Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Tag: Breaking of the Bread

  • Body and Blood of Christ

    Body and Blood of Christ

    Advertisements

    June 14, 2020 – Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/061420.cfm)

    If you wish to experience and appreciate the unique culture of other people, try their local cuisine. Aside from their usual cultural sights and sounds, literatures, routine & rituals, exploring the local common & exotic food offers us a taste of the local people’s culture. Local food industry & food tourism have been thriving businesses nowadays because we would like to have a taste and sense of local culture. We do know that there is more to food than just as a source and nourishment. Food mirrors the peculiar resources, quality, and meanings of the culture and lifestyle of the local families and community. For instance, the famous Korean Kimchi “pickled cabbage” has been a common substitute food in Korea to augment during scarce, difficult, icy-cold winter season. We only need to hear the stories behind those local exotic food and delicacies to understand the meaning behind the special taste those food can offer. In the same manner, we get to know people by the food they eat and the people they eat with. We might even say nowadays: “You are what you eat, and who you eat with” or “The food you eat reflects who you are and the company you keep.” Like, a vegetarian eats vegetables with vegetarians. Meat-eater parties with meat-eaters. Drinkers hangs-out with drunkards. We somehow tend to identify ourselves with our intakes and diet, and with those who share with our health lifestyle.

    Food has also been a unique faith expression and extension of our Catholic faith and culture. By our celebration of Eucharist, we come to articulate and others come to experience the value and meaning of the Consecrated Host we worship, share and partake. Since for us Catholic, the bread we partake in the Eucharist provides us not only spiritual sustenance and nourishment, but also the reason, meaning & mission to live, and the promise and hope for a better life with God.

    Our first reading today reminds us how God has taken care of us His people in our life-journey by providing and feeding us bread from heaven. This manna, the bread from heaven, is not our usual cuisine, but God’s special exotic food for us – “which neither you and your ancestors are acquainted”.  This food is not only for sustenance and nourishment but also as medicine “to humble you, to test you – to know what is in your heart & in the end to do you good.” God’s manna then is God’s health intervention and medication for our spiritual healing and well-being. It is God’s dietary food supplement to detoxify us and to boost our spiritual immune system that “let you afflicted with hunger, fed you with food unknown, in order to know that not by bread alone does on live, but in every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord”. And in our gospel today, Jesus proclaims that He is the manna, the bread of life from heaven. He is God’s food given to us to live our live now purposely and to the fullness. Our daily bread, food-consumptions is not enough and cannot sustain us in life apart from Jesus who is God’s word, God’s bread/food of life from heaven.

    This is how significant the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist for our Catholic culture and lifestyle. Jesus is God’s way of forming, nourishing, protecting, making us grow and healthy in our faith and life with God in the world. As Jesus wants us to “do this in memory of me”, following, celebrating, taking on God’s diet and Jesus’ lifestyle are somehow the way forward we can opt to live and we can share with others in life. We are Christians because we take on Christ. He is our food in our life journey. People come to see and “taste” our Catholic Christian faith by and in our communion of the Body and Blood in the Eucharistic celebration.

    The past few months of CoVID-19 pandemic has been particularly difficult for us Catholic. As our life has been abruptly interrupted and our world has ben partly changed (and still changing unpredictably), our physical, mental and spiritual health have been in distress and crisis. For quite sometime now, we are deprived of public celebration of Holy Eucharist due to social distancing, quarantine and lockdown. It has infected and affected also our spiritual nourishment. As we worry for our daily food and consumption, we do need also to take care of and nourish our spiritual hygiene, immune system and well-being.

    Advertisements

    As we celebrate today Corpus Christi Sunday, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, let our present spiritual malnourishment and deprivation to commune with Jesus our bread of life from heaven during the every Eucharistic celebration, make us hunger and long more for Him, and properly dispose us to receive Him once again & taste God’s food for our life, soon enough as allowed.

    Deprived of, set apart from and hungry now for the Body of Christ, with St. Aphonsus de Liguori, let this be our prayer of Spiritual Communion:

    “My, Jesus, I believe you are really present in the Blessed Sacrament. I love you more than anything in the world, and I hunger to feed on your flesh. But since I cannot receive Communion now, feed my soul at least spiritually. I unite myself to you now as I do when I actually receive you. Never let me be drift away and separated from you. Amen.”

    (By: Fr. Aphelie Mario Masangcay CSsR, a Filipino Redemptorist  Missionary stationed in Gwangju South Korea, though now still stranded in Cebu until further notice for available flights.)

  • What kind of bread are you?

    What kind of bread are you?

    Advertisements

    April 30, 2020 – Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/043020.cfm)

    by Reverend Deacon Joey Valross Trillo, CSsR

    Yesterday, my co-Reverend Deacon, Lemuel, shared a story with me. Once there was a monk who asked their cook, “What do you call a bread with salt? It’s Pan de sal. How about bread with coconut meat inside? It’s Pan de coco. How about a bread with COVID-19? It’s Pan de mic. One more, how about a bread that is full of air? It’s Pan-nuhot.[1]

    Nevertheless, the point is that bread has a lot of varieties. So, if you are bread, what kind of bread are you? 

    Our gospel today talks about Jesus, who identified himself as no other than the Bread of Life. He said that he is the living bread from heaven. He added that whoever eats this bread will live forever. And, the bread He shall give is His flesh, and He will give it for the life of the world. 

    Indeed, Jesus is the Bread of Life, the Eucharist. Whoever comes to Jesus shall never be hungry. This is the case of Philip in the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles. He consumed the Word who made flesh, Jesus, and lived the life as His disciple. 

    In fact, Philip became one of the seven Proto-deacons. He preached the life of Jesus, catechized several communities, and baptized a lot of converts similar to what we have heard in the First Reading. Philip helped the Ethiopian eunuch in understanding the scripture. Then, he told him the Good News of Jesus, which led the Ethiopian to become a follower of Christ. Hence, we can say that Philip is a kind of bread which nourishes other people.

    At this time of health crisis, “What kind of bread are you? Are you the kind of bread who energizes people, the one who empowers the medical front liners and the afflicted through appreciation or good vibes? 

    Or are you a distasteful bread who posts fake news and rants about poor people whom you claimed as stubborn, undisciplined and not worthy for monetary help?

    Advertisements

    Or are you the type of bread that is flavorful, the ones who enjoy your family bondings such as doing TikTok as a family?

    Or perhaps a spoiled bread who discriminates people from the hospitals?

    What kind of bread are you, then?

    Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us ask for the grace to become a bread that nourishes, energizes, and satisfies the needs of others, especially the most abandoned. 

    We pray that like Philip, we may help others to understand the will of God in this trying times; that you and I will give the same joy experienced by the Ethiopian eunuch. In other words, we pray that we may become a bread-like Jesus, the Bread of life. Amen.

    [1] Panuhot has no English medial term. It is a belief among Cebuano-speaking Filipinos that Panuhot is caused by air trapped in the body particularly in the muscles which causes the formation of nodules. Nodules, then, creates pain and weakness in the body.

    Join 2,850 other subscribers
  • Come and be filled today

    Come and be filled today

    Advertisements

    April 29, 2020 – Wednesday Third week of Easter

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042920.cfm)

    Jesus talked about the human conditions of hunger and thirst. However, Jesus was not just talking about the physical hunger and thirst but more than that. These include our emotional and spiritual hunger and thirst which could be for love and affection, for attention and recognition from others, for relationship and intimacy. These can also be our own desire to have power over others, to be in total control of our lives, or to have influence to people around us. 

    These difficult days brought by COVID-19 Pandemic, we might hunger for company because he have been separated from our loved ones. We might hunger for healing because we are sick. We might hunger for comfort because we are distressed, anxious, afraid and depressed. Thus, our human hunger and thirst could sometimes be unquenchable.

    Advertisements

    When we become not aware of our desires, of these hungers and thirsts we have within us, the danger is to submit to these greedy desires that we have. In fact, these desires can be reason why we become possessive of material things and even of people, not wanting to share what we have because we feel insecure. Our heart will also become corrupt because we will tend to gather things and people for our own enrichment. These attitudes will surely blind us from seeing and recognizing other people and their needs because we tend to only see ourselves while trying to satisfy our own hunger and thirst.

    Today, we are called by the Lord to humbly recognize our own hunger and thirst that keep us away for others and from God. What are those that keep me selfish and self-serving? When we are able to recognize them, Jesus invites us “to come to him.” 

    What Jesus said to the Jews, he is also saying to us today, “come to me and you will never be hungry, believe in me and you will never be thirsty.”

    Jesus promises us that when we come and believe in him in faith and humility, he will be with us. Jesus assures us of his presence and his company. He said this to us, “I will never reject anyone who comes to me.” The friendship that we shall develop with Jesus will surely bring us into the security of being with God, trusting in his providence and generosity. 

    Thus, despite whatever hunger and thirst we have now never allow those to prevent us from coming to Jesus, or to hinder us from letting Jesus to fill and satisfy our hearts with his presence. And so with Mary, let us come with confidence to Jesus, who shall never reject, but will even gladly, welcome us. Hinaut pa. 

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • RECOGNIZING JESUS IN THE MANY BREAKING OF THE BREAD TODAY

    RECOGNIZING JESUS IN THE MANY BREAKING OF THE BREAD TODAY

    Advertisements

    April 26, 2020 – Third Sunday of April

    Shared by Rev. Deacon Jose Lemuel Nadorra, CSsR

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042620.cfm)

    One of the great Italian painters of the Baroque period is Michaelangelo Mirisi Caravaggio. He is one of the masters of realism and foreshortening technique, and the painting style called chiaroscuro, that uses the contrast of light and darkness to create and bring out the emotion and drama of the whole painting. What you see here is one of his famous painting, Supper at Emmaus. This is the second version of the same theme that Caravaggio painted about the Emmaus story. 

    SUPPER AT EMMAUS

    Most paintings of the Emmaus story, which we heard in the gospel of Luke today, portray Jesus and the two disciples in deep conversation while walking together on a road in a beautiful scenery. But Caravaggio’s take on the Emmaus story focused on the crucial moment of the story. It focused on the very moment when Jesus broke the bread and the eyes of the two disciples were opened in amazed recognition that it is the Lord. Notice the contrast of expressions on the faces of the figures in the composition. The innkeeper and the servant at the back look confused and are oblivious of what is happening, while the two disciples on the foreground were shocked in utter recognition of the Lord’s presence. Caravaggio somehow froze that split-second moment just before Jesus vanished from their sight. Yet the center of interest of the painting is the hand of Jesus and the broken bread. What Caravaggio was trying to tell us was that it was the very act of the breaking of the bread that allowed the disciples to recognize the risen Jesus. Jesus, the bread of life, broken and shared for humanity’s redemption.

    Advertisements

    The Emmaus story we have heard in the gospel today is one of the apparition stories of Jesus, eyewitness accounts of the disciples, aside from the empty tomb, that cemented the faith of early Christians that indeed Jesus is risen and alive. We are told that these two disciples of Jesus were on the road going to the village of Emmaus, walking away from Jerusalem. They were sad, grief-stricken, and frustrated, of the events that transpired a few days ago in Jerusalem. Jesus, their hoped-for Messiah, was crucified and now dead.

    Then, this “stranger” suddenly appears and joins them in their walk. They did not recognize that it was Jesus perhaps because, like Mary Magdalene, sadness and grief blinded them. Yet Jesus walked along with them, and engaged them in deep conversation about the Messiah in the Scriptures. Out of hospitality, they asked the “stranger” to join and stay with them for it was almost night time. And it was while he was at table with them, that the very act of Jesus in taking, blessing, and breaking the bread, that they recognized Him. It was the risen Lord! And then he vanished from their sight.

    Brothers and sisters, the Emmaus story reminds us that in our life journey, in whatever circumstance we are in, Jesus walks along with us. In this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite our sadness, fears, frustrations and anxieties, that may blind and numb us, Jesus is there journeying with us. He meets and encounters us where we are. And like the two disciples who acted with hospitality in inviting Jesus with them, despite them not recognizing him, we, too are called to be hospitable to His presence, to invite Him to walk along with us, even though at times we may not recognize Him at the moment.

    When the two disciples finally recognized the presence of Jesus through the breaking of the bread, and despite him vanishing from their sight, this brought them such great joy and remembered how their hearts burned when Jesus walked along with them. They left with such haste and returned to Jerusalem to announce that yes, Jesus is risen! It is also the same invitation to all of us my brothers and sisters. That as we celebrate this and every Eucharist, as we witness the taking, blessing, and breaking of the bread, we may also recognize with such great joy the presence of the risen Lord in our lives. Through this act, may our hearts also burn as we remember and look back at the many blessings, moments of grace, glimpses of God’s loving and mysterious presence in our life journey. Yes, all along he was there, walking with us. Encountering us. Journeying with us. But wait, there’s more!

    Advertisements

    The Emmaus story also invites us not only to look and recognize Jesus at the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist, but more so to look and recognize him at the many “breakings of the bread” that is happening all around us. Especially at this moment of the COVID pandemic, we see the examples of our front-liners who are risking their lives in order to help stem the spread of this virus. Or the many acts of generosity of people, individuals, local and church groups, who reached out to people in need despite the lockdown and community quarantine, etc. etc. Acts of generosity. Acts of love. Acts that bring hope. Yes, despite Jesus’ physical absence, the very act itself makes Him present. The act of the breaking of the bread in the Emmaus story strengthened the faith and brought hope to the two disciples. We are likewise invited to find strength and hope, as we recognize Jesus in the many “breakings of the bread” happening around us.

    It is good to note that archaeologists and Biblical scholars would attest that the location of the village of Emmaus is still disputed and unknown, this somehow tells us, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had said, that the Emmaus story is also our Emmaus story.

    Caravaggio’s genius in foreshortening technique found in his paintings, creates an illusion that parts of the figures are coming out of the canvas. This allows and invites the viewer to become part of the whole drama of the painting. As we become part of it, we are also invited to look at our own Emmaus stories. To look back at how Jesus journeyed with us, guided us, and manifested His presence in various and different ways in our lives.

    Advertisements

    Like the two disciples who, at the beginning journeyed blinded by grief and fear, went back and announced with great joy their encounter with the risen Lord. We, too are asked to allow the risen Lord to encounter us, in the breaking or the breakings of the bread happening around us, we will become like Peter in our first reading, who boldly proclaimed the Good News of Jesus.

    In Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus painting, we see that subtle light coming in bringing light to the figure of Jesus and the broken bread. It symbolizes the new light, that transforming light, brought by Jesus upon His disciples. Jesus, the risen Lord, is the light of hope. As our psalms today exhorts, “Keep me safe O God, you are my hope!” And so are we, if we are truly believers of the risen Christ, must also bring the light of hope to others through our actions and deeds. Indeed, it is through our actions that the risen Christ is made present.

    And so I leave you my brothers and sisters with this parting question for all of us to reflect upon: In what ways are we encountering Christ today? As Christians, is the risen Christ made present in our actions and deeds especially in these trying times? 

    May Jesus, the Risen Lord, bless us all. Alleluia!

    Join 2,850 other subscribers