To whom do you belong?
This is a very interesting question. To whom do you belong? You may answer "I don't belong to anybody." But, really, the ones for whom you sacrifice-- that's to whom you belong. Parents, in a way belong to their children. You teens and young adults: you just finished up a hard semester. In a way, you have belonged to your school. To whom we sacrifice often indicates to whom we belong. Because with sacrifice comes belonging.
*
Recently, I met up with an American missionary priest. He is a
Catholic priest in China. We were celebrating the Holy Mass together. After
Holy Mass, I had a chance to ask him about his ministry in China. “What’s it
like over there?” I asked.
He told me what you would expect: it’s hard. He
can’t dress as a priest. It’s difficult to know who to trust. He is often on
the run because of the government. Many priests and bishops are in jail. The Vatican Agreement
with China has been a disaster.
But the people are very faithful, he said. “I
minister to about a hundred communities. And some of the people there haven’t
seen a priest in twenty years. Which means they haven’t had Mass in
twenty years. In many places, they gather in a home at night and hold a prayer
vigil, asking God for the gift of a priest and the gift of the Holy
Mass.”
Can you imagine?
Interiorly, I started to realize that I was
talking to a man—I had received Holy Communion with this
man—who, a year from now, could possibly be imprisoned, tortured, killed. I saw
his sacrifice as the same as Jesus’ sacrifice, and the sacrifices of the people
he served.
*
As we continued to talk, the missionary priest
told me that he “couldn’t wait to get back.”
“You know, Anthony,” he said, “it is easier to
keep the faith in Communist China than in the United States.”
I looked at him funny.
“Well,” he said, “there you can see the enemy
and you know its attacks clearly. Avoid the government. That’s easy. But here
in the U.S., the enemy is often hidden and it slowly wears away without one
knowing it. I’ve seen Chinese Catholics move from China and come to the
U.S.—faithful Catholics in China who have been persecuted and some tortured—and
yet when they come here, they fall away from the faith.”
I asked him: Why do people fall away so quickly in the U.S.?
What’s the hidden enemy?
“Choice,” he said. “We have so many choices in the United States.
Phone carriers, fast-food places, cars to drive, experiences to have,
employment, even Catholic parishes and priests—we have so many choices that we
expect and demand choice and the catering to our desires, so much so that it
has become fossilized, engrained in our lifestyle. Who in your parish, if they
had to drive for an hour to Holy Mass, would drive an hour for Holy Mass? The
enemy in this is that religion itself has devolved into just another choice on
par with any other choice. And when that happens—if Mass is just another choice
like a job or a counselor or a sport—why choose it at all?”
In China, it is very clear that religion is not just one choice
among many, precisely because of the fact that if you make that choice you
will be arrested and killed.
I can’t wait to get back, he said.
*
When you and I were children growing up, the world was our
oyster and all options were available.
But the hallmark of our growing into maturity and adulthood was
to let go some of those choices, to sacrifice one thing for another, and to
then be committed. A mature, married person, for example, has sacrificed and
continues to sacrifice all other options for this one person.
And that choice is above all other choices and circumstances—sickness or
health, good times or bad.
Sacrifice, far from being a fearful thing of destruction, is
actually the healthy process of maturation and the insertion point into
community. When the man and woman get married, the two become one. And in that
community they can say to each other: “I belong to you and you belong to me. We
are one. We are in communion.”
Sacrifice is also the protection of that communion. In order
that no man or woman may separate them, they must sacrifice the desire for any
other man and woman, and thus preserve the marriage. Indeed, this exclusivity
helps to define the marriage: the spouses can say to each other, “I belong to
you and to no other.” No other person. No other job. No other possession. I
belong to you and you to me.
By analogy, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, far from being a
fearful thing of destruction of a precious Sunday morning, is actually the
healthy process of maturation and the insertion point into community. When we
receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion, we become one with Jesus and He with
us. You say to Jesus: Jesus, I belong to you and you belong to
me. And Jesus, in His Sacrifice, says And I belong to you and
you belong to me, too.
Sacrifice protects that communion. As the First Commandment
says, You will have no other gods. The Commandments also
define that communion, just as Jesus said: You are my friends if you
keep my Commandments. Keeping the Commandments, which necessarily
requires sacrifice, is a prerequisite for communion. Without sacrifice, there
is no communion; just as without sacrifice in marriage, there is no union. The
priest points this out when he says, “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my
sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the almighty Father.”
*
Here, we come to a very decisive moment.
Some live in fear and always keep their options open. The
finality of a sacrifice is terrifying. And so, a family invites their daughter
over for Sunday dinner but she hedges because there might be a better offer. A
guy dates a girl but balks on popping the question because he doesn’t want to
be pinned down. But that lack of a commitment is a commitment.
And there is a side-effect to choosing indecision: isolation.
Some go further and think they can choose anything—that God
requires nothing from me, no sacrifice, and only a nominal belonging such that
any choice, even a choice against His Commandments, is acceptable.
I think of Flannery O'Connor's words here when, at a
dinner-party with some fallen away Catholics, faced the daunting task of
defending the Eucharist, quote:
I then said, in a very shaky voice, 'Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.' That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence...; all the rest of life is expendable.
Consider here the Communion of Saints.
Can a Catholic politician who advocates the killing of infant
children really consider himself in communion with Saint Gianna? Or even with
our Lord who says Let the little children come to me and do not prevent
them?
Can a Catholic priest who actively subverts and casts doubt on
perennial Church doctrine concerning sexuality seriously consider himself in
communion with Saint John Vianney or Saint Charles Lwanga? Or even with our
Lord who says, It would be better that a millstone be tied around your
neck and hurled into the sea than to teach these little ones to sin.
Can anyone present themselves to Holy Communion and not at least
pause and consider our brother and sister Catholics in China who sacrifice all
and would sacrifice all to have just one Sunday Mass?
The opening words of our Lord’s ministry are important
here. Repent and believe. That Catholic politician, that doubting
priest, that lukewarm Catholic—any sinner—they can all receive and enter into
Holy Communion if they simply offer the sacrifice of repentance. I’m
sorry I cheated on you, Lord. I want to belong with you again.
*
This morning, Our Lord gives us the great celebration of Corpus Christi—that is, the Body of Christ. It is a celebration of the Eucharist, the Body of Christ (which we receive at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass), and it is also a celebration of the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the place and also the effect of this Holy Communion.
At the end of the Holy Mass, we will have a Eucharistic Procession. It is not simply a parade. What we are saying in this procession—what God is saying—is that this neighborhood belongs to Jesus. This community belongs to Jesus. We belong to Jesus and we are one in Jesus. This Communion is our communion. We live a sacrificial belonging—which we call Love, true Love—and we are inviting you to join us. To enter into communion with the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, and to receive the bread of angels, the Eucharist, our Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus, which is called Corpus Christi.
And before we go out and do that, let's take a moment and answer the questions by which I started this homily. To whom do you belong? To whom do you sacrifice?
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