The Genesis story tells us Adam and Eve were living in Eden and given a choice. They ate the apple — and were kicked out. In the book of Hosea we read that people hadn’t changed much and made the same mistakes. But that’s part of learning.
Today’s gospel reminds us how Jesus shares God’s gifts: freely and spontaneously healing the sick, raising the dead, and teaching. Recall that at the Last Supper, Jesus expands the Passover feast into daily partaking of the bread of life and the wine of salvation, giving us the new path that we can choose to celebrate and live. The apostles watched Jesus ascend to the Father, and ten days later, they were showered with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. People change…and change is constant.
People learn from trial and error. We change by taking steps to choose something different. For example, in letting go of the need for control, people learn to walk in faith.
Our faith has grown, and the Church changed: Saint Pope John XXIII raised Peter Julian to sainthood. The 2nd Vatican Council directed that people participate in the Mass and the Sacraments as it started, sharing the food of life in a common language. Saint Pope John Paul II placed Saint Peter Julian’s feast day into the annual Church calendar. The Feasts of the Body of Christ and The Precious Blood are combined into one Solemnity. These are foundations for us to build on and to walk in faith.
Living the Eucharist, we avoid “changing for the sake of change.” It is in the Eucharist that we bring new life into change.
Let Us Pray:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
