Lec # 92- 11th
Sun of OT- June 17, 2012- Fr. Bresowar
First,
let me begin by saying to all of you fathers out there, happy Father’s day!
Fatherhood,
being a dad, being a spiritual father even, is a noble vocation, and one which
is obviously very difficult. Not a lot men are willing in today’s age to do
what it takes to be a father. It takes a real man, a man willing to sacrifice
everything for his family, to be a good dad. And so it is fitting on this
Father’s day that I would like to address sacrifice, and in particular what
happens right here at this holy sacrifice.
You
know few things are more sad in society then when a man walks out on his
family. It does great damage and most of us know a family whom this has
happened to or have had it happen in our own lives. A man who walks out on his
family for whatever reason, is a man who was not willing to sacrifice. For
Sacrifice is difficult. It requires a dying to selfishness, and a willingness
to love for the sake of another. That’s why so many fail in doing this, if
sacrifice were easy, everyone would be an excellent parent, an excellent
priest, excellent people. But in reality, to be a person of self-giving love is
not easy. That’s why a lot of people walk away parenthood, from priesthood,
from religious life, and they walk away from the Mass, the Catholic Mass too…
because the Mass is a sacrifice, literally, THE sacrifice.
It
begins with the offertory; continues with the consecration and then communion.
The first act of the sacrifice is the offering of ourselves in union with
Christ. In the early Church this was done by offering the very same elements
which Our Lord Himself offered at the Last Supper: namely, bread and wine. In
the early Church the faithful brought bread and wine to the Mass and some of
each was used by the priest for the sacrifice. Bread, as it were, is the very
marrow of the earth and wine is its very blood. The faithful, therefore, in
offering that which has given them their physical sustenance and life, are
equivalently giving themselves. Few elements in nature better symbolize
sacrifice than wheat and grapes. Wheat does not become bread until it has
passed through the Calvary of a winter and has been subjected to the tortures
of the mill. Grapes do not become wine until they have trodden the Gethsemane
of the wine press. Today, the faithful no longer bring bread and wine to the
Sacrifice of the Mass but the instead bring the equivalent; that is the reason
why the collection is often taken up at what is called the Offertory of the
Mass. The material sacrifice the faithful make for the Mass is still a symbol
of our spiritual incorporation in the death of Christ. Though they no longer
bring bread and wine, they bring that which buys bread and wine, and these
elements still represent the material of their united sacrifice.
Next
we have the consecration. By Transubstantiation, the Lord takes our very
offering united with his, and the substance of bread and wine become the
substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. In this consecration of the Mass,
the priest and the people are called to make such a total dedication of
themselves, by death to sin and lower life, that they can say: “This is my
body, this is my blood. I do not care about all the things of this world. Let
all them stay as they are, but what I am before You Lord, my intellect, my
will, my body, my soul, let all these be so changed that I may be not my own
but be yours.” “I give myself to God, here is my body, take it. Here is my
blood, take it. Here is my soul, my will, my energy, my strength, my property,
my wealth—all that I have. It is Yours. Take it” Consecrate it! Offer it! Offer
it with yourself to the Heavenly Father in order that HE, looking down on this
great sacrifice, may see only You, His beloved Son, in Whom He is well pleased.
Unite my broken heart with your heart Lord Jesus; change my cross into a
crucifix. Let not my sorrow and my bereavement go to waste. Gather up the
fragments, and as the drop of water is absorbed by the wine at the Offertory of
the Mass, let my life be absorbed into Yours; let my little cross be entwined
with Your great Cross so that I may purchase the joys of everlasting happiness
in union with You”
And
finally, we are led to communion. We have come to find out that in the
offertory, we are like lambs being led to the slaughter. In the Consecration,
we are the lambs who are slaughtered in the low part of our sinful selves. In
the Communion, we find that we have not died at all but that we have come to
life.
There
is another life above the life of the body, namely the life of the soul. Just
as the life of the body is the soul, so, too, the life of the soul is God. The
divine life is what we receive in Communion. If the sunlight and moisture and
the chemicals of the earth could speak they would say to the plants: “Unless
you eat me you shall not have life in you,” if the plants and herbs of the
field could speak, they would say to the animals: “unless you eat me you shall
not have life in you;” if the animals and the plants and the chemicals of the
universe could speak they would say to man: “Unless you eat me you shall not
have life in you.” So, too, the Son of God says to us that unless we receive of
Him we shall not have Divine life in us. The law of transformation holds sway,
the lower is transformed into the higher; chemicals into plants, plants into
animals, animals into man and man into God without, however, man ever losing
his personal identity. Hence the word that is used for Communion is “to receive.”
Communion is the consequence of Calvary; we live by what we slay. Our Bodies
live by the slaying of the beasts of the field and the plants of the garden: we
draw life from their crucifixion; we slay them not to destroy but to have life
more abundantly.
By a
beautiful paradox of Divine love, God makes His Cross the very means of our
salvation and our life. He turned the Crucifixion into a Redemption; a
Consecration into a Communion, a death into Life everlasting. He is loved in all
who unite themselves with Christ the Priest and the victim.
This
is what happens when we come to Mass. We unite ourselves with Christ the priest
and the victim and offer with Him our very existence and in this offering,
which is a total act of the will to give everything that we are, to lay it all
down on the altar, in this, we receive true life. All we have to do to truly
live, is to die to our sins.
If
we are not willing to do this, then we will walk away like so many others do.
Nothing
that is worth having in this life comes without a dying to self. When parents
have children, they necessarily have to sacrifice their own desires for the
child. But it is worth it, and what is received is always more than could be
sacrificed. What we receive when we sacrifice ourselves to God is Heaven, and
there is nothing more perfect to be received. So we pray today for a
willingness to be good fathers, good mothers, and good Christians, and as we
receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal life into
our bodies, may we see our mission to the end, and continue to give everything
we are for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
