19th Sunday: Why don't we get more out of Mass?

Why didn’t Jesus appear to Pontius Pilate or Herod after his resurrection? The answer is because they don’t love him. He did appear to Mary Magdalene and she recognized him when he called her by name. The Bread of Life is fundamentally about a relationship with God where we receive the gift of his love and we love him in return. How can we see God in the Eucharist; only through love. You have to believe God loves you like that. You can only enter into that love through faith and hope in God’s promises. That is why our relationship with God is like marriage. You marry someone you trust and you hope that the promise of that relationship will grow. Trust and hope lead to love. A relationship with God is like any other human relationship of importance. You have to make an investment in the relationship.
 
Why don’t people go to Mass?
Why don’t people go to mass? Because, they don’t believe God is truly present in the Eucharist. They may have some vague thought that God is operative in their life. They may feel that they will go to heaven when they die. They might even hope for God’s help when things go off the track. When Jesus described himself last week as the Bread of Life, he expects more than vaguely approving thoughts or feelings.  In last week’s Gospel, Jesus talked about the work that pleases God.
 

“So they said to him, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent." Jn. 6:24-35

 
Belief is trust or confidence in another person. If you don’t believe that someone is leading you in the right direction, you don’t follow. That is why people don’t go to Mass.
 
The Liturgy is a ‘drama in three acts.”
Why is Mass important?
 
“The Eucharist is a drama in three acts, through which we share God’s life and begin even now to be touched by God’s happiness. Each act prepares for the next.

1. Liturgy of the Word: By listening to the word of God, we grow in faith and so become ready to proclaim the Creed and ask for what we need.

2. Liturgy of the Eucharist: In the second act, belief leads to hope. From the preparation of the gifts to the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, we remember how on the night before he died, Jesus took bread, blessed it and gave it to the disciples saying, ‘This is my body, given for you.’ Faced with failure, violence and death, we are given hope, repeating Christ’s own prayer.

3. Communion with God: In the final act, from the ‘Our Father’ onwards, our hope culminates in love. We prepare for Communion. We encounter the risen Christ and his victory over death and hatred, and receive the bread of life. Finally, we are sent on our way – ‘Go and serve the Lord’ – as a sign of God’s love for the world.” Radcliffe, Timothy. Why Go to Church?: The Drama of the Eucharist (Kindle Locations 163-164). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

 
 Why don’t we get more out of Mass? We don’t prepare ourselves for God.
 
Preparing ourselves for the Bread of Life
If we eat nothing but greasy hamburgers and fries six days a week, what is the point of going to the gym on the seventh day? If we can accept that good physical health requires us to watch what we eat if we want to reap the benefits of exercise, then we ought to apply that same wisdom to our spiritual health.
 
How do we prepare ourselves for the Mass?

1. Prayer: During the week we ought to engage in daily prayer. Our prayer ought to be disciplined. You can pray with the Church in the Liturgy of the Hours. You can pray the Rosary. You can spend time thinking about God an act we call meditation.

2. Spiritual Reading:

   1. Reading Scripture daily is a great way to prepare for Mass. Think about the Gospel for next week and begin reading the scriptures before and after the verses selected for Sunday mass. A great source is the Bishop’s website which will put you in the right part of the Bible. If you use that resource just click on the day from the calendar and it will lead you to the mass readings for that day.

   2. You can also read the life of a saint or other spiritual reading. We always have good reading material in the Narthex of our Church.

   3. Use the Word on Fire website for access to great movies about our faith. You can get a subscription through our parish by contacting Elia in the front office. Her email is [email protected] and her telephone number is 520.469.7835.

3. Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy: Feed the hungry or counsel the doubtful for love of God. Here is more on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

 
A relationship with God requires an investment of time. You cannot have a relationship unless you trust and follow as a disciple. Belief will lead to the deeper love of the gift of God, the Eucharist. Love of God leads us to recognition. Only those who love God will see him.

Other thoughts
Life after Death
Human belief in life after death stretches back to the beginning of our species. Ancient burials included grave goods; food, implements or animals. The people that buried their dead believed that their loved ones would need them. The earliest evidence that human beings were buried with grave goods is from 100,000 years ago in Israel. The existence of grave goods, like deer antlers or tools, evidence some belief in the persons continued existence after death. The existence of red ochre also is suggestive of some ritual form acknowledging the transcendent. How could you know for certain what they believed? To trust your instincts, that you will continue on after death is to go beyond what you see. When someone you love dies, what you see is a lifeless corpse that does not seem to be the person you loved. There is no laughter, no mutual recognition, no sense of life. To believe that something has left that body and continues on is to believe in something that you can’t see.
 
Elijah and Bread for the Journey
The first reading from 1 Kings recounts how God provided Elijah bread for his journey. The great prophet had just killed the priests, the religious leaders of Baal and Israel. Jezebel, the queen, sent the army and her police out to find and kill Elijah. Elijah, fleeing for his life, collapsed. The journey was too much. God provided for Elijah just as God provided manna for the Israelites wandering in the desert. This journey will end with Elijah hearing the still small voice of God at Mt. Horeb, the place where Moses and Israel received the law. 1 Kgs. 19:11-13. God is no earthquake, storm or fire; he speaks to us in silence. The invisible God, present in silence. Do you believe that God will provide for you?
 
The invisible God made visible
John’s Gospel begins with describing Jesus as the logic of God, the logos.  

• John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” Jesus has made the invisible God visible.

• In Chapter 20 of the same Gospel, after Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his incredulous disciples, Thomas who was not there, refused to believe. Jesus appeared again, this time to the incredulous Thomas. After Thomas satisfied his curiosity, Jesus told them all, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Jn. 20:29. 

• John taught that the purpose of the visible becoming visible was in order for us to believe. The purpose of belief is “to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.” Jn. 1:12-13

At the heart of this this Sunday’s gospel is belief in what you cannot see.
 
Jesus makes the invisible, visible
John Chapter 6, a chapter midway in the gospel, is about the Eucharist, the visible and the invisible. Jesus told an unbelieving group of disciples that he is the Bread of Life. So, naturally, they began to argue. How can he say that? We know his mom and dad. We know where he grew up. How can he say that he “came down from heaven?” Jesus is always concerned that the words of the prophets are fulfilled. He points out that the prophet Isaiah, prophesying about the end times, said that “They will all be taught by God.” Is. 54:13. In short, God is here among you teaching you now; the Father is teaching through me now. Once again Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life.” He taught that the Israelites in the desert ate manna and, yet, they all died. In contrast, about himself he taught, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." Jn. 6:51. This bread and wine feeds body and soul:
 
“I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." Jn. 6:49-51
 
Eucharist feeds body and soul
We believe that every human being is body and soul. The body dies, but not the soul. Body and soul are reunited in the resurrection of the body. Manna in the desert fed only the body. The Bread of Life feeds both body and soul. In a cynical age, care of the body flourishes. Health clubs, work out regimens, careful diets and therapies are intended to stretch our life. The average age of death is 78 in the United States. My parents lived into their nineties because of angioplasty and various drugs. Most people fear that their bodies will outlast their love of living.
 
There is not as much attention given to care of the soul, at least, not in a meaningful way. Since most Americans are terribly cynical about religion, they try to care for their souls in a variety of other ways. Self-help books, mindfulness and vacations can help reduce stress and provide strategies for dealing with anxiety. But, in the end, they are bandages applied to spiritual cancer. The cancer at the heart of America is cynicism; the idea that reality is a lie. God does really intend that we know him in this life and be happy with him forever in the next.
 
We are made for God who has provided us the Eucharist as the Bread of Life. The Bread of Life is sustenance for the entirety of the human person, body and soul. The life of grace that is opened to us by the sacraments, is nurtured by

• Prayer

• Reading of scripture or the lives of the saints and

• The spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

Self-help is a partial truth; we have to do something in response to God. But we can’t save ourselves without God. He is the one who provides food for the journey.