Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 122

Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

In his APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION GAUDETE ET EXSULTATE, Pope Francis says of the Holy Eucharist:

157. Meeting Jesus in the Scriptures leads us to the Eucharist, where the written word attains its greatest efficacy, for there the living Word is truly present. In the Eucharist, the one true God receives the greatest worship the world can give him, for it is Christ himself who is offered. When we receive him in Holy Communion, we renew our covenant with him and allow him to carry out ever more fully his work of transforming our lives.

Our Catholic spirituality is especially Eucharistic. Simply put, we meet our God face to face during the Mass. There are innumerable and wonderful images of the face of Christ in pictures, sculpture and cinema; but none of these are as immediate as the Blessed Sacrament. We cultivate this awareness of the "Real Presence" with many devotions, especially in reading the scriptures; and all lead us back to Holy Communion. As Saint Peter said, "...to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!"

I have met Catholics who described a mystical experience as they attended Mass. They "saw" him in the appearances of bread and wine, sometimes during the Elevation, sometimes as they received the wafer. Those passing experiences are precious to them and to those who have heard the story, but they only verify what we know by faith. The Lord is truly present here.

The word presence has several dimensions in our English language.

1. The Lord is present here. The scriptures insist upon God's presence in our lives and our presence to him. This intimacy appears by its absence when the Lord came to visit in the Garden of Eden and had to call out, "Adam, where are you?" Sadly, the man and his wife had withdrawn from God's presence.
   Presence fills Abraham's immediate response to God's call, "Here I am!" We hear this expression often in the Old and New Testaments, on the lips of Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Mary, Jesus and Saint Paul. That Hebrew word, h'neneh means "I am here, eager, ready, available, open, aware, at your service!"
   When Moses realized his inability to lead a headstrong people in the wilderness, the Lord God assured him, "I will go along to give you rest."
   Throughout the history the anointed judges, kings and prophets signify God's constant presence with this people. (And that is why the Church still anoints with chrism the newly baptized, the priests and bishops.)
   Finally, we have the majestic words of Jesus at the end of Saint Matthew's Gospel, And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
2. The word present is one of three tenses: past, present and future. The Eucharist is a continual assurance of God-with-us in this moment; it is a constant invitation to us. At one time, before the plagues of drug addiction, Catholics often stopped by their churches to visit with the Blessed Sacrament at any time day or night.
   We are present to this moment. We are aware of the past and the future, but not spellbound by either. Relationships can fade into the past; they might not occur or carry into the future; they must happen in the present moment. Now is the acceptable hour; now is the day of salvation.
   The Christian cultivates an awareness of God's immediate presence. "What would you have me do now?" we ask of God. We make our plans, of course, and ordinarily we expect to complete them. But at any moment the sky may fall and our lives must be reconfigured to a new, unexpected reality. And we always know that, no matter "What just happened?" the Lord is with us, guiding and directing us.
   
3. Finally, the word present signifies a gift. The Eucharist is a most sacred gift for us. We cannot imagine a Christian life without God's generous, sacrificial presence to us. The Eucharist is an oblation, a gift received and given back and received again in a continual Sacred Exchange. Like the ball which passes back and forth between two boys practicing their baseball skills, the Eucharist belongs to God and to us. That is to say, Jesus is the Son of God and Son of Man. He is the Gate which opens to heaven. As he says, "no one comes to the Father except through me.
   I think it is no accident that the word present means both presence and gift. This is why we hate to surrender a gift from someone dear to us. It may be as worthless as a child's crayon drawing, but to the grandparent it is priceless. The gift is the presence of the beloved.

When Jesus asked his disciples in today's gospel, "Will you also leave?" Peter was dumbfounded. "Master, to whom shall we go? There is absolutely nowhere to go! He might have recited Psalm 139 at that moment:

Where can I go from your spirit?

From your presence, where can I flee?

If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;

if I lie down in Hell, there you are.

If I take the wings of dawn

and dwell beyond the sea,

Even there your hand guides me,

your right hand holds me fast.

If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me,

and night shall be my light”*—

Darkness is not dark for you,

and night shines as the day.

Darkness and light are but one.

The Blessed Sacrament is our greatest pleasure, privilege, joy and delight. If it must be replaced by something more grand and more wonderful in the Bliss of Eternity, that is far beyond our imagination.