The human body is an amazing thing.
It is a delicate balance of everything that happens inside.
The body is probably not fully appreciated
until some thing, sort of goes wrong.
Many of you know that I had a minor heart surgery
this last week called ablation.
On the outside, I looked fine.
But on the inside my heart was going haywire
and needed to be sort of reset.
But you would never know on the outside that this was going on.
Before my brother’s diagnoses with pancreatic cancer
I didn’t know where even the pancreas was.
Now I know more than I would care I suppose.
The panceas is stuck in between two organs;
and it is connected to the liver and the colon;
the enzymes it gives off are crucial to digestion
and digestion is somehow dependent on those enzymes.
When we are not able to get those enzymes,
the whole system does not start to process food and nutrients.
One could do that with any part of the body;
I mean, the thyroid is another sort of amazing small gland
that does so much in balancing all the electrolytes in our body.
It is simply amazing how delicate and how sophisticated
and indeed complex the body is.
For most of us, we take it for granted until well,
until something goes wrong
and then all of a sudden it hurts and
it hurts like crazy and nothing else hurts like that.
When I had this surgery, immediately afterwards,
I had to lay flat on the bed for four extra hours
on top of the surgery time,
which was seven plus hours lying flat with my legs completely flat;
my head all the way back.
Oh my gosh, that was excruciating on my bad back.
All of a sudden all that mattered for me was my aching back.
I think that is true for all of us.
When our toe hurts, that is all we are thinking about is our toe;
whether it is our head,
our finger,our spleen
or whatever part of us that is hurting, every part of us hurts.
It is so true, that adage,
when a part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts.
It is very true of this very complex human body that we are.
We often forget that reality.
The older we get, the more we start to appreciate it.
When things don’t work quite the way they were meant to work,
we start to appreciate how wonderful the human body really is.
That is also true of what we call the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is the Church and
when one member hurts, the whole of the Body hurts.
That has been particularly true and I witnessed that in this last week
with the incredible outpouring from this community
and many of you who are watching online
with notes and emails, texts and cards,
and goodies you have sent to me,
sending not just best wishes
but prayers, concern and genuine, genuine love.
And it has made all the difference.
I could really experience that love.
It is the love that holds the Body of Christ together.
This Church that we call ourselves,
it is held together by how much we love one another
and how that when one is hurting
then all are strained and feel that hurt.
That is community at its best.
I am so grateful to you for the words of encouragement,
support and prayer as my brother goes through his chemotherapy now.
That is how this Church here at St. Simon’s
and indeed the Church throughout the world works.
We are this Body, this Body of Christ.
That is what we celebrate every time we come to the table;
that we are the Body of Christ;
and this bread is no longer just bread, it is the Body of Christ.
This wine is no longer wine but it is the Blood of Christ.
And at the center of that, that sacrifice, that gift is love.
We see because God loves us so much that he became one of us.
Then Christ loved us so much that he gave his very self,
his Body and Blood to us;
and he wanted us to know that.
He did away with the old blood sacrifice
as we heard in the readings today.
He said that he now is the Lamb of God.
He is the ultimate sacrifice.
There is no need for any other sacrifice.
He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
There is no need to spread any more animal blood on the altar.
There is no need to have any more hurt;
that his love overcomes all things.
I think of St. Augustine’s famous phrase that
encapsulates what the celebration of the Mass is all about;
that when we come forward to receive the Body of Christ
and we say, “Amen” we are saying that I agree that
“I become what I receive. Amen.
I will become the Body of Christ broken for others.
I will become the Blood of Christ poured out for others.”
This isn’t just bread and wine
we become this living Body and Blood of Christ.
In the Eastern Church, they call this the divinization process;
that every time we celebrate the Eucharist
and act out of love for one another;
that we become a little bit more divine
and thus we become more divinized.
And when we receive, we become just a little bit more divine;
and when we love one another and care for one another
especially those who are broken and hurt and wounded;
that we become a little bit more divine each single time.
That is why it is so important that we come and we receive the Eucharist.
I know that it has been wonderful that
we have had Facebook and YouTube all these months
to be able to have you participate in the Mass;
this is a great way to continue to be a member of the Body of Christ.
But now as we all start to get vaccinated,
and we start to come out,
now it is time to really come to be the Body of Christ in the Church;
to come and to celebrate and to receive the real presence of Christ.
The real presence needs real people.
We become what we receive when we receive.
I know that some of you cannot yet come
and probably will not be able to in the near or distant future
so please continue to join us online as you are doing.
For many of us who live here in the neighborhood
and are able to come, we encourage you to do so.
This becoming what we receive is all about the gift of love;
and that when we share that love,
we become just a little more divine.
There is a beautiful poem I read recently by Edwina Gately.
It is an unnamed poem but quite beautiful
and talks about how we are this little bit divine if we only knew.
Let me share it with you now:
We are each of us
a bit of God
a scrap of divinity.
If we would know it,
Oh, if only
we could know it,
we would walk on earth
in awe,
eyes shining in splendor,
hearts suspended in the light
at the miracle
of the living God
gracing our days
and our nights.
My friends, we are the living presence of God.
We are that little scrap of divinity.
And every time we come to receive,
we become just a little bit more divine.
When we love one another,
we become just a little bit more divine.
Come! We believe that
we become what we receive: the Body of Christ!
