It takes a lot of time and relationships to master the language of love, the most powerful language of all. It includes all dialects, exists in all historical eras, crosses all geography and borders and is the common denominator of all human life. The Eucharist, the Body of Christ is the ritual of God’s love. Eucharist is God’s kiss. It is a meaning-full ritual that exceeds our ability to understand and explain. We grow in our ability to participate meaningfully in Eucharist the more we participate in it. This is why we tend to grow in our religiosity as we age.

We have rituals because they are life’s short hand. They speed up greatly our ability to address life’s challenges and to successfully overcome them. Human progress would be slow if we had to reinvent the wheel every time we needed one. In fact, it angers us when someone else tampers with our rituals. We are insulted when, after having developed a ritual for cleaning our house, our mother-in-law who is visiting for weekend wants to teach us the “right way to clean our house.” [Picture here smoke blowing out your ears!] We’re not only offended that “She” would have the audacity to criticize our housekeeping, but also the boldness to be imperial about it when her housekeeping needs serious attention. Ugh!

At the risk of acting imperially, I offer the following Eucharistic insight. I think we’re on the verge of heresy when we describe our first communion as receiving First Holy Communion. That is like saying I received a first kiss. If you were only receiving, you weren’t kissing. Just as a kiss consumes us, the Eucharist consumes us. The way we describe this idea with our clumsy words is to say “we become what we receive.” The kiss of a loved one turns us into the beloved when we respond.

 Just as the kiss is the ritual of human love, Eucharist is the ritual of divine love. Eucharist is what Jesus gave us when words ran out. He knew we would come to understand Eucharist as the food for our Passover from slavery to freedom, the ritual that would swamp our minds while it moves our souls and enflames our hearts. In the Last Supper, the Apostles simultaneously participated in and received for the first time their last Passover and their first Freedom Banquet.

Just as loving parents try to teach their children healthy rituals like reciting the alphabet twice in their head while they brush their teeth and making their bed in the morning, Jesus wanted to teach the Apostles and every disciple since then that he wants us to keep the ritual of the Eucharist. If brushing our teeth helps us keep our teeth as we age, Eucharist helps us keep our souls as we move toward agelessness. That is the power of ritual.

Notice that all the sacraments are physical. When we are talking about the Eucharist, without the physical part, God’s love story for us is just a monologue: it is the scenery on a stage where a play depicts what is real without being real itself. Just as a kiss draws us deeper into our relationship with the other, the Eucharist should draw us more deeply into our relationship with our Lord and each other.

If you receive the Eucharist each time as if it is the first time, and you are not drawn more deeply into the mystery of God’s divine love, then you are just not kissing.

Fr. Dan

   ERIE GIVES

Saint Andrew Church

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

 From 8am to 8pm         www.eriegives.org

A blessed day to help Saint Andrew Church 

       Saint Andrew Church is participating in Erie Gives Day 2018. 

       This day of giving has been brought to us through the Erie Community Foundation.

       Donations given through this campaign will enhance donors’ gift by providing a prorated

       match to each gift made to Saint Andrew Church.