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Become a sacrament of God's generous love poured out on our world.
This Fr. Gerry Creedon homily was delivered at St. Charles on November 17, 2002
The longer version of today's Gospel reflects on the person who receives only one talent. He buries it and the master gets quite angry that he hasn't spent his talent.
This weekend our diocese calls us to reflect on signs and symbols in the liturgy. One of the symbols is the tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. The St. Charles tabernacle is in the chapel where many people come and visit at different times. The tabernacle is there for a practical reason also, to reserve the Eucharist for the sick of the parish.
Another sign is the ambo, which gives a place of privilege to the word of God. A procedure recently introduced has been the carrying of the Gospel book held high as an indication that the church doesn't own the scriptures. Scriptures are the word of God that judges all of us. We stand under the judgment of the word.
The Altar and the Crucifix
The two symbols that I want to focus on are the cross and the altar. In the renewed instruction on the Eucharist, the Vatican focuses on the crucifix. There needs to be only one cross. The processional cross should remain at the side of the altar. Every church must have a crucifix, a cross with a body on it.
The altar should also be a place of honor, because the altar table represents Christ in the church. The altar is the place where you put the two special gifts, the bread and the cup.
Other gifts like flowers are placed not on the altar but close by to let us know it is a table and an altar of sacrifice. Other gifts may be placed close to the altar, such as the donations. With our gifts, we offer ourselves.
At funerals and other occasions you may notice that we often bring up other symbols. At my mother's funeral, we presented a hat in remembrance of a woman of style. Symbols bring meaning, feeling, and association.
There was a tendency for us in the last 20-30 years to focus less on the sacrificial dimension of the Mass. We learned as children that the Mass was the unbloody enactment of the bloody sacrifice of Calvary. We have added the resurrection. We know it is not just a memorial of the death of Jesus. The Eucharist celebrates the dying and the rising of Jesus, a fuller understanding of the paschal mystery.
Resurrection Follows Sacrifice
The Vatican is concerned that we forgot about the death in focusing on resurrection. That's why there's a cross with the body on it.
There are many different chapters in the scriptures that give a foundation to the Mass. After the resurrection of Jesus he gives breakfast to his disciples on the lakeshore. They break bread, which is a beautiful celebration of the risen Lord. The disciples on the road to Emmaus share supper and their eyes are opened. Those scripture passages reflect an understanding of Eucharist as a sacred meal celebrating our hope in the risen life of a glorified Jesus.
However, we cannot forget the sacrificial dimension. The Eucharist is also Jesus' answer to the question about his death. The death of any person raises questions. Especially if it is a cruel death, we ask, "Why?" People ask that question when they see their parents or grandparents suffering a lingering illness before they go. They question why they have to suffer like this. It is a natural human question. The disciples had the same question. They were affronted at the idea that his enemies might kill him. The response to their question was the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Crucifixion is not God's punishment. It's a gift of life offered for others.
This idea of sacrifice can confuse us. There's a book written by Mary Gordon called "Final Payments" about an Irish Catholic girl who gives up her life taking care of her mother and father and forfeits the opportunity of being married. She was left with bitterness. She has given up her life for her parents and at the end is left with loneliness and self-martyrdom. Is that what sacrifice is about?
I have been invited this afternoon to Barnes and Noble at Potomac Yards to discuss Abraham with a Rabbi and Imam. Abraham's call to sacrifice Isaac is seen as the prototype of the sacrifice of Jesus. Often times we don't understand this business about sacrificing a son. We shrink away from the idea of God, the Father, sacrificing Jesus for our redemption. What kind of father would do that? We have to think a second time about that because it is very easy for this kind of sacrificial mentality to get into punishment, self-punishment, self-rejection and the miserable aspects of sacrifice. "Too much sacrifice" said Yeats "makes a stone of the heart" [from the poem, "Easter, 1916"].
An End to Human Sacrifice
There is another way to approach this concept of sacrifice. Like Christ the true sacrifice means to give yourself fully and completely for God and for others, not out of fear of punishment but out of love. The Lord's Supper brings this home to us. It's a gift of self. Let's eliminate those negative destructive images of a punishing God. Jesus proclaimed very clearly that his God is a loving God who wants life and the fullness of life, not death for his people.
We don't think it strange that as countries we sacrifice our young men and women for war. Many think it is ok for a state to execute people for the protection of the general public. Is this not human sacrifice? The story of Abraham isn't a story that justifies human sacrifice because God intervenes and says to Abraham, "you are willing to give all but give this ram instead".
The story of Abraham put an end to human sacrifice. Any time we see human life sacrificed, we should feel discomfort. Let us reflect on the cross and on the altar of sacrifice and find within ourselves a generous understanding of God's love. By a strange paradox we don't find life unless we spend. Today's Gospel teaches if you try to save your life, protect it, bury it for caution, you will lose it. Spend generously and you find it. So we offer bread, we offer the cup and we offer our own resources generously for others that we might have life.
Ultimately we are the sacrifice. This is seen this most clearly in a wedding ceremony. When a man and woman stand before a congregation and say they will love the other for life they give themselves away and spend their life fully and generously for one another. The sacrament isn't just the words they say or the rings they exchange, it is the relationship that lives out and enfleshes that love.
In the end, the symbols of the church like the altar, the cross, the tabernacle, and the ambo are all there to enable us to become a sacrament of God's generous love poured out on our world.
* * *
or 2002
Homilies
Revised/reviewed December 7,
2002