Saturday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
I suggest that there is a strong, yet hidden, Eucharistic theme in our first reading today:
You once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds; God has now reconciled you in the fleshly Body of Christ through His death, to present you holy, without blemish.
That we are reconciled, in the fleshly Body of Christ through His death, is precisely what we are given in the Holy Eucharist, both in its aspect as a sacramental offering of Christ in the Eucharistic prayer and in our faith-invested reception of Holy Communion. This sacrament is an invitation to our willing faith to trust, not in the many plausible thoughts that clutter our minds about how to live our lives but in what Christ has done, in living and giving his life, and now, in the sacrament, actually offers it to us so that we can become holy for God.
What this means for us is that we grow in trust, not in our bright ideas about how to be converted to holiness – intimacy with God – but in the victory that Christ has already won for us and into which he invites us to come. Leaving our fears about our repented and forgiven sins behind, we come into this victory both in our faith-filled participation in the Holy Sacrament and into its real goal – the charity of Christ at work in all the daily thoughts and actions we carry on.
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections