Mission Appeal - Flint, St. Luke New Life Center

First Reading: Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14b-16a

Second Reading: First Corinthians 10: 16-17

Gospel: John 6: 51-58

 

If I asked you, what is it that you can't live without? I might get some simple answers. Like the remote control, my phone, beer or ice cream. Perhaps in a more fundamental level, some might even argue I can't live without air or water or food. But Jesus is telling us that we cannot live without the Eucharist on this Feast of Corpus Christi at the end of John Chapter six.

He issues an ultimatum and then makes a promise. The ultimatum, verse 53. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life within you. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. That's the ultimatum. He tells us that our spiritual health here on Earth and our chance of eternal happiness depends our inability to see, believe and receive his body, blood, soul and divinity in the most the sacrament of the altar, the Holy Eucharist that we celebrate at every mass, but especially on Corpus Christi.

There's the ultimatum, and then there's the promise. He said, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood, I remain in him and he remains in me. That means we become one with God and each other. That's communion, that's community. And that's a miracle and a mystery. When at every mass heaven comes down to earth and the same body and blood that was offered up at the Last Supper and poured out on the cross the next day is present here for us not only to see, but to receive, and then to take them with us out into this world where we try to live our faith despite many obstacles and temptations.

We are meant to be fed and then to be feeders, to go out and feed other people, to be blessed and to be a blessing out in this world. And that is why on this feast of Corpus Christi, we are going to conduct our mission appeal, an opportunity the church gives us every year to support the spread of the gospel beyond the walls of this church, to the borders of our parish boundary.

But instead, to make sure we're putting our prayers and financial support where it can do the greatest good for the least among us. And so today, to talk about the Saint Luke New Life Center in my hometown of Flint, we'd like to welcome to the ambo Dominican sister Carol Webber. Welcome, sister. Welcome to Queens.