Broken...
Dear Friends,
By the time you read this our Eucharistic Miracles exhibit will already be underway. Present on campus in Nolan Hall (underneath the church) over the next two weeks, the exhibit is a great blessing for our community, and I hope you will make the time for a visit. I have visited several times, and it is marvelous to behold the great variety of miracles.
During this time, our message series is blessed, broken, & shared. This week we are focusing on the word - broken - which is generally not a very positive notion. Something that is broken needs to be fixed, if it can be. Often what is broken is thrown away.
Together with the other words however, Jesus' actions at the Last Supper come to mind: “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples…” (Mt 26:26). These are symbolic actions, part of what it means for Jesus to lead His nascent church in worship and guide them to a deeper understanding of what it will mean for Him to offer His life for the life of the world from the cross. That fateful day, the Friday which we call good, which could not be good for Him, since on it He was broken, for us. The same Friday when it became dark in the middle of the day, and when the followers except Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary, and John the Beloved, abandoned our Lord in His final most anguishing hours. Truly Jesus was broken for us in His heinous suffering and death.
These same words echo strongly the foreshadowing present on the occasions when Jesus fed the crowds with only five loaves and two fish: “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.” (Mt 14:19) Would it not have been easier to hand out whole loaves and have the people break them? And yet, the Gospel adds the details that Jesus broke the loaves. He broke the bread, as a sign as a symbolic action - to teach by doing.
Jesus steps into our brokenness, suffering, sin, ailments - call it what you will - and becomes the remedy. We pray in one of the Prefaces for Sundays: “You came to the aid of mortal beings with your divinity and even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself, that the cause of our downfall might become the means of our salvation.” Poetic words that speak beautifully of the way Jesus steps into our brokenness and in His life-giving death, creates the ultimate remedy to what ails us.
Among the many Eucharistic Miracles, several result from treating the Eucharist with disrespect, or ignoring the true and awesome value of the Bread of Life. For example, in Trani, Italy a disbelieving woman seeks to fry a host in a pan. To manifest the true presence, blood spilled forth from the pan and out the door. A miracle in Dijon, France in 1430 AD results from someone taking a knife to a host in order to pry it from the monstrance. Blood also spilled forth to reveal the Real Presence.
Thieves often mistake the earthly riches of the precious vessels with the greater riches of our Eucharistic Lord. In Silla, Spain 1907 hosts were stolen because of the precious vessel they were in, and cast away. Later found in a garden, they are preserved now more than a century later. Wouldn’t it be awesome to make a pilgrimage to take in the hosts near Valencia? A similar miracle of preservation occurred in San Mauro La Bruca, Italy 1969. I mention both of these, lest we think that miracles only occurred in the distant past. Both are from the 20th century, with recent witnesses whose accounts we can hear and assess.
Jesus is so generous in dying on the cross for us, but also even more generous by entrusting His living presence to His Bride the Church, that we might really live in Him.
May your faith in the Eucharist be deepened during these days!
Fr. Wilson
