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July 2004: Broken, Poured For Love |
| Week 1: Eucharist Is
Dying And Rising With Jesus Learning About Eucharist From Baking Bread We have a lot to learn about Eucharist and about life itself, from the very nature of bread. Anyone who has ever made home-made bread will know about life's simple blessing. After the dough is stretched, kneaded and pounded and pulled, and finally placed in the oven and baked, there it's baked to fill the house with that wonderful smell. Imagine coming home one day to the smell of fresh bread being baked. Bread Is To Be Broken And Eaten Your enthusiasm grows as the one who baked it takes a loaf out and places it on the table. Imagine them saying, "We're not allowed to touch this bread. This bread we just look at it. Anyone who is hungry, maybe we can find some stale bread. This bread we'll just admire". If you find yourself thinking that's not right... well, I agree with you. That's not the purpose of bread. The purpose of bread is to be eaten, has to be broken, and eaten so that we can live. The purpose of bread is not to be a centre piece we place on the table and admire. It is of the very nature that it be torn, and given and eaten so that we can live. Eucharist Is All About Dying, For Jesus And For Us Jesus described himself as bread. "I am the bread of life", he said. And on the night before he died he took bread and said, "This bread is my body". The whole purpose of Jesus was to be given, torn apart and eaten for love. He did not come among us to be admired for his virtue. Isn't it wonderful? The very purpose of Jesus, like bread, was to be torn apart and given for love. And so, it is for us. St. Paul says that "we are the body of Christ". It is our purpose too, to be given for love. Our purpose is not to develop our virtues so that people can admire us. "Isn't it wonderful? Isn't he great?" Not at all. Eucharist is all about dying. Our purpose, like the purpose of Jesus, like the purpose of bread, is to be torn apart and given in love, so that people can live. By this, people become literally what we eat. We Are To Be Broken And Consumed For Love On the night before he died, Jesus took bread, blessed it. He broke it and he gave it to his disciples, that we may eat and have life. At the Eucharist, he does the same with us. He takes us, blesses us and he then sends us forth into the world, so that we too can be broken apart and consumed for love - for the life of the world. It's that simple. The purpose of bread is the purpose of Jesus, is the purpose of us. We Enter Into The Eternal Mystery Of Jesus' Death And Resurrection In the Eucharist, the dying of Jesus is not repeated over and over. Rather, we more deeply enter the mystery of the moment that lasts forever. That great once and for all Amen of Jesus to the Father, and the Father's response of Resurrection. We Enter Into Jesus' Dying And Rising Only in entering the dying, so we also enter into the Rising. Benediction and Communion services can point to that great mystery. But in the celebration of the Eucharist, we actually enter deeply into that very mystery of Christ's body being broken. His blood poured. Jesus Dying And Rising At The Heart Of Every Eucharist This is at the heart of every Eucharist. Wherever the occasion for gathering for Eucharist, perhaps at funerals, marriage or Sunday morning or some other special occasion, we must always take care to remember the heart of Eucharist, the Paschal Mystery, the dying and rising of Jesus, and our entering into that great mystery. We Are Called To Enter Into Jesus Dying It is essential to our faith to know that we are not mere spectators here. We ourselves are called to enter into that dying. When Jesus asked his disciples, "Can you drink of the cup of which I am to drink", he was obviously not asking whether they have the ceremonial skills to get the cups to the lips. He was saying to us all, "Can you die with me? Can you let your blood be poured for love, your bodies broken?" We Taste Our God Of Life Through Death At Eucharist, we taste our inside of the very emptying presence of love. Our God that entered death to bring life to us. Week 2: Chosen, Blessed, Broken, Given Being Chosen Jesus is taken by God or, better, chosen by God. Jesus is the Chosen One. From all eternity God has chosen his most precious Child to become the Saviour of the world. Being chosen expresses a special relationship, being known and loved in a unique way, being singled out. In our society our being chosen always implies that others are not chosen. But this is not true for God. God chosen his Son to reveal to us for chosenness. In the Kingdom of God there is no competition or rivalry. The Son of God shares his chosenness with us. In the Kingdom of God, each person is precious and unique, and each person has been given eyes to see the chosenness of others and rejoice in it. Being Blessed Jesus is the Blessed One. When Jesus was baptised in the Jordan river, a voice came from heaven, saying: "You are my son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you" (Mk 1:11). This was the blessing that sustained Jesus during his life. Whatever happened to him - praise or blame - he clung to his blessing; he always remembered that he was the favourite child of God. Jesus came into the world to share that blessing with us. He came to open our ears to the voice that also says to us, "You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter, my favour rests on you". When we can hear that voice, trust in it, and remember in it, especially during dark times, we can live our lives as God's blessed children and find the strength to share this blessing with others. Being Broken Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits, we suffer from broken relationships. How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life. Being Given Jesus is given to the world. He was chosen, blessed and broken to be given. Jesus' life and death are a life and death for others. The Beloved Son of God, chosen from all eternity, was broken on the cross so that this one life could multiply and become food for people of all places and all times. As God's beloved children we have to believe that our little lives, when we lived as God's chosen and blessed children, are broken to be given to others. We too have to become bread for the world. When we live our brokenness under the blessing, our lives will continue to bear fruit from generation to generation. That is the story of the saints - they died, but they continue to be alive in the hearts of those who live after them - and this can be our story too. Week 3: Healing Through Our Wounds Wounded Healers Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. The main question is not "How can we hide our wounds?" So we don't have to be embarrassed, but "How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers. Jesus is God's wounded healer: through his wounds we are healed. Jesus' suffering and death brought joy and life. His humiliation brought glory; his rejection brought a community of love. As followers of Jesus we can also allow our wounds to bring healing to others. Tending Our Own Wounds First Our own experience with loneliness, depression and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care. As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away. But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds they no longer frighten us or others. When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing. Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters. Listening With Our Wounds To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering. Speaking about our own wounds is seldom helpful to someone who is in pain. A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds. When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attention to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience. Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person's attention to ourselves. We have to trust that our bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole being. That is healing. A Time To Receive And A Time To Give It is important to know when we should give attention and when we need attention. Often we are inclined to give, give and give without asking for anything in return. We may think that this is a sign of generosity or even heroism. But it might be little more than a proud attitude that says: "I don't need help from others. I only want to give". When we keep giving without receiving we burn out quickly. Only when we pay careful attention to our own physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs can we be, and remain joyful givers. There is a time to give and a time to receive. We need equal time for both if we want to live healthy lives. Week 4: feelings, Moods And Our Spiritual Resources. Becoming Food For The World When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples, he summarised in these gestures his own life. Jesus is chosen from all eternity, blessed at his baptism in the river Jordan, broken on the cross and given as bread to the world. Being chosen, blessed, broken and given is the sacred journey of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. When we take bread, bless it, break it and give it with the words 'This is the Body of Christ', we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ. We too want to live as people chosen, blessed and broken, and thus become food for the world. What We Feel Is Not Who We Are. Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood swings from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us. Thus is it important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life the life of the Spirit of God within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children. Overcoming Our Mood Swings Are we condemned to be passive victims of our mood swings? Must we simply say: 'I feel great today' or 'I feel awful today', and require others to live with our moods? Although it is very hard to control our moods, we can gradually overcome them by a well-disciplined spiritual life. This can prevent us from acting out of our moods. We might not feel like getting up in the morning because we feel that life is not worth living, that nobody loves us, and that our work is boring. But if we get up anyhow, to spend some time reading the Gospel, praying the Psalms, and thanking God for a new day, our moods may lose their power over us. Digging Into Our Spiritual Resources. When someone hurts us, offends us, ignores us or reject us, a deep inner protest emerges. It can be rage or depression, desire to take revenge or even an impulse to harm ourselves. We can feel a deep urge to wound those who have wounded us or to withdraw in a suicidal mood of self-rejection. Although these extreme reactions might seem exceptional, they are never far away from our hearts. During the long nights we often find ourselves brooding about words and actions we might have used in response to what others have said or done to us. It is precisely here that we have to dig deep into our spiritual resources and find the Centre within us, the centre that lies beyond our need to hurt others or ourselves, where we are free to forgive and love. |