I recently came across a magazine article on Alcoholics Anonymous. The article explains AA and the general dynamic of a typical AA meeting. Now I’ve never been to one before, but from what I read and what I know the meetings are almost always the same…the exact same things get said over and over again. “Hello I’m Steve…I’m Judy…I’m Greg and I need to be here today so that I won’t drink…so here I am.” The article continues explaining that people don’t go to AA meetings to necessarily have fun…or to be entertained…or to even feel good. The real reason people continue to return to AA meetings over and over again is because if they don’t their drinking will eventually destroy their lives. In other words…They go there to stay alive!

I was thinking about this throughout the week it seems…this is not unlike our reason for being here today. We come to receive Eucharist…Holy Communion…maybe not even understanding all of the theological realities of Transubstantiation…or the intricacies of the Consecration through the priest’s hands who is In Persona Christi…or how the Holy Communion transforms us into the Mystical Body of Christ. We come here simply knowing deep down inside that we need to be here…that we need the Eucharist to live.

A few years back a man by the name of Stanley Hauerwas…a professor of Theology at Duke University…a Methodist…was invited to speak at an almost entirely Catholic theological conference in Chicago. His very first comments were interesting…he looked out on theseCatholics and said to them…“You Catholics…you go to mass all the time…every Sunday and sometimes even daily. What do all those masses do for you?

Sometimes I wonder the same thing. At the end of the day…the one thing that keeps us coming back time and time again has to be the Eucharist…The Body and Blood of Christ. It’s the single most fundamental reality of what it means to be Catholic. Among all the other Christian traditions filled with good and holy people…all of the other world religions filled with good and holy people…all of the world’s philosophies…ways of life…or communal gatherings…it’s the Eucharist that sets us apart and actually gives us our ultimate identity.

It’s no great mystery that we live in a chaotic time filled with destructive forces...War…Poverty…Illness…Difficult relationships…Drug Addiction…Alcohol Addiction…Secularism in our society…Rugged Individualism…and Practical Atheism amidst so much else. These real challenges of our time…each in their own way…are somehow set against our coming into full peace with who we are and who God is. In other words…by their very nature…these destructive forces seek to take our lives from us. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed…confused…discouraged…even apathetic as we try negotiate the confusion of our world and we can end up lost and…no different than the Israelites…afflicted and wandering through a spiritual desert. Our souls end up starving.

Think about your own life experiences…How many people do you know who have fallen away from their relationship with the Eucharist in this modern world? And the irony is this…sometimes the Eucharist…one of the absolute greatest mysteries of all time…unexplainable in human terms…completely counter cultural because it’s unprovable…actually ends up one of the only stable things in our lives. In a world of uncertainty…it’s the Eucharist that ends up being the only certainty! That’s why Catholics go to Mass.

The reason it’s so stable is because it’s beyond us…it’s not some sort of man-made reality. We don’t create the Body and Blood of Christ…it’s given to us and then we are asked to participate in it. At its most basic level…the Eucharist is God’s physical embrace of us…his Real Presence that gives us a sense of unity and peace that we cannot give to ourselves…as evidenced by the chaotic characteristics of our modern world. Eucharist…by it’s very nature…pulls us out of ourselves for the express purpose of arriving back into full understanding of ourselves.

The gospel of John…probably the best source of Theology on the Eucharist…is where we see this so clearly. John 1, “In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was with God…and the Word was God. All that is was created through the Word.” Now we know that Jesus…the 2^nd person of the Trinity…God himself…has many nicknames. The Messiah…the Christ…The Prince of Peace…Lord…Rabbi. One of my favorites though is The Word. And when you and I read these first lines of John’s gospel…Jesus becomes interchangeable with The Word. In the beginning was Jesus…and Jesus was with God…and Jesus was God. All that is was created through Jesus. And when we combine this with the creation stories of Genesis it becomes even clearer. In the beginning God said…let there be light…God said…let there be the heavens and the earth…God said…let there be animals and trees and oceans and people. God created all that is by speaking a Word. So when we come to communion at mass today…when we sit and pray in front of the Eucharist…when we walk up these aisles to once again receive the Body and Blood of Christ…we are actually coming into direct proximity to the creator of all that is. This is incredible when you think about it! If this is really true…and it is…how could anything else but the Eucharist satisfy us? That’s why we come to mass over and over again. It’s why we lose ourselves…sometimes purposely and sometimes accidentally in the routine of the ritual. It may seem boring or repetitive. But it’s right there in the ordinary-ness of Sunday after Sunday after Sunday that we find maybe the one stable reality in all of history that can keep the chaos at bay.

Pope Benedict explains the Eucharist this way….The entire history of God relating to humanity comes to light in the Eucharist. The past is not only referred to and interpreted, but the future is anticipated - the coming of the Kingdom of God into the world. What Jesus says through the priest here are not simply words. What he says is an event, the central event of the history of the world and of our personal lives.
And that’s why we come here…We come here so that we can stay alive. As Catholics there’s no just other way but to live through the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus said, “I am the living bread…whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”

Some time ago I found myself in a conversation at a Starbucks with a woman who was raised Catholic but was now going to a Big Box Protestant Church. She said that her experience of mass bored her…it was the same thing over and over and over again. I smiled and said to her…you’re right it is. It never changes. What she wasn’t seeing though is that every time we come through those doors we are different every time we approach the Altar. Our lives have changed…our needs have changed. We’re one week older…maybe we had a horrible week at work…maybe we had a great week…maybe we are wondering about our future…maybe the future is crystal clear. This is precisely why we need the Eucharist to be unchanging…because we are constantly changing! The Eucharist is not a novelty…or entertainment…or feel-good therapy. It’s not an accidental ritual that we receive by going through the motions. Holy Communion is an essential ingredient to the human person. We need the Eucharist to stay alive…for God’s regular nourishment…his Daily Manna that will sustain us in the deserts of our lives.