Since the Second Vatican Council our readings for Sunday Mass are organized into a three-year cycle. The first year we hear from Saint Matthew’s Gospel, the Second year, from Saint Mark, and the third from Saint Luke. Yet right in the middle of the Year of Saint Mark, for about six weeks, the Gospel readings are taken from the sixth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel, and we won’t hear from Saint Mark again until September.
The sixth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel is a crucial chapter, it’s known by biblical scholars as the Bread of Life discourse, where Jesus teaches us about the Eucharist—the bread of life—his flesh and blood. It’s a tough teaching; at the end of his discourse some of the people who were following him walk away, they go back to their former beliefs, their old life, and no longer follow Jesus because it was a hard teaching—that we are to eat and drink his flesh and blood.
But, the sixth chapter begins not with direct teaching, but with the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, which we heard today. This great crowd had assembled, at the foot of the mountain. Much like that great crowd, over a thousand people gather here at St. Clare every week men, women, and children of all ages, from various economic and cultural backgrounds, different political stances, cradle Catholics and newly initiated Catholics and some who are thinking about becoming Catholic. We are this great diverse crowd called together that Jesus might feed us.
I came across a copy of a church bulletin from another parish recently. It read “We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, filthy rich, dirt poor, no habla ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds. We welcome you if you sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor, who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re ‘just browsing’, just woke up, or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church. We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleedings hearts…and you!”
An important reminder, that the Church is not just a collection of my kind of people. A reminder to welcome those who do not look like us, speak like us, or smell like us.
The local parish is meant to be a reflection of the entire Church in which the diversity of peoples are gathered together by the Lord Jesus to share the One Bread of the One Lord in One Spirit and One Faith. The fact that we have browns fans and steelers fans worshipping together shows that faith runs deeper than team loyalties. That we have Africans and Caucasians and Asians worshipping together shows that the faith runs deeper than race.
Not only does the Church contain a diversity of nationalities and languages, she also contains multitude of diverse liturgical traditions: the Latin Rite, which we celebrate here at St. Clare, the Byzantine Catholics, Syriac Catholics, Maronite Catholics, all professing the same faith, but celebrating it in liturgically diverse ways. Such diversity does not do damage to Church Unity it reflects the diversity of peoples called together as one—and reveals the richness of our Catholicity.
Diversity in the Church is a good, healthy, holy thing. However, there is a great difference between diversity and division. Diversity is good, division is bad. Sinful division occurs when groups or individuals within the Church hold or profess beliefs that are contrary to Christian doctrine. For example, if I held that the Church was wrong in what she teaches about the sixth commandment, or what she teaches about the Blessed Mother, or transubstantiation, that would create division contrary to the will of Jesus.
When the Church teaches in matters of doctrine and morality, she is not speaking her opinion, but handing on teaching that comes from God. And every Christian has the responsibility to accept, and to believe, and to seek to understand those teachings and to conform our lives to them. To disagree with her, is to disagree with Him.
Out of many, we are made one, by the Lord. And he sends us out to all nations, to gather the scattered into his fold. Jesus died for all, that all might come to eternal life; and he sends us out, not just to “our people”, but to the weird and strange and smelly and lost, out to the whole of the human race—to call everyone, rich, poor, young old, everyone, to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Like the diverse crowd coming to Jesus to be fed in the Gospel today, the diverse Church is gathered to be fed, at the one table of the Lord, at the Eucharist. And there is no greater sign of our unity of faith than the Eucharist—this is why it is called “Holy Communion”.
Saint John Paul II said that, “the Eucharist builds the Church”. The Eucharist expresses our faith, it builds our faith; it strengthens our bonds of unity, and assimilates us ever deeper into Christ. When we receive Holy Communion we are saying that I believe everything that the Church believes and teaches to be true and I want to live in total conformity to the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church. And when I see my neighbor, or a smelly stranger, come forward to receive the Eucharist, that strengthens our bonds of unity.
Yet, we cannot extend the invitation to receive Holy Communion to members of Protestant and non-Christian communities. For, the Eucharist is not a sacrament of “I’ll believe whatever I want to believe”. It’s a Sacrament of unity, a profession that “I believe everything that is revealed by God through His Catholic Church”. And Protestants and non-Christians simply don’t believe all that the Church teaches to be true.
Also, Catholics who have no intention to live according to Catholic teaching, for example, Catholics in ongoing adulterous relationships, cannot partake in the Eucharist. For the Eucharist is also a statement that I am doing everything in my power to put my life under the Lordship of Christ. Those in mortal sin cannot receive the Eucharist until they’ve made a sacramental confession. Because in that confession they repent of their sin, and make a firm purpose of amendment to make the changes in their life so it once again corresponds with the teaching of Christ.
The Eucharist builds up the Church, and it also builds up the Christian soul. The Eucharist, so says the Council of Trent, “preserves the supernatural life of the soul by giving the communicant supernatural strength to resist temptation and by weakening the power of concupiscence. It reinforces the ability of our free will to withstand the assaults of the devil” and gives us a spiritual joy in the service of Christ, in defending His cause, in performing the duties of our state of life, and in making the sacrifices required of us in imitating the life of our Savior.
As we celebrate the Eucharist today, open your hearts to the grace and strength and purification the Lord pours out upon the Church, when we gather for Mass. May Christ deepen our love and generous response for Holy Communion and bring us all into the unity of God’s eternal kingdom of peace for His glory and the salvation of souls.
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