BREAD AND WINE
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 3rd
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.
