Called to Adoration and Action

Summary of a Fr. Gerry Creedon homily from June 10, 2007

"Then taking the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied." Luke 9:16

It is the season of graduations. A commencement address by Bill Gates at Harvard has created interest. He admitted that he had left Harvard without an awareness of the billions of people who lacked basic necessities in an era of growing global inequality. When a plane load of passengers crashes, there is an immediate investigation and measures are taken to prevent recurrence. Yet a larger tragedy goes unnoticed. A plane crash represents half of one percent of the earth's people who die each day from preventable diseases and hunger.

"We don’t read much about these deaths." he states; "The media covers what’s new – and millions of people dying is nothing new." So it stays in the background, where it’s easy to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It’s hard to look at suffering, if the situation is so complex that we don’t know how to help. And so we look away. If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks, “How can I help?” then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.

When I served in Banica on the Dominican frontier with Haiti, I remember thinking about the irony of offering the bread of life to families, and interring their babies who died of hunger weeks later. In this area close to the equator, because of deforestation, climate change and lengthy drought, cows no longer survive the dry winters. Without rain there is no grass. Without grass cows do not survive. Mothers nourish their babies with bread feeding. However, mothers who are themselves malnourished, do not lactate. A young volunteer, a graduate of William and Mary came up with a solution: buy government subsidized powdered milk that came all the way from China. We transported it from the capital, 5 hours away, and then sold it at a profit to those who could afford it. It was still less than market price. Underweight babies and their mothers received free milk. The program sustained itself and almost eliminated child deaths from malnutrition.

We reverence the sacred elements and we adore Christ's presence among us, yet we are challenged to recall that the human action of Eucharist is the breaking and sharing of the Bread of Life. The priest, called in his ordination, is commissioned to imitate what he receives. Feeding the hungry is an essential dimension of a Eucharistic community.

Listen to Pope Benedict on the social implications of Corpus Christi:

"In discussing the social responsibility of all Christians, the Synod Fathers noted that the sacrifice of Christ is a mystery of liberation that constantly and insistently challenges us. I therefore urge all the faithful to be true promoters of peace and justice: 'All who partake of the Eucharist must commit themselves to peacemaking in our world scarred by violence and war, and today in particular, by terrorism, economic corruption and sexual exploitation'" (par 89). And: "In a particular way, the Christian laity, formed at the school of the Eucharist, are called to assume their specific political and social responsibility. " Sacramentum Caritatis.

We are called both to adoration and action.