Wow!

HOMILY NOTES 

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

LUKE 9: 11B-17

JUNE 23, 2019

Like many children at St. Frances of Rome parish in the Bronx, my First Holy Communion was a big deal.  But not such a big deal that many of us would leave the church attendance when we grew up.  I had a different experience that kept me attached to my church.  It happened when I was an altar boy soon after my First Communion.  I was comfortable enough with my tasks that I could actually pay attention to what was going on.  When the priest held up the host for everyone to see, as his back was turned toward the people in those days, I looked up at the host and said, “Wow!  That’s God.”  It was a deeper wow than First Communion.  I guess it stayed with me when I needed it most.  

I went to mass regularly all the time I lived in New York.  But when I moved to Chicago for a job, at age 24, I immediately gave up mass attendance and holy communion.  Since I had a good salary, was single, with discretionary income, I debauched into mortal sin on weekends.  I  was a single bachelor with friends who showed me a debauched lifestyle.  This went on for several months.  Then I felt that something was missing.  My life was not feeding me sufficiently on all levels.  I missed holy communion.  I missed that “wow.”  Around the corner from our corporate office was a small church run by the Paulist Fathers.  They gave good, short homilies for us lunchtime people.  I went to confession, got rid of the mortal sins and went to communion.  I felt that connection when the priest elevated the host and when I went to communion I was fed.  I got to eat God.  I felt a bit of a healing like in the gospel.  Healed and fed.  That wow moment of many years ago was still there.  It kept me connected to the church, if by a thread or the width of a host.  

Weekends I still fell into debauching.  Weekends were not for church.  But then a weekday would come along and that feeling of missing God came strongly to me.  So I went to the Paulist noon mass, confessed and received.  I moved to San Francisco and made new friends who liked to party like me.  But up the street from my office was a Paulist Church, Old St. Mary’s.  Same good homilies and same feeling when I went to receive.  I would go back to the pew, kneel and think, “God gave me everything in this host.  What am I giving God?”  Since I am a wretched sinner, it took a while, but look at me now!  A Paulist priest, but giving a homily that is neither good or short!  My connection to the church all those years and even now might seem simplistic to you.  There is some very sophisticated post modern theology about unity, non-dualistic thinking, each of us being part of a supernova that blew up billions of years ago to form our solar system and so on.  

I get all that and it is impressive, but it never changed me for the better.  I never felt a compassion or oneness with others because we all come from the same energy field.  But when I receive the Eucharist, eat God, I think of how the people around me have the same God inside them, so freely and fully given.  We are one in this God.  And all those people who don’t receive are still part of this God that I just ate.  I am challenged and energized, or graced, to connect with them all, one on one in kindness, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance and service to them.  Wow!