be thankful - 22nd week Wednesday 2017

Beginning today and for the entire month that I am with you in this community I would like to reflect with you on the Eucharist and to appreciate it once more as something central in our lives as Catholics.  This is not a systematic, point by point exposition but a simple random reflection allowing God’s word to lead us, to dictate what needs to be appreciated in the Holy Sacrifice of Mass.

In our first reading Paul tells the Colossians that whenever he thinks of them he never stops thanking God for the good that has happened and continues to happen to the Colossians because of their faith in Jesus.  Thankfulness is not just an attitude.  It reveals a particular outlook in life, a worldview.  It shows how a person sees things in his or her life.
I believe that in the community of Paul there were a lot of things to quarrel and bicker about as we do in our own community.  I also believe that their politics was as divisive as our politics today. But Paul tells them be thankful – there is so much good among you, so much grace, so many blessings not just in the promises of this life but also in the next. 

And this is what the Eucharist is all about.  The Greek word eukaristos means to be thankful.  The invitation let us give thanks to the Lord our God is affirmed by the words it is right and just.  It is an affirmation of a reality taught by our faith that there is so much good, so many blessings in each one of us and so it is always right and just to thankful.  We are a thankful people, we are a Eucharistic people because we believe that the good God did to us in Jesus can never be destroyed by the evils of conflicts, or of hatred, of violence and divisiveness that surround us. 

The other name of the Eucharist is the mass.  It comes from the dismissal rite, ite missa est.  So the dismissal, the ending becomes the name and even the intent of the entire celebration.  Missa means a sending off, a mission which each must fulfill.

And this is always the lesson from Jesus as shown in our gospel today.  When Jesus healed Peter’s mother in law she immediately got out of her bed and waited on them, she served them.  The Eucharist is never meant for self-contentment and self-satisfaction.  It is a missa, a mission, meant to help us become better and able servants of others, it is meant to make us more loving. 

And so let us be mindful of the names of our celebration in this church.  We call it Eucharist because we are a thankful people because we see so much goodness around us.  We also call it the Mass because this is meant to make us able servants and better lovers.