| [media presentation below] GospelThink Sunday, June 11, Solemnity of Jesus’s Body and Blood JOHN 6:51-58 My Flesh and Blood. Prayerthoughts a. God the Father draws me through Jesus. The Lord gives me graces throughout my life to embrace the spiritual life more. Do I thank the Lord for the graces that I receive daily? b. Jesus is very clear about what the Sacrament of the Eucharist is. Should I not spend more time thanking God for the gift of the Eucharist? c. Since I have received the Eucharist, in a general sense, the Lord remains in me. What should that mean to me in changing my current behavior? d. Through the Eucharist, the Lord has given me life eternal and life here on this earth. What contribution am I making to bring about a better life here on earth? e. The Lord has promised me eternal life because I have received the Eucharist. Not knowing what eternal life is, what are some elements that I think of when I think of eternal life? f. My prayerthoughts… Today, I will read the Acts of the Apostles chapter 9 and write an important thought from it. Some Thoughts on the Liturgy MORE THAN GOING TO CHURCH One of the phrases that we use in order to sense whether a Christian is dedicated to God or not is the phrase “he/she goes to Church.” Actually it is the way that anyone talks about whether someone is spiritual or not. “Going to Church” is sort of the guideline. It is a good thought. If we believe in God, and such a belief is real in our lives, it usually means that we will consistently go to Church. I say “usually” because there are many exceptions, but for our purposes, let’s say that it is a good criterion. I feel that is a good enough description for a Catholic, but the phrase does not at all capture what our Catholic belief is. “Going to Church” is a general description that encompasses the idea that we should worship our God. It is more or less a Protestant description of what happens on a Sunday. There were many good things that the Protestant Reformation did to improve our understanding of religion. And I really mean that: any serious study of the Reformation will bring a person to such a conclusion, I believe. But I feel that one of the unfortunate things about it was that many of our Protestant brothers and sisters in general lost sight of the power of the Eucharist. They saw the importance of the Word as they worshipped God. Their study of the Bible and acceptance of what God said through the Bible was well ahead of the Catholic education in Scripture, but many lost the idea of the Eucharist. A Catholic does not just “go to Church” on Sunday. “Going to Church” does imply listening to the Word of God and worshipping our God. It is what we call the Liturgy of the Word in our liturgy—prayer, listening to the Word, song, reflection, prayers of petition. But our worship service and any Christian religion with the Eucharist is so much more. It is exactly what the Jewish people in the Gospel today could not understand. You and I believe that the person of Jesus Christ, son of God, comes to the altar at Mass and eventually into our bodies at Communion in the part of the Mass called the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Now, think carefully about that. The Jewish people in the Gospel today, could not accept it. We think carefully about it and we do accept it and believe it so that it should do something to us. The first thing it should do is to make us wonder about Catholics in general. If that is our belief, why is a Catholic Church not full every Mass? You and I believe that we have the privilege of not only hearing the Word of God, but actually receiving that Word into our very bodies. One would think that we could not get enough of this Eucharist. And the people who are not here, and could be here, are missing so much. To me, it is incredible that Catholic people do not take advantage of it. And the second thing it should do is make us more aware of God’s presence in us in a personal way. We believe that we actually receive the Word of God—Jesus Christ. It should have a profound effect on the way we live. A profound effect, and the important conclusion question is: does it? We do not want to judge with regard to this matter, but Catholics do not just go to Church. If we think in that way, we have missed the whole reason why people should go. We both listen to the Word and take part in the tremendous privilege of the Lord’s physical presence and acceptance into our bodies. MEDIA PRESENTATION Movie: “Missing” – beginning session OUR CREATING MINDS The Gospel JOHN 1:3-5 All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and his life was the light of the human race–the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Gospelthink: God created life, the light of the human race. The movie “Missing” is about Grace, the mother of June Allen, her abduction by her once-upon-a-time husband, and her daughter June’s eventual discovery of the situation. June would never have been able to figure out what happened had it not been for her understanding of the Internet and how it works. While the movie shows the story of what actually happened, it also shows the importance of the technology of today’s world. Without the technology of today, we would never be able to function as a knowledgeable people. If we were to look for “technology” in the Scriptures, we would be hard-pressed to find anything “digital” in the literature of the Bible, and therefore in the country of Palestine in the first century of the common era. It is an obvious fact that Jesus as a human being did not have the modern means of getting across his message announcing the Kingdom to the people of the world. It is an interesting thought to discuss how Jesus would have used the technology we now have in order to make his message known. That technology and everything that our brains have developed over the years was all part of the “life” that God originally created. The creation of our world and everything in it was the result of God’s “life” by which everything came to be. As the Evangelist John reports, “What came to be through [God] was life, and his life is the light of the human race.” The book of Genesis reports that God saw that all that His creating light accomplished was indeed “good.” It means that our knowledge of how to work with the God’s created things is good for humankind. We can and should be grateful for what God can accomplish. Therefore, we can rejoice with June Allen at her ability to use God’s created things to discover what she wanted to discover, namely, what happened to her mother. It is unfortunate that the same created mind that produced the genius of the digital world used the free will that human people were given for a selfish end. Anyone can experience such selfishness as we study the evil that is part of our history from its first moment. But it is the hope of a world renewed in the presence of Jesus Christ that what we have created with God’s “life” will only be used for a good end. PRAYER Good and gracious God, You have given us amazing abilities as a result of the life you have created in the world. Give us the grace to use what you have given to us for the common good. Be with us, we pray. +++++ GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT Theme: We are using the technology God has created. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: (session: approximately 56 minutes) 1. What scene during this session of the movie is most striking? Why? 2. What are the most important accomplishments of humankind? What are worse happenings? 3. If Jesus would have the technology of today, what do you think he would do first? 4. Do most people in our world acknowledge that God created the technology that we have? Yes or no and why? 5. As you study the history of our world, in your opinion, what evil did the most harm? Why? 6. In your opinion, what is the greatest hope that we should have? |
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