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| "The Whirlpool Galaxy." Pixabay / Public Domain. |
With today’s Gospel reading we are back in the Upper Room at
the Last Supper.
That is fitting, because from the day of Christ’s
Resurrection until Pentecost, the Word of the Lord shows that his followers
stayed in the Upper Room.
There he met them more than once in the season from his
Resurrection to his Ascension.
So it is most fitting that we who still relive the season of
his Resurrection find him coming to us in his Gospel of the Last Supper in the
Upper Room.
Strangely, John’s telling of the Last Supper does not give
witness of Christ speaking bread and wine into his Body and Blood.
But according to John, Christ did three things at his Last
Supper that dive into the meaning of his Eucharistic Body and Blood.
First: Christ Lord
and God put himself beneath the dirty feet of sinners, washing them as he does
in his Eucharistic Body and Blood.
Second: he speaks at
length to his followers, and what he speaks offers them same wealth and truth
as his Eucharistic Body and Blood.
Third: he speaks at
length to his Father, and what he speaks is his Eucharistic offering and
thanksgiving on our behalf to his Father.
Today’s Gospel reading is only a small part of what he
speaks to his followers from the depths of his Eucharistic Body and Blood.
Christ has drawn a full circle for us in today’s Gospel
reading.
God is inside the circle and so are we.
The circle starts with the commands of Christ’s teaching.
If we obey him, he and his Father will live within us.
Then the Father will give us the Holy Spirit in the name of
Christ.
Then the Spirit will teach us everything and remind us of
all that Christ has told us.
As the Spirit teaches and makes present to us all that
Christ has taught, we are back at the circle’s beginning: the teaching of Christ.
We have the same circle in the Eucharist.
In giving us his Eucharist, he tells us to obey it: Do this in memory
of me.
Do what?
Give up our own bodies and shed our own blood, putting them
beneath the Father’s glorious feet and beneath the sinful feet of humanity for
its authentic welfare.
If we obey the Eucharist, then Christ and his Father will
live within us.
Then the Father will give us the Holy Spirit in the name of
Christ.
Then the Spirit will teach us everything and remind us of
all that Christ has told us.
As the Spirit teaches and makes present to us all that
Christ has taught, we are back at the circle’s beginning: Do this in memory
of me.
In his Eucharist and his Gospel, Christ gives us himself as
the means and the model, the way, truth and life for being obedient and
becoming a dwelling place for the Father and the Spirit.
Turn.
Love. Repeat.
