Homily from the Parish Priest for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Scripture Readings: I Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51
Thanks be to God. Thanksgiving. The heart of our faith in the eucharist which this Gospel again calls us to embrace. The desperate cry of the gravely ill, the anguish of the prisoner the night before their execution, the funeral of a loved one who will be so sadly missed. Three images for me of the most powerful celebrations of the eucharist I can call to mind. The many Masses with the sick at centre stage in Lourdes where the Body of Christ is so visibly the broken body. I’ve often wondered what it must have been like to witness the great martyrs, as we know they did, celebrating Mass the morning before they were hung, drawn and quartered. And I’m drawn in my mind to funerals where friends of loved ones have come together to give thanks amid such pain and loss for a life which has been cruelly it would seem cut short.
Once again this Sunday we do what we do every Sunday, what is at the very heart of our faith. The celebration of the Mass; of the eucharist. The word Eucharist comes from the Greek eucharistia meaning ‘thanksgiving’. We come together each week above all, wherever we are in our lives, to thank God for the gifts we are given. And I think it’s true that it often might not be obvious for many of us right now why we should be giving thanks. These last 18 months have been so trying for so many. But we are still called to give thanks for God’s presence in our lives and in our world.
For me I have to say that’s not always so easy as it might seem. That’s why I’m in awe of the gravely ill in Lourdes, of our martyrs, of the bereaved. Personally speaking, I am more and more aware right now in our world of what might move us not to give thanks. The battle between love and hatred, justice and injustice, mercy and condemnation, good and evil. Moreover the he eucharist itself has been used as a battleground between ourselves as Catholics, between liberals and conservatives and traditionalists. Rather than unite us some would have the eucharist divide us around the altar as the Body of Christ. There might be so much to despair of. And yet we are called to give thanks.
Right here in London, daily, I encounter people struggling with livelihoods and poverty. The 60,000 jobs cut at Heathrow Airport which affects so many, in the largest Catholic parishes in west London, many from ethnic minorities. I see people in hospitality in this extraordinary neighbourhood forced to close and with no hope for the future. Just walking down Oxford Street, Park Lane, Piccadilly and Regent Street, that is the peripheries of this amazing parish at least in the sense in which this parish is in any way a geographical entity, I see those not just on the margins but in the gutter, the growing numbers of homeless now making Mayfair the largest concentration of rough sleepers in London. And among that criminality, trafficking, heavily pregnant ladies with no recourse to health care, men and ladies with open wounds requiring urgent health care. Thankfully our homeless service is able to find accommodation for those most needy when it’s impossible to get through to the authorities. The pandemic’s silent unnoticed consequences at times seem to be reminiscent of Gin Alley or Oliver Twist in a society which dares to call itself sophisticated and compassionate. And yet we are called to give thanks to God.
But what has this to do with the eucharist we might ask. What has this to do with the celebration of the Mass? The Mass is the source and summit of our faith. It is the greatest thing we do. And because it is thus we want to welcome everyone in. We want to draw everyone in in our shared neediness and vulnerability, wherever we are from and what we’re going through, around this altar, to know deeply the truth that God loves us as we are, not as we would hope to be. That’s why we give thanks to God when we celebrate the eucharist as the Body of Christ. That’s why we make such a point of saying everyone is welcome at Farm Street. That’s why we do whatever we can to say everyone belongs before believing and behaving, rather than expecting belief and behaviour first then belonging. And, in any case, who am I to judge? Who are we to judge, as Pope Francis challenges us.
As we gather around the altar in the eucharist from our diverse walks of life, those who come here and those who follow remotely too on the livestream, we do so aware that, as St Ignatius would have it in the Spiritual Exercises chosen by the Holy Father as his motto, we are sinners yet loved by God. We find ourselves as the Body of Christ, as the Church, at a unique time in our history as the advance of secularism clashes with the advance of clericalism, where a cancel culture clashes with a Church on her knees trying to understand and recognise where we have gone so wrong, not in the 20 years since the sexual abuse scandals aired but in the last few years when we have had to confront the evil of complicity through cover-up and denial. And yet we are called to give thanks as the Body of Christ in our very brokenness. What on earth do we want to give thanks for right now?
The readings again this Sunday remind us of the miracles and the merciful actions of God worked throughout the Old Testament. It was these which strengthened God’s chosen people for their journey. The bread given to Moses and their ancestors we celebrated last Sunday; this week it is the Lord’s working through the life of the prophet Elijah. And in this time of the New Covenant in his blood God gives us something even greater still and, in the very midst of our pain and anguish and imprisonment he has given and constantly gives us himself the gift of himself in the self-gift of his son. What greater gift can be given to our world?
The body of Christ we receive each Sunday reminds us that, whatever comes to us, “all will be well and all manner of things will be well” because God is greater, sacrificial love we know is greater than hatred, betrayal, denial. Good will always triumph over evil. And, more than this, receiving the body of Christ, strengthens us to be members of his body building up his Church on this earth. Each one of us called to some definite service. Each one of us loved by God as we are and not as we pretend to be, sinners yet loved by God, all members of his Church in our shared brokenness, all called to enter that battle again with the spiritual armour of the Risen Christ.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ