{"id":656,"date":"2008-05-23T14:50:21","date_gmt":"2008-05-23T14:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/05\/a-radical-remedy.html"},"modified":"2008-05-23T14:50:21","modified_gmt":"2008-05-23T14:50:21","slug":"a-radical-remedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/05\/a-radical-remedy.html","title":{"rendered":"A radical remedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

No official English translation yet, but Teresa Benedetta has her translation of the Pope’s homily yesterday.\u00a0 As always, much to savor, ponder and be inspired by:<\/a><\/p>\n

Even here, tonight, we did not choose whom we would meet, we have come here and find ourselves next to each other, bound by a common faith and called to become one body, sharing the only Bread who is Christ.
\nWe are united beyond our differences in nationality, profession, social class, political ideas. But we are open to one another in order to become one in his name. From the very beginning, this has been a characteristic of Christianity which is visibly realized around the Eucharist. We must protect it, so that recurrent temptations of particularism, although in good faith, do not result in the opposite.
\n\"\"Corpus Domini reminds as above all that to be Christian means to come together everywhere in the presence of the one Lord and become one with him and in him.
\nTe second constitutive aspect of this feast is walking with the Lord. That is the reality manifested in the procession that we will experience together after the Mass, almost like its natural extension, as we move behind him who is the Life and the Way.
\nBy giving himself in the Eucharist, the Lord Jesus releases us from ‘paralysis’, he makes us get up and go on, to take one step forward, and then another, and thus proceed on our journey with the strength that comes from the Bread of life.
\nThat is what happened to the prophet Elijah, who fled to the desert for fear of his enemies, and had decided to let himself die doing so (cfr 1 Kings 19,1-4). But God roused him from sleep and made him find a hearth cake next to him: ” “Get up and eat,” he told him, “else the journey will be too long for you!” (1 Kings 19,5.7).
\nThe procession of Corpus Domini teaches us that the Eucharist means to rid us of every despondency and dejection, to make us rise up again so we can continue our journey with the strength that God gives us through Jesus Christ.
\nThe first Reading spoke to us about the experience of the people of Israel during the exodus from Egypt, their long wanderings across the desert – an experience that was constitutive for Israel but also exemplary for all mankind.
\nIn fact, the expression “not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD” (Dt 8,3) is a universal statement that applies to every man insofar as he is human.
\nEveryone can find his own way, if he encounters him who is the Word and the Bread of Life, and lets himself be led by his friendly presence. If we do not have God-with-us, God next to us, how could we sustain the pilgrimage of existence, whether as individuals, or as a society or family of peoples?
\nThe Eucharist is the sacrament of God who will not leave us alone along the way, but is right beside us to show the way. Indeed, it is not enough to move ahead, but one must know where one is going. “Progress’ does not suffice, if one has no reference points – because if one goes off course, then one could end up in a precipice, or at the very least, find oneself farther away from the destination.
\nGod has created us free, but has not left us alone. He made himself the ‘way’ and has come to walk with us, because our freedom also includes the discernment to choose the right way and to take it.
\nAt this point, we cannot help but think of the ‘decalogue’, the Ten Commandments, in which it is written: “I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me” (Ex 20,2-3).
\nWe find in this the third constitutive element of Corpus Domini: to kneel in adoration in front of the Lord.
\nTo adore the God of Jesus Christ, who, out of love, became bread to be broken, is the most valid and radical remedy against the idolatries of yesterday as well as today. To kneel in front of the Eucharist is a profession of freedom: whoever bows before Jesus cannot and should not prostrate himself before any earthly power, no matter how strong.
\nWe Christians only kneel before God, before the Most Blessed Sacrament, because we believe and know that the one true God is present, who created the world and loved man so much that for his sake, he gave his only begotten Son (cfr Jn 3,16).
\nWe prostrate ourselves before a God who was the first to bend down to man, like the Good Samaritan, to help him and give him back life, who knelt before us to wash our dirty feet.
\nTo adore the Body of Christ means to believe that he is truly present in that piece of bread, Christ who gives sense to life – to the immense universe as to its littlest creature, to the entire human history as to the briefest of existence.
\nAdoration is a prayer that prolongs Eucharistic celebration and communion, during which the soul continues to nourish itself: it feeds on love, on truth, on peace. It feeds on hope, because he before whom we bow, does not judge us, does not crush us, but frees and transforms us.
\nAnd that is why being together, walking together, and adoring together fills us with joy. Taking on ourselves the adoring attitude of Mary, whom we specially remember in this month of May, let us pray for ourselves and for everyone. Let us pray for every person in this city that he may know you, our Father, and him who you sent us, Jesus Christ, and thus, have life in abundance. Amen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No official English translation yet, but Teresa Benedetta has her translation of the Pope’s homily yesterday.\u00a0 As always, much to savor, ponder and be inspired by: Even here, tonight, we did not choose whom we would meet, we have come here and find ourselves next to each other, bound by a common faith and called…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA radical remedy - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/05\/a-radical-remedy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A radical remedy - 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}