2nd Sunday after Pentecost 2 Jun 2013 Sermon

2nd Sunday after Pentecost 2.6.13 Banquet


The Holy Mass is, among other things, a banquet (Gospel) and we are invited. Normally at a banquet you would expect to get a big meal. Going just by quantity we do not have much to eat in this banquet. The Host would not relieve our physical hunger. Nor does it give us much pleasure in the taste.

So we have to look deeper here. If the Eucharist is a banquet in what way is it so?

Many will have dropped out by this stage: I stopped going to Mass because I wasn’t getting anything out of it. (Not easy to recognise ‘anything’!)

The ‘anything’ that we are supposed to ‘get out of’ the Mass is no less than being formed in the image of Christ, made Christ-like, changed into a better person than I was before. This is a huge benefit, very much requiring excitement and thanksgiving.

When we pray for what we need there are probably not many who would start by praying to be better people.

Yet this is where we need to start because it is the most important need we have; and because it is necessary to get on level ground with God before we can ask for other things. (This is why every Mass begins with confession of sorrow.)

It is good to be good; for its own sake. This is itself the quest - to be sanctified; to be as much like God as we can be; filled with sanctifying grace.

The word ‘sanctified’ might sound chilling and remote. But it does not have to be so. To be sanctified means to be like Christ - therefore kind, generous, approachable, and every other good quality.

At the Eucharistic banquet we are feasting on the goodness of God. We are actually taking His goodness into us and being changed by it.

What is the good of goodness, we might say, if I can't pay my bills and my marriage just broke up, and my health is collapsing? Because if you are good that is the top of the mountain, that is the prize.

The other things do matter, but in their place. St Paul said he could cope with anything, full stomach or empty, poverty or plenty (Ph 4,12)

Would you rather be a good person with an empty stomach or a bad person with a full stomach? We might say: I would rather be good and have a full stomach!

So we may have both. But we cannot always guarantee the physical blessing, whereas we can always guarantee the spiritual.

And we can reach a point where we really don't care so much about the circumstances, at least insofar as they affect us.

The saints often say that they would rather be dead than alive, because being dead would mean they were closer to Christ. But being saints they also had a sense of duty, so that they would have been highly charitable to those around them, making sure they had something to eat etc, even if the saint did not. We can be indifferent to our own comfort but not to that of others.

We come to see there are many variations in terms of benefits from this Banquet. A lot will depend on how much we hunger, and how prepared we are to receive the benefits.

And each time we can get a little stronger. We cannot do all this in one Mass. It is a banquet that is repeated and we have many chances to get this right.

So we hear the invitation to come and we make no excuses. This is the best place to be; this is the best meal that can be had anywhere around here!