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Good News, Icarus | The Monday After
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Many people today are reaching out for God in a proud and ambitious way, like Icarus, and end up only hurting themselves, as we once did before beginning to love Jesus in the Eucharist. This weekend's Feast of Corpus Christi raises the question: Can man really know God? Can man really approach the Son without getting hurt? I say he can. Good News, Icarus.
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Well, good evening. I'm with you again outside. So this weekend I said that there were these two books that stood out to me when I was a little child. I remember them vividly as always being in my room. The one was the story of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun. And the other was a children's Bible. And I was thinking about them on this feast of Corpus Christi this weekend when we celebrate that Jesus is truly present to us in the Eucharist, that the Son of God draws near to us, comes down from heaven to us, a living bread come down from heaven, coming to us by God's grace, enabling us to approach Him. So the book that I'm thinking about first was Icarus, the story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun and got hurt, as you know, the Greek myth. The line drawing that accompanied this little story, at least in the book that I have, was of a boy with its melted wings of an airplane. So it was a modern retelling of the myth, and he was sad. And then the drawings that accompanied the little children's Bible that I had were like Jesus with children. The children were happy to be with him. So it struck me as I thought about this mystery of how God comes to us, the Son of God, he draws near to us, comes to us so that we don't have to get hurt by trying to go to God, by pride and ambition. So when Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist, I think this is God's way of coming to us in a way that we can approach him without getting hurt. Does that make sense? So he comes to us by, as he says, I am the bread that came down from heaven, knowing that we can't lift ourselves up to heaven. And if we do try, we end up doing damage to the image of God in us. You know, God is the way we understand ourselves. So if we have to, like, reduce him to. And shrink him down, in a sense, then we end up reducing ourselves and doing damage to ourselves. Like, if we have to make God really small so he can fit into our own imagination, and then we look in the mirror and try to understand ourselves, we're going to see something that is nothing of a mystery to reverence. But what if we were to allow God to come down to us instead of approaching him with pride and ambition, like Icarus, approaching him with humility and docility, obedience, like the Blessed Mother and all the saints, then we'd be able to come to God on His own terms in a way that he's giving to us that is truly life giving doesn't hurt, you know. So I think it is a bold claim to say that we know God and that we can even know what God wants for us. There was a recent study of some Catholics asking the question, do you believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist? And supposedly most Catholics said no. And I hear that I guess you could say it's because they're not catechized, we're just not hearing about it from the pulpit enough. But I don't know, I think most people probably answered the way that you and I might. I don't know how God is present in the Eucharist. I don't know how Jesus truly is present in the bread and wine that becomes the body and blood of the Son of God. But I think most of us still believe that Jesus is truly coming to us in Holy Communion, that He is truly present in that way, in a sacramental and mysterious way. I don't think we mean to say we don't believe that he's present in the Eucharist as much as we don't know how he is. But I like that we don't know how, because that gives me the confidence that we're perhaps truly approaching God. Like if we could understand it, then it wouldn't be God, right? Like if we could fit it into our minds, our finite minds, and it wouldn't be dealing with the infinite, we'd have to do damage to his own eternal nature. You know, this is why I think just letting him come to us on his terms as one who enters into history the Son of God, and then gives Himself to us at the end of his life by saying over bread and wine, this is my body and this is my blood. This is what enables us to go to God, approach the Son without getting hurt. I remember a lot of people, when I told them when I was starting to study for the priesthood, they were saying things like, oh, that's so great. I'm happy you found something that makes you happy. One friend, though, said something that shocked me. And I think he's the only one who responded this way. He was an Antiguan caddy. I used to work with him. And he said to me when I said, I'm entering the seminary, he goes, what? He says, you can't know God, man. You can't know God. That's what he said to me, you can't know God. And I remember being shocked by that response. He never spoke to me again. Actually, there was anger in Him. I experienced a friendship with this man. I thought he was a kind of kindred spirit to me in the cattle yard and I found life in him. But I remember exactly where we were standing when Andy said that to me. It was like, I mean, John and Andrew in the Gospels. They talk about meeting Jesus and Saying it was 4 in the afternoon. He just. John kind of throws that detail in, like everything. We remember exactly where we were standing when we met the Son of God, when we approached the Son of God. But ironically, you know, it's like Andy, this kind of Icarus figure. I remember exactly where I was standing and I remember exactly. And you know, I'm not saying it was 4 in the afternoon, but it was around 2:30. We had just played golf because it was Tuesday and we were allowed to play the golf course on Tuesdays. We came back in and I remember exactly where I was standing with him when I told him. I was excited to tell him and then I was shocked by his response. But it was, and some mysterious way, a kind of encounter with Christ through Andy, because it was a word that called me not to take this in a cavalier way, with pride and ambition, but to know that I'm standing before a tremendous mystery. So I hope that Andy one day sees that he played an important role in keeping me humble, which I think enabled me to assume a necessary disposition to pursue the call to the priesthood in a way that perhaps again could be life giving and not hurt me again. Some guys even approach the call to the priesthood with ambition and pride and they get hurt. And they might even be walking away from a real vocation. But in any case, the seminary becomes a hurtful and painful place for them and then they leave. But I do think if we approach this thing with a kind of gentleness, an openness and a humility, we can approach the Son without getting hurt, without dying. This is what I want for all of you. When we talk about approaching the Eucharist, let's approach him with reverence and humility. In the presence of such a. Such a great mystery, the Son of God coming to us. It is only right to approach him in that way. And it's only life giving for us to approach him in that way. St. Paul said something too in one of his letters, that if we take the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist without being properly disposed or prepared, you take him with pride and ambition, or in a sense with. With sin, meaning mortal sin. Like I knew it was wrong and I did it willingly. And then we just Go grab the Eucharist. He says, we actually do damage to ourselves. We can actually hurt our souls. But this is what he means. We have to let God come to us on his own terms. We have to let him come to us and reveal Himself to us so that we don't reduce Him. In trying to grab him, the very sin of Adam and Eve was the temptation that they gave into was to grab the fruit of life, to grab the stuff of life, to reach for the fabric of reality and to reduce it. And when they do that, they lose sight of their own dignity. They immediately feel vulnerable and naked, like basically animals who are unprepared to live in the animal kingdom. They lost the familiarity with their own real greatness, which is the capacity to make decisions with God, to have dominion over creation with their intellect and their will, not their mere physical strength. Adam and Eve, you and I, we're not stronger than the lions physically, but we are with our intellect and our will. But in any case, they became afraid of their relationship to all of creation when they grabbed or grasped at that God. And that's why we say that it must have been the devil who made us do this, because the very nature of evil is always a kind of grasping at an equality with God. Remember, in the New Testament, we hear that Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave coming to us, being born in human likeness, and then learning obedience and becoming worthy of the crown that the Father bestows upon him as the head of the human race. But it was his humility and his obedience. So he modeled for us, even as he lived his life in this world, how to receive God. And he's teaching us, therefore, how to approach God. This is why he says, follow me. I am the way no one comes to the Father except through me. And the way of living through him is the way of humility and receptivity. Okay, so that's like the word on this feast of Corpus Christi. So, you know, for the first, I'd say 24 years of my life, I was like Icarus, chasing things. So chasing worldly philosophies and New Age spiritualities, thinking that they could satisfy my desire for God. I was wrapped up in the party scene a lot in high school and some in college, reaching for something transcendent in all these places, trying to squeeze God from alcohol or drugs, for example. From the moment of my first kiss, the fifth grade, I was absolutely convinced that I could squeeze God from intimacy with girls and Women in all times, in every age. We're like Icarus, where we're trying to fly to the sun, you know. This past weekend, we had a wedding after the Sunday masses. And the second reading was proclaimed by a woman who had recently suffered a stroke. So she had a difficult time reading, but her brother in law stood by her, and he quietly helped her with difficult words. And the words were compassion, kindness, understanding, love. It was the very embodiment of the reading she was proclaiming. Her brother in law standing by her was like Christ, who stands by us with grace as a friend. He's making it possible for us to do what we would not be otherwise capable of doing. You know, like the brother in law enabled her to read the reading. She actually proclaimed it herself. But he helped her, you know, he didn't violently take over, nor does God impose himself on us, but he stands by us the way that this brother in law stood by his sister to help her, assisting her with love and affection and patience. It was a beautiful thing to see. It's what I think God would want. A bride to be for a husband and a husband to be for a bride. After the wedding, I went to dinner then with some friends from the parish. And at the table was the brother of the host. And he has a severe physical disability. So beside him was his friend, who also has a severe disability. It made speech difficult for him. And both of these men, this one brother had his brother at the table with him, and the other man, his friend, had his wife with him at the table. So the host, brother and the other man's wife, they were good companions that made possible for these men what would otherwise have been impossible for them. You know, it enabled them to fly close to the sun without getting hurt. You know, like to have a relationship with God in this world without getting hurt. They have a person with them, a real presence with them who is like Christ for them. So it was a powerful thing to see yesterday because we were preaching the way we were about how Christ comes to us as a kind of companion. And even the word companion means someone you break bread with. This is who Jesus is with us. And anyone who stands by us has a real presence of compassion and kindness. And love is Christ for us. But it's the Eucharist that makes this possible. I mean, even people in the world who are not Catholic, Christian, who are capable of this kind of heroic sense, sacrificial love, it's possible for them because the Eucharist is in the world. The Eucharist is being consecrated And Christ is not bound by the walls of the Church. He's not even bound by the sacraments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says Jesus is bound to his sacraments, but he's not bound by them. The grace of Christ in the Eucharist, Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, is what makes all sacrificial love in this world possible. Anytime we see someone living as a human being was created to live, it is because of Christ. He's making it possible. And it is a privilege for us as Catholic Christians to celebrate. The way Christ continues to come into the world, continues to be offered to us by the Father. If we celebrate this with love and devotion on a Sunday, it will overflow into our lives and then through our lives, into the lives of others, into the whole world. If we Catholics were to celebrate the Mass with devotion and love, like our Blessed Mother, we could truly become, as Jesus himself said, his own mother in the world. We could become his brother, his sister, his mother, bringing him into the world as he is conceived in us by the Holy Spirit. You know that we allow God's presence to be something that is begotten, not made, that is given by grace, but not wrestled by pride and ambition to the ground, but rather the bread of life who comes down from heaven. I'm reminded of a story that a priest friend of mine told about a woman who was suffering from severe als. She communicated to him by typing with her eyes. You know how some do so slowly and deliberately. And one day she told him that she sometimes even forgets that she is sick. And my friend asked, how is that possible? And then she slowly typed, maria loves me. I think it was Maria. Maria was the name of her Filipino caretaker. Maria loves me. You know, it was the companionship that she found in this woman that gave her the will to live. It enabled her with severe ALS to do something that would have otherwise been impossible, to want to live and even to forget that she is sick and suffers such a disability. See the companionship of Christ in that caretaker, that same priest. So he's the one who shared this story that I mentioned this weekend about a boyfriend and a girlfriend who are sitting together in the front seat of a car at a drive in. As they're getting close to each other, the boy asks, you want to go in the back seat? And she says, no. And then he asks again, you want to go in the back seat? And she says, no. And a third time he says, you want to go in the backseat? And then she says, no. And he asks, why Not Why not? And she says, because I want to stay here with you. Which is funny because he wasn't asking her to go into the back seat alone, as if to get rid of her, but, you know, to be closer to her. I just think it's a great story because I feel like the same thing happens to us when. When God invites us to an intimacy with His Son in the Eucharist. We sometimes are slow to accept the proposal because we think he's trying to take something away from us. I know we could be really dependent on some substance or something for some fabricated high, and we're afraid to let it go. But of course, Christ is trying to offer us something more or, I don't know, even the way we think that violence is the only way to answer or solve problems in this world. But meanwhile, when he calls us to the possibility of reconciliation, the gifts of unity and peace which we hear at the altar, we think he's trying to strip us of the only hope we have of peace and unity in this world, which is through, you know, I don't know, conflict or violence. But he's trying to offer us something greater, something more, the unity and the peace that comes through reconciliation and forgiveness. He's like the Father who sees his son licking a fly swatter. And the Father brings the Son to the freezer and then gives him an ice pop. He's like, you're looking for this. This is what you want. He's not just trying to take away this little joy the Son has in this strange licking of the fly swatter, but he's trying to give him the full, the more satisfying joy of. Of the ice pop. So communion with Christ, it is challenging. Even as I say it to you here, you can just hear how it would require that we really become people of prayer and a kind of contemplative silence where we stay attentive to the presence of God in our lives. Only then is the Eucharist really going to be satisfying for us, like something that truly does feel like more. But if we do, if we do approach him, like, prepared in that way, you know, you know, fasting from things that distract us from him and then sacrificing, you know, detaching ourselves from these rival goods that compete for him or compete with him, then, yeah, then it is wonderful to meet Jesus in the Eucharist. So if we pray the rosary with devotion and we look at the Scriptures and we allow ourselves to make time for. For God in prayer, then when we do receive him in the Eucharist, we just might find that is like the ice pop compared to this flyswatter version of life, you know, of trying to approach the Son through our own means, our own efforts, and only finding ourselves hurt like Icarus. But if we approach him with that kind of Marian meaning, like the Blessed Mother, a Marian humility and gentleness, like if we're courageous enough to be docile, if we're bold enough to be gentle, that kind of thing, the paradox of the strength it takes to be gentle. I mean, then maybe we will find what the saints have found before us, that the Eucharist really is truly the Son of God with us, the real presence of Christ in our lives. But I think we all have a little Icarus in our hearts. We tend to manipulate the divine. We can see it even in the way that some people receive Holy Communion, if you can call it that. They grab at the Host as if God is something that must be seized rather than received. It hurts my heart when I see people grab the Eucharist and then walk away, or people who leave after Communion. But I think about, like, how many people just took the multiplication of the loaves, for example, and ate that bread and then walked away. When Jesus began to teach about his presence in the Eucharist, you know, that's when he moves into this teaching on the Beatitudes, when he's teaching about the gentleness, the humility, the meekness that it requires for us to enter into the kingdom of Heaven. And don't be afraid if they persecute you or utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. If you believe in my presence in your life through the Eucharist, yes, some might walk away from you, like my friend Andy did, and say, you can't know God, but blessed are you for your reward will be great in Heaven. You know, we will be able to say to God, as we will be able to say to Jesus, I loved you when you looked like bread. I loved you when you looked like bread. But you see how they're all connected, the multiplication of the loaves. And some people just take it and go. But it leads into a teaching on the mystery. I am the bread of life, and my flesh is true food, my blood is true. Drink the bread, come down from heaven, receive this, that you might have life within you, and you will have eternal life, because it's the very life of the Son of God. And then he teaches through the Beatitudes this kind of meekness and poverty of Spirit that it requires. And then saying, we will be Persecuted for it, you know, but rejoice, for your reward will be great in heaven. You'll be called children of God if you are peacemakers in this way. Yeah. By receiving the Son, we truly become the Son. So it might not have seemed immediately obvious how all of this connected to the Feast of Corpus Christi. I hope it sounds a little more clear to you now. A celebration of Christ's real presence in the Eucharist is a definite high point in the Church's liturgical calendar. It's a great solemnity. But, you know, consider that the Eucharist is God's way of saying to us, you can approach my son without getting hurt. You can come to him without condemnation, without a stern look, without your conscience crushing you like you face from people in the world when you try to squeeze God out of them or make God happen with them. You know, even like those memories we have of growing up and trying to be perfectly happy, sometimes with a late night and then waking up the next morning and feeling strangely guilty and saying, like, I need to go to confession. But you're surprised. We're surprised because it was supposed to be really wonderful, like we got to do the thing we wanted to do. But when Jesus says, come to me with a contrite and humble heart, ask for a Savior and a friend and you'll find me. Come to me, you who are weary and find life burdensome because of the way you approach things, you'll find rest for yourselves. He says, my yoke is easy, my burden light. I let the Father love me and give me everything. Yeah, that friendship with Christ prepares us to stand before the Father, to see God without dying, to approach him without getting hurt. It may be hard to understand. In fact, I think it's impossible to really kind of grasp how this works. It's always going to be a mystery. But I believe it's very real. If we reduce God to something we can comprehend, we end up reducing ourselves. I must make God small enough to fit inside my mind, my plans, my own will for my life, then I've made him very small indeed. And since I am made in the image and likeness of God, I make myself proportionately small as well. When I do that to God, if I reduce Him, I reduce myself. That's why, look, as Catholics, we must keep this thing big and grand and mysterious so that it's always God. And then we can look in the mirror and see when we look at our lives, possibility and mystery, capacity for God. We are what the Church calls Kapax dei. We are capable of God. I want to mention one more thing here. I hope it's not too much. We prayed with the book of Job in the Office of Readings this past week. And so I noticed something that I had overlooked before. Not sure I ever realized it. When Job is finally reconciled to God, remember, Job is angry at God and saying, how could you let this happen? Why are you doing this? So Job was dealing with God as mystery and frustrated because Job can't figure it out. Why are you the way you are, and how are you letting these things happen to me? What did I do to deserve the suffering? Right? And his friends and family are telling him sometimes even just to curse God and forget about. You can't know God, man. You can't know God, and God doesn't care about us. But when Job does say to God, I will let you come to me on your own terms and be for me whoever you are, then Job is at peace with God. Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return to you, O God. But this is the detail about the story that I didn't notice before. God then says to Job's friends and family, now Job can pray for you. Now he can pray for you. Yeah, it just got really quiet here. I think there's really something for us in this. We're Catholic Christians. It's a big deal. We, as Catholic Christians, we enjoy an extraordinary privilege of being able to draw as near to God in this world as any, anyone can. We are capable of it. We're being offered it. There are others who are closer to God who do not have the Eucharist than there are to some Catholics who have the Eucharist. But I'm saying if we approach the Eucharist as Job approached God with that kind of humility and deference, we will be able to pray for people with an efficacy that is Christ himself praying for people. I want to be people who so approach God through the Eucharist that our friends and family are blessed because of the way that we pray at that altar, just the way that God said to Job's family and friends, now Job can pray for you, meaning, I will bless you through Job's holiness. I want to approach the Eucharist the way that Job approached God, with that kind of humility, so that my friends and family can be blessed as I pray for them. Okay, does that make sense? So I don't think I mentioned that this week, and I did say it quickly at one of the masses. But, you know, one of my interjections but I wanted to mention it here with more intention and clarity as a kind of way of culminating this word we've been sharing this week on the Feast of Corpus Christi. You know, if you ask me why I believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, I will immediately picture, like your faces. My faith is strengthened because of your holiness. Maybe I'm being blessed because you approach the Eucharist the way Job approached God. But all I know is that when I think about why I believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, I picture people in the church and the way that you live, you know, your goodness, the way you stand by as true companions to one another. You know, this is how I think the Eucharist is connected to the Church as the body of Christ, as the people of God, the mystical body of Christ that is the people of God. It's because, as Jesus said, if you eat this bread, you will have life within you. I see his life within you. You look at things differently and you respond to life's problems differently. You don't see life as a problem to be fixed. You see it as a mystery to be lived. You suffer well, you suffer with patience and with trust that it's going to lead somewhere, that you will not be suffering forever, that death will not have the last word. You believe in the eternal life that is promised to us through the Eucharist. But it's because of the Eucharist in you. And if it's present in other people in the world who do not receive the Eucharist, it is still because the Eucharist is in this world. It is that Jesus is the not bound by the four walls of the church or the walls of the tabernacle, and that while he is bound to his sacraments, he is not bound by them. If we celebrate this Mass with love, the love will overflow from our communion into this world, and it will happen in a way that is as mysterious as love itself, since God is love and he is always eternal mystery. Sa.