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On
a recent visit to a parish school,
I noticed a big bunch of bananas
on the staff room table.
This was most unusual.
Usually, at the staff lunch
break, each teacher breaks open
their own lunch box.
You have the hot soup
brigade popping things in the
microwave the 'rabbit types'
dissecting their salads, and the
more old-fashioned lot with their
big thick-cut sandwiches.
I
asked about the mountain of
bananas, and was told that it was
all part of a healthy eating
program for the children of the
school.
The motto being, 'you are
what you eat'.
Saint
Paul's description of the Church,
as the living body of Christ (1
Cor, 12:27), proposes to us the
deepest description of what the
Church is.
In receiving the Lord in
the Eucharist, we are incorporated into Christ.
In the particularity of the
local church, gathered around the
Table of the Lord, it is Christ
who unites us to one another.
This profound unity is way
beyond the surface diversity of
the congregation.
On
Sundays we gather in order to be,
not in order to do anything.
Not withstanding the flaws
and frailties of the assembled, we
gather to rejoice in the gift
'that comes down to us from
heaven'.
Christianity
is a religion of gift.
We don't clamber towards
God.
Rather, as Jesus in the
Gospel today teaches, we are drawn
by the Father.
In a way God woos us into
an awareness of the gift he offers
us.
Christ
Jesus came among us as gift.
He is present to us in the
Eucharist as gift. in Ephesians 4
(Second Reading) Paul insists that
awareness that 'God forgave you in
Christ' is what facilitates an
interaction with one another that
is based on generosity.
The
more overwhelmed each of us is by
the utter 'gift' that is Divine
Love, the more readily we throw
away the calculus of self
interest.
In
the First Reading, Elijah awoke to
find a 'gift': a hot scone and a
jar of water.
Yet note how he lies down
again and sleeps.
A single experience of gift
did not crack the hard crust of
his despair!
just
as it takes time for food to
become absorbed by the body, so
too our being Christ-filled takes
time.
Like Elijah, we are on our
way to the mountain of God,
eternal life. in the power of
Christ, the bread of life, we will
arrive.
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