a picture of the baby sitting there on the altar with their parents propping them up.

At first, this got me nervous – because someone might not like this and turn me in for doing something that doesn't seem kosher. And they have a picture to prove it. Then it struck me – maybe 25 years from then, they will be showing a picture of a priest as a baby sitting right there on the altar. Now wouldn’t that be a great scene?

Hopefully, we understand today’s Gospel. If we grasp some of this, we won’t be saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

In fact, there’s the reason why we keep coming back for more – the reason why we come to Mass every Sunday. We want more life – here and hereafter. Or as Jesus puts it here: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”

We are Jesus struck. The priest holds high up the Eucharist in prayer. We see the round beautiful bread. It can be like seeing a surprise bright full moon in the monstrance of dark night. We hear the powerful proclamation: “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.” And we all sing, “Amen!

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is: “I’m Hungry.”

What are we hungry for? We human beings are hungry for food, for love, for recognition, for affirmation, for relationships, for family, for fun, for meaning, for a good job. We are hungry for peace, happiness, joy, a wonderful Memorial Day weekend – an end to hassle. We want lower gas prices, less stupidity, less greed, more honesty, integrity, a better political process – but most of all, we want to live now and forever. Amen.