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November 12, 2023: Thirsting for the Eucharist
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Make sure (especially the elderly) that you continue to drink enough water, preventing dehydration to your body. It’s much easier to drink more water when the weather is hot, warm, or even pleasant. Drinking water to sustain our bodies is more natural when the heat index reaches three digits, or high two digits. So, keep drinking what you drank before the weather cooled, so that your body, especially the elderly folks, will consume the intake needed to maintain good health, as well as prevent a person from passing out. This is the physical part of consuming the world’s most natural liquid for the human body.
Then there’s the spiritual thirsting too. Thirsting that cares for the soul. What type of thirsting do we have going on in our lives at this point on our pilgrim journey? Are we thirsting for a more meaningful prayer life? One that will take us deeper into the holy presence of God? Or are we content with the effort we put in at this time and say, “That’s good enough for me, therefore, it should be good enough for God?” Well, what if the Lord is inviting us into a prayer life that reaches the next level of closeness on our Seven Story Mountain? Do we say to the Lord, “I really don’t want to thirst for you that deeply Lord. I prefer to keep things where they are. I’ll wait until you remove my soul from Purgatory one day, then I’ll thirst for you in the deepness of prayer that you called me to in this life.” Well, quite honestly, this is not good enough, if this is our approach to answering the Lord’s call to a “heavier” relationship with our Creator. To care for our souls in prayer is to follow where God leads, and to enter a new space to which God calls us. God knows our prayer life, our main communication with the Lord, is a system of continual growth, for lack of a better term. It is constantly meant to be in motion, upward. In words, in silence, in listening, or whatever form of communication God invents on our behalf.
There’s also, connected to spiritual thirsting, the weekly – or daily for some folks – thirsting for the Eucharist. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” (John 6). These words come from the famous chapter in John in the section called The Bread of Life Discourse. The same section where some listeners of Jesus, people who had been following him for some days, possibly weeks and months at this point, they found this teaching too hard. So, what did they do? They left him quicker than you can say the Indian name of that lake in Webster. Or quicker than you can say Frankenstein, because that’s how they treated Jesus in that moment and place. Imagine losing all our thirsting for the living and true God because he said that we need to eat his body and drink his blood? And if we don’t do so, we have no life within us? Well, welcome to the world of human misunderstanding. They actually thought the Lord meant cannibalism. That he was somehow going to cut off his arm, slice it up into a thousand pieces and say, “Here, have a bite. And don’t forget the blood that goes with it.” And here we are 2000 years later, and us Catholics are accused by some others who misunderstand what Jesus truly meant with his words of eating and drinking his body and blood.
I do pray deeply that we do not lose our spiritual thirst for the living God in our reception of the Eucharist. I probably shouldn’t, but I’m going to pretend that the more recent statistics of how many Catholics do not believe in the truth of Who we receive at the Holy Liturgy at Communion time, that none of these folks attend Mass at St. Anne’s Parish in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. I’m going to assume with great joy and holy pleasure that all who attend Mass here believe Jesus is for real regarding his command of eating his Body and drinking his Blood. God bless you for being in the right with God on this most holy teaching. It takes authentic faith to believe in Who we receive, removing all symbolism from our hearts and minds, in order to accept in truth of the words of Jesus spoken on that day back when many folks walked away from him, halting all their thirst for the Son of Man in the flesh.
And speaking of the Eucharist, we need to pray earnestly - again - not only for peace in this broken world redeemed by Jesus, but also for the many good Catholics who still choose to not attend Mass on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, keeping themselves away from their reception of the Body & Blood of Jesus. It seems their thirst for Christ has evaporated, at least by way of their weekly lack of reception of the Eucharist. They are good people who are missing the point on the essential importance of being part of the Parish community, coming here and getting to know other good people, being fed by Christ Jesus himself in Word and Sacrament. We pray in earnest that such good folks will rediscover the thirst for, and absolute necessity, of keeping holy the Lord’s Day by way of making time in their lives each Sunday, joining the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection that leads us to that great reunion in heaven with our loved ones. What more incentive do we need than this? For those who have lost their thirst, or lack the thirst to worship our God on the day He set aside for worship, may the rest of us pray that they find a big jug of holy water, consume it down in one or two gulps, and return to the fold.
The refrain for this Sunday’s psalm is sung for the good of the human soul. Not that the human body is not important, because what we do in the body can and will decide our fate in eternal life as much as the soul will. But the human soul is the portion of our makeup that holds the capacity to be close to God in ways the human body cannot. After all, our bodies are in the process of dying, whereas our living soul is what comes before God at the moment of our death. Thus, when our souls thirst for the living God, our thirst will be quenched in a way that allows God to touch us to the core of our being. This reminds me of something I learned about Jesus in a book I read some years ago. When the Gospels tell us that Jesus sighed because the Apostles still did not understand the ultimate message of the Cross, or, when we read a Gospel story about Jesus having compassion for someone who is ill, blind, lame, or any sort of ailment that attacked their bodies, then the Lord’s experience of compassion went to the deepest part of his being. Really, to the core of his soul. Jesus did not experience human emotions in surface ways. Unlike some beers, there was no compassion-lite with Christ. And, his sigh moved the other end of the universe. It’s the human soul that has the capacity to draw into the infinite deepness of God’s being.
There are countless ways to thirst for the living God. Just a few of the more important ones are listed above. Because each of our lives are different with varying needs and wants regarding the hand of God touching us personally, we experience the presence of God on separate levels. A soul that thirsts for God, the living God, especially at or near the hour of our death, is a soul that will come to its eternal reward. But I recommend we do not wait until the last moments of our lives to develop a thirst for God’s presence that will reach the core of our being. That’s like waiting to be baptized just moments before we die, knowing that all our sins are forgiven in the reception of Baptism. Such a move is more like playing Russian Roulette with our eternal judgment. Not a good idea at all, folks. The more excellent way, however, is for our souls to desire a deep thirst for God in the present, so that when we arrive at the hour of our death one day, our thirst for God will be more natural and easily present in whatever physical condition we find ourselves at the end of life. Like all virtues, it takes some time to practice and mature a certain virtue we seek to develop. As St. Paul wrote to Timothy, we fight the good fight, in this case the good fight of possessing a genuine thirst for God in our lives, while avoiding what takes us away from Divine presence.
As a section of Psalm 63 says this week, “I will call upon your name.” I will direct my gaze toward the Lord each day. In the morning, while at daytime labor, before slumber sets in. Such commitments to God allow us to create good habits and lasting virtues over the years. And said virtues will be there for us in the end when we need them most. Which is much wiser than waiting for a last moment Baptism so we can slide into heaven easily without having to carry a cross. As luck would have it for such folks, when the priest receives the call for your last moment Baptism to save your soul, he will be out playing golf, having a great round he won’t want to leave for your Baptism, the Deacon will be away on a cruise with his wife, and you will die without receiving the Sacrament because you procrastinated a few moments too long. It’s easier, safer, and much holier, to thirst for God right now.