Remembering Jesus

Dominican Academy/Sacred Hearts Convent - June 1, 1986

The early Church celebrated the Eucharist as part of a communal meal, the “agape” or love feast. This expressed and nurtured a sense of Christian brotherhood the Eucharist is meant to signify. As Paul says, “We, many though we are, are one body, for we partake of the same loaf” (1 Cor 10:17). Even today, we have parish activities, picnics and potluck suppers that keep members together and impart that feeling of belonging, which we all need to persevere in the Christian way of life.

However, in Corinth this love feast had gotten out of hand. The rich brought their own food and did not share it with those who had less or nothing. Hence, the meal, which should have strengthened the unity of Christians, became a source of division.

Referring to this abuse, Paul invites the Corinthians to meditate on the real meaning of the Lord’s Supper. Are you not aware that partaking in the Eucharist signifies not only your oneness with the host, Jesus Christ, but also your oneness with the guests at the banquet, your fellow Christians?

The Mass is a family celebration. We come to celebrate Jesus and the wonderful things he has done for us all, most of all our salvation. In the second reading today, Paul reminds the Corinthians how, on the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body, which is (given) for you.” In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” Each time, after consecrating the bread and wine he added, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

And so, what do we celebrate together at Mass? We celebrate Jesus, as we remember what he did for us. Thus, the Mass is a memorial of the Lord Jesus.

Try to picture yourself in the setting of the first Christians celebrating the Lord’s Supper. The disciples gathered in a private home. They came together to remember Jesus, talk about all they could remember of him, actually, his words, his miracles, all the wonderful things he had done. They relived all that. Most of all, they remembered the love of Jesus who gave his life for our salvation. Precisely what Paul emphasizes in today’s reading, “Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord.” And for this we rejoice and give thanks to God. We sing hymns of praise and thanksgiving in honor of Jesus our Savior.

Do we still celebrate the Lord’s Supper, I mean really celebrate? A celebration is people coming together to mark a joyous event or to honor a person. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper because we are filled with joy as we remember Jesus, all he has done, spoken. His life, his teachings, his love for us, his death.

Children like to remember fondly their deceased parents. They like to recall when they come together, many things their mother or father liked to say and do, that reflected their personal character, their love, their spirit of self-sacrifice, etc. After the Ascension of Jesus, the Apostles began to recall everything they could about Jesus.

The Mass is something like that. We remember Jesus and the things he said and did. We admire his wisdom, his kindness, his compassion, his patience, his self-sacrifice…

Do we still have this spirit of remembrance and celebration when we come together for the Eucharist? Or has the celebration of the Lord’s Supper become largely a ritual, emptied of its original meaning? Can we speak of the wonderful things Jesus said and did while on earth, with our brothers and sisters with joy and admiration? Share our love for Jesus, our enthusiasm? We are hardly a family at Mass today. We are all individuals doing things together, but sharing nothing with one another, as if we were strangers. All we share is the “sign of peace.” Even that has become ritualized! We have no ways to show brotherly love as the first Christians did.

In small groups, we could still recapture the spirit of the early Christians when they celebrated the Eucharist in private homes. We would certainly greet one another as we come together. We would sit in a circle. That alone creates a sense of community, of family and friendship. And also of blessed informality. At some point during the Liturgy of the Word, we could invite every one to recall a word or some deed of Jesus that is meaningful to us, something he did that inspires us, leaves us standing in awe and admiration, like the people in Jesus’ audience who were spellbound by his preaching, his miracles.

Would this not be a wonderful way to keep alive the memory of Jesus within our family circle? What a celebration this could be! Then, we offer the Holy Sacrifice, Jesus would be a living presence among us, and like the Christians of the middle 2nd century of which St. Justin writes, we would conclude the Eucharistic Prayer with a resounding Amen! “With him, through him and in him, all glory and honor is yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever, Amen!

May I conclude by asking, What are we celebrating when we come together for the Mass? Are we really celebrating anything? Really celebrating with great joy? Celebrating Jesus Christ our Savior? Or are we just going through a ritual? A sacred ritual, of course, but just a ritual? Our celebration often seems so unreal, so formalized, so institutionalized! The inspiration seems to have been dried up, emptied out. We are not even a community because we dare not speak to one another, we share nothing of ourselves, of our love for Jesus, whom we have come to celebrate and remember together.

At Mass, this morning, let us try to really remember Jesus. Not only the historic Jesus of 2,000 years ago. He lives today. He will become present in the bread and wine in a wonderful way at the consecration. “I am the bread of life…the living bread come down from heaven.” Isn’t that marvelous? Let’s celebrate Jesus with joy in our hearts.

Sermons on the Eucharist Index