Homily for Friday, 3d Week of Easter

Homily for Friday
3d Week of Easter

April 28, 2023
John 6: 52-59
Acts 9: 1-20
Provincial House, New Rochelle

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him ” (John 6: 56).

(by William Hole)

We’re more than familiar with Jesus’ teaching on the Bread of Life, expounded this week as we’ve been listening to John ch. 6.  Likewise, we’re more than familiar with the story of Paul’s conversion—so important for the early Church that it’s reported 3 times in Acts.

There’s a connection between the Eucharist and Paul’s experience.  The voice that Saul of Tarsus heard when he was knocked off his feet spoke of being persecuted by what Saul was doing and intended to do.  For Saul was attacking Jesus personally (Acts 9:5), thru the men and women who were sacramentally incorporate in Christ.  They ate his flesh and drank his blood; they remained in Christ, and he in them.

It’s just as true today that we and everyone are incorporate in Christ by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and so remaining in him and he in us.

Does this belief of ours give us courage to meet life’s challenges with the power of Jesus driving us from within?  Does this belief affect the regard we have for one another and the way we speak to and about one another?  In my case, not sufficiently.

We pray that Christ, whose body and blood we consume daily, may more and more remain in us, and lead our words and actions.