By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL
Given at St. Patrick's in Wareham
On November 7th, 2010
C.S. Lewis, the great English Novelist, maybe best know for His, "Chronicles of Narnia," grew up an Atheist, and yet at the mid-point of His life had a great conversion to Chrisitianity, caused in part by another great author, JRR Tolkien, a devout Catholic.
And so as a convert, or maybe one should say a revert, having come back to the faith of his childhood, Lewis had great insights into the experiences of non-practicing, non-believing people. Insights that he put to great use in latter life, as he tried to share the good news of the Gospel with so many people who had written it off as irrelevant. Much of his evangelical and apologetically efforts can be seen in his writings. Even his children's stories has strong Christian overtones. This is particularly true of one of His best works of adult fiction, which every Christian should read. The Screwtape Letters are a fictional account of the corresponded between two demons engaged in the work of stealing souls.
In one of my favorite passages, their target, an average man, has fallen into the camp of the Enemy, that is the Church. As a result, the senior demon writes the junior tempter
to express his displeasure. He notes however that all is not lost. Saying:
One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. [not] the Church as we see her spread but through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.
That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes I our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather in oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print.
When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours.
Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like "the body of Christ" and the actual faces in the next pew...
Does this sound familiar? How often do we hear the truth that the Church is the mystical Body of Christ, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic and then look around and think with typical New England cynicism: YEAH RIGHT!
And so as a convert, or maybe one should say a revert, having come back to the faith of his childhood, Lewis had great insights into the experiences of non-practicing, non-believing people. Insights that he put to great use in latter life, as he tried to share the good news of the Gospel with so many people who had written it off as irrelevant. Much of his evangelical and apologetically efforts can be seen in his writings. Even his children's stories has strong Christian overtones. This is particularly true of one of His best works of adult fiction, which every Christian should read. The Screwtape Letters are a fictional account of the corresponded between two demons engaged in the work of stealing souls.
In one of my favorite passages, their target, an average man, has fallen into the camp of the Enemy, that is the Church. As a result, the senior demon writes the junior tempter
to express his displeasure. He notes however that all is not lost. Saying:
One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. [not] the Church as we see her spread but through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.
That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes I our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather in oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print.
When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours.
Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like "the body of Christ" and the actual faces in the next pew...
Does this sound familiar? How often do we hear the truth that the Church is the mystical Body of Christ, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic and then look around and think with typical New England cynicism: YEAH RIGHT!
Friends look to your right, and to your left, look at the person in front of you and behind you; these are God's Children, people called to be saints in heaven, they are irrepeatable GIFTS from God to the World, they are gifts to you. God has placed them in your life, to help you be happy, and grow in Holiness. The splendor of the Church is all around you in the POTENTIAL that each of us has as Baptized Children of God, and yet so often we don't see it!
Today, we will consider the second major part of the Mass the preface and Liturgy of the Eucharist, which is the mystery of the unseen reality of what is going on in the Church at every moment, of every day--the sanctification of the World, through the Church by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
As the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins, simple gifts are brought forward gifts that symbolize human life--bread the basic food of the world and wine, a symbol of the celebration of life. They are plain, ordinary, and yet these ordinary symbols show us that all things are possible for God. God takes these ordinary things, and promises to transform them into something extra-ordinary! The Body and the Blood of Christ!
Today, we will consider the second major part of the Mass the preface and Liturgy of the Eucharist, which is the mystery of the unseen reality of what is going on in the Church at every moment, of every day--the sanctification of the World, through the Church by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
As the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins, simple gifts are brought forward gifts that symbolize human life--bread the basic food of the world and wine, a symbol of the celebration of life. They are plain, ordinary, and yet these ordinary symbols show us that all things are possible for God. God takes these ordinary things, and promises to transform them into something extra-ordinary! The Body and the Blood of Christ!
SO THAT, I think we often forget why Jesus changes the bread and wine into His Body and Blood He does it SO THAT we who eat His Body and Drink His Blood might be transformed, just like the bread and the wine! Into sons and daughters of God. As the Greek Fathers used to say:
God became man so that man could become God. And just like the Body and the Blood, this transformation, that is taking place on the Altar AND in us is spirit and truth. We like the Eucharist, continue to look the same, perhaps we even act the same, once we are changed, and yet we believe that we are at the level of our being different given POWER to become God's Children, saints in Christ.
My friends, don't be blinded by your eyes! Don't let sight get in the way of your seeing, what God is doing for and in you right now! Like the mother of the seven brothers in the book of Maccabees realize that there is more to life than what we see, and feel, and touch. Realize that life is a gift from God that must be given back to Him, as a spotless and unstained Sacrificed to His Glory. Realize as Jesus says in the Gospel that the physical realities and institutions of this life are only a precussor of the REALITY of Heaven that we are made for.
Live for that reality!
Open the eyes of your Soul to see the good things that is doing. See that all the promises made to
the Patriarchs and Prophets, Apostles and Evangelists are now, at this moment being fulfilled in Heaven and on Earth at this Altar.
God became man so that man could become God. And just like the Body and the Blood, this transformation, that is taking place on the Altar AND in us is spirit and truth. We like the Eucharist, continue to look the same, perhaps we even act the same, once we are changed, and yet we believe that we are at the level of our being different given POWER to become God's Children, saints in Christ.
My friends, don't be blinded by your eyes! Don't let sight get in the way of your seeing, what God is doing for and in you right now! Like the mother of the seven brothers in the book of Maccabees realize that there is more to life than what we see, and feel, and touch. Realize that life is a gift from God that must be given back to Him, as a spotless and unstained Sacrificed to His Glory. Realize as Jesus says in the Gospel that the physical realities and institutions of this life are only a precussor of the REALITY of Heaven that we are made for.
Live for that reality!
Open the eyes of your Soul to see the good things that is doing. See that all the promises made to
the Patriarchs and Prophets, Apostles and Evangelists are now, at this moment being fulfilled in Heaven and on Earth at this Altar.
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