Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (August 18, 2024)

What a wonderful gift the Eucharist is! Jesus gives us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. And he commands us to eat and drink that we might have life – His life, eternal life.

Like Wisdom in today’s first reading, Jesus invites us to the meal he has prepared for us – a meal that enables us to unite ourselves to his saving death and resurrection. On the Cross, Jesus’ flesh was pierced, and his blood shed for others,for you and me. As we eat and drink, we are called to “forsake foolishness that (we) might live; advance in the way of understanding.”

The words of Wisdom remind us that this is a sacred meal, a meal of covenant. God has given Jesus for our sake. In Jesus, God’s great love and mercy become visible, tangible. When we eat Jesus’ body and drink his blood, we are expressing our willingness to be one with Jesus in his saving mission to the world. We become his “good news” to today’s world.

Each day we seek to understand better how we are to live as members of this covenant community. In this meal, we become one with Jesus and one with the community – one in the Body of Christ. As we leave this sacred meal, we are challenged to live the daily reality of our oneness.

St. Francis de Sales offers us some practical advice on how to make this happen more effectively. He writes: “After Communion, consider Jesus seated in your heart and bring before him each of your faculties and senses in order to hear his commands and promise him fidelity.” This exercise can become our thanksgiving and our commitment to living out what we have celebrated and received. Jesus will offer us a way of using our intellect, our will, our memory, our hearing, our touching, our speaking today so that we can witness to God’s loving presence in the world.

We heard St. Paul encourage us: “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise.” Our eating and drinking at the table of the Lord makes all of us one. May the wise way we live today and everyday make visible the oneness we experience here in Eucharist.