TWO GREAT SIGNS:

BREAD AND WINE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 3^rd Monday after Easter is, “Two Great Signs: Bread and Wine.”

In today’s gospel Jesus challenges the crowd - the great crowd of Chapter 6 in the gospel of John. [Cf. John 6:22-29]

Chapter 6 is the Eucharistic Chapter, the Mass Chapter, the Chapter to read if you spend time in the Eucharistic Adoration chapel at St. Mary’s - or you sit here in the quiet of this church or St. Mary’s or any Catholic church - before or after Mass to pray - with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

In the gospels, we hear Jesus from time to time going after folks who follow him because they are following him because of the signs, the miracles or because of  the zip and brew-ha-ha of being part of a big exciting place to be crowd that crowds around Jesus. [Cf. Matthew 12;38; Matthew 16; 4; Mark 8:11-12; Luke 11: 16; Luke 11: 29; John 4: 48; John 10:41; John 12: 18.]

In this gospel for today, he’s going after folks who are following him because of food.

BREAD AND WINE AND TIME

I don’t know about you, but I’m discovering in my old age that Jesus’ choice of bread and wine makes big time sense.

We accept by faith that Jesus Christ is present in this great sacrament.

Good -  but I’m also discovering by reason - by human behaviors - that Jesus uses a meal to present basic messages. He uses  bread and wine to help us make greater sense about life - to have a real presence in life.

I’m hungry for food…. I’m thirsty…. I am hungry for meaning! I’m hungry for love. I am hungry for appreciation. I am hungry for God.

Take bread - basic bread - part of meals for lots of people. I don’t know about bread in the Chinese culture. That’s one thing I miss at Chinese restaurants. Bread. I have never been in a Chinese family kitchen or meal to check this out. So to be discovered ....

Back to bread…. Bread, bread, bread,  in all its many variations: rye, pumpernickel, wheat, Italian bread, French bread - as well as in all its shapes - twists, loaves, round, rectangular, rolls, sliced, broken, pulled, shared…..

A whole loaf of bread can be broken and shared with many people.

Bread can bring us together. Let us break bread together. Let us be in communion with each other. Give us this day our daily bread.

When we don’t like each other, we don’t like to eat with each other. Sometimes we can’t stomach each other. We don’t want so and so’s words to take flesh and dwell within us. We don’t want to sit with them or near them and let them wear us out. We want to table their motions - and/ or to sit on another table.

Bread - to become bread - needs to go through a long process. Seeds are planted.  They fall apart in the soil. They die. They change. They stretch out roots. They grow. They become wheat. They are cut down. They die. Wheat is crushed. Wheat rises as flour. To become bread it is kneaded together. To become bread it has  to take the heat. Then with leaven it can rise as bread. Bread brings us to the same table.

Unleavened bread is a whole other story....

So too wine. Grapes - hanging there together, growing, clustering, picked - crushed - and in time it becomes wine. Some wines - look like blood - doesn’t it? Wine also brings us together. Wine tastes good. Wine gives a glow, a high, a lift.

When as priest,  I lift the chalice at Mass at the consecration - before the Our Father - before communion - I think it's like a toast at a wedding banquet - or toasting each other at a meal - clinking glasses - connecting - with glass, sound, the tink, tink clink sound of a toast, the short brief  words we blurt across and up and down the table, the eye to eye connection, the smile to smile connection - the truth that comes with wine. In vino veritas.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Two Great Signs: Bread and Wine”. 

What do you want? What are you hungry for? What are you thirsting for? What is Jesus saying to you today, in these sacred signs? Amen.