Homily for Monday, 24th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Monday
24th Week of Ordinary Time

Sept. 17, 2018

1 Cor 11: 17-26, 33
Don Bosco Cristo Rey, Takoma Park, Md.

“I hear that when you meet as a Church there are divisions among you” (1 Cor 11: 18)

Earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul chastised the Church for factionalism based on whom they looked to as their leader or model of faith:  Paul, Apollos, Cephas (see ch. 3).  Here he faults them for a different kind of factions when they come together, i.e., to celebrate the Lord’s Supper:  this time on the basis of social class, rich and poor (11:18-21).  At this time in the early Church—not even 30 years after the Resurrection—the Eucharist was celebrated in conjunction with a meal, but those with an abundance of food weren’t sharing it with those who had less.  Picture a church potluck dinner at which every family eats only what they’ve brought and don’t offer it to anyone else.

An agape feast

(Fresco at a tomb in the catacombs of Sts. Marcellinus & Peter, Rome)

Then Paul reminds them of the origins, the meaning, of the Lord’s Supper:  Christ gave us this sacrament as a memorial of his own self-giving (11:23-24).  He who was super-rich in the abundance of God’s love gave himself to us who are so wretchedly poor (cf. Phil 2:6-7), that a new covenantal relationship might be forged between us and God (11:25).

So it ill behooves the Corinthians to ignore the poor and think only of themselves.  So any distinctions between rich and poor or between ethnic groups or anything like that is antithetical to the Eucharist, to the Body of Christ in which we participate.

And it’s one of the glories of our Salesian mission and of what we do, of who we are, at DBCR that we do the opposite of what the Corinthians were doing, e.g., in our sistering with Cristo Rey Houston last year and our mission trip to Puerto Rico this summer—and in our day-to-day school life.  Thanks be to God!  Thanks be to the grace of our Lord Jesus.  May we always “do this in remembrance of [him]”—bringing the Eucharist into our lives.