The Monks Of Norcia:

 

 

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June 13, 2012

 Below you'll find Fr. Basil's homily from last Sunday.  Have a blessed week!
 

The Living Father and the Eucharist
by Fr. Basil Nixen, O.S.B.
Monastery of San Benedetto, Norcia, Italy

                Three days ago, we celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christ, that is, the feast of the Holy Eucharist.  Today, we have the grace to celebrate again the mystery of the Eucharist, meditating once more on the prayers and readings of the Mass of Corpus Christi.
 
                In the Gospel according to St. John, we find the passage which contains fundamentally in itself the entire Eucharistic mystery.  Jesus says to the crowds of Jews:  “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (Jn 5:57).  In our English translation, we read: “As the living Father”, which is a good translation of the Greek, ho zoon Patèr.  Thus, “the Living Father” is he who has life in himself, who is life itself, the source of every other life.  My dear friends, there is no life outside of this Living Father, and everything that exists receives its existence from this Living Father.
 
                This is the Father desired by every human being.  All eyes look to him and all hope to find in Him the food of life which can truly satisfy their soul (cf. Ps 144:15-16).  Each human heart suffers from an unquenchable desire for this Father, and says together with St. Philip the apostle, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied” (Jn 14:8).  To this Father, the Psalmist addresses this, saying: “Thy face, Lord, do I seek…for my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me up” (Ps 27:8-10).
 
                The words of the Psalmist, “For my father and my mother have forsaken me” will have an echo inside the hearts of many people in our contemporary society.  In fact, many people have suffered serious wounds caused by an indifferent, abusive, or even violent parent.  These people feel abandoned and forgotten.  To these people, I want to affirm with the Psalmist, that even if you feel abandoned by your parents, don’t despair, because you have a Living Father who will receive you, who loves you, and who waits to bestow upon you the abundance of his love.
 
                We can justly ask, though:  but how can I know this Living Father?  He is far from me, and I am not able to draw near to Him.  He is an unknown mystery, and I’m afraid to enter into this mystery.  He is invisible, and I need to see this Father, to embrace him, nay, to consume him and have him inside of me, precisely to live from Him.
 
                Such preoccupations are completely reasonable.  No one can draw near to this Living Father, because just as St. John says, “No one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18).  But this isn’t the last word.  The holy text continues: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known (Jn 1:18).  Behold the truth that fills us with hope:  the only begotten Son, in his Incarnation, has definitively revealed and demonstrated the Living Father to us.  This is what Blessed John Paul II says in his encyclical letter Dives in Misercordia, citing the words from the Second Vatican Council, “Christ, the final Adam…fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear”; and he does this “by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love” (Gaudium et Spes, 22).  We are no longer orphans at the mercy of the waves of this world, because the Living Father, in his only begotten Son, has gathered and delivered us from the slavery of sin.  “So, if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8:36).
 
                “As the Living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (Jn 6:57).  My dear friends, look at how well our Living Father knows us!  He sees that inside of us, there is a desire so profound that can be called a true “hunger”.  We are hungry for God, for the Living God, for the Living Father, and our Father wants to satisfy our hunger for him with the Living Bread, the flesh of his only-begotten Son in which “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9).  “So, he who eats me will live because of me,” says the Son of the Living Father, because “he who receives me, receives him who sent me” (Jn 13:20; Mt 10:40).
    
                Unfortunately, the invitation which the Lord addresses in these words is often overlooked and sometimes outright refused.  The King of Heaven has prepared a banquet of life for us, but usually there are other activities that occupy the place of this feast.  We think that we must go to Mass to give something to God, when in fact, we have to go precisely because we are the ones that need Him!  Let us resolutely determine to ignore no more the invitation that the Son of God makes to us.  Let us purify ourselves and let us prepare ourselves to receive his life, the life of the Living Father, in the immense gift of the most Holy Eucharist, not only every Sunday, but as often as possible.  Only then can we say with profound joy:  “from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace” (Jn 1:16).  (The Monks Of Norcia:here)