Father David's Reflection for Monday of Week Thirty-Two (Ordinary Time)

Read Wisdom 1:1-7 as if these words are being spoken to you after you have received Our Lord in

Communion and are conscious of his presence in you. Does this make them all ring true?

Think of it. Jesus, God himself, has given himself to you to abide in you forever, and you in him. He is the infinite God, the source of your being and summit of all fulfillment. You have in you, right now, everything you need to be perfectly, unimaginably happy forever. Jesus, God himself, is sharing with you his own Life.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.... the living bread that came down from heaven... For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

To those who “seek him in integrity of heart” he does more than “manifest himself.” He gives himself. Utterly. In total abandonment to us; asking for total abandonment in return. In union with him there is nothing more to desire:

Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty (A combination of John 6:33, 35, 51).

The reading says, “The spirit of the Lord fills the world, it is all-embracing.” Communion is a physical experience of this. Jesus himself is filling us. He who embraces all of reality within himself is embracing us. He who “made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth,” who “does not live in shrines made by human hands,” has come to live in us: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (Acts 17:24; John 6:56; 14:23; 15:4-10. See also Colossians 1:13-19; Galatians 2:2).

In Luke 17:1-6 Jesus acknowledges that even those who “abide in him” will sometimes do wrong. But we must forgive one another as he forgives, even “seven times" a day. What he urges us here above all, however, is that we should have faith: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this tree, ‘Be uprooted and transplanted into the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

This is based on the mystery of abandonment. In Communion Jesus gives himself to us without reserves. And we give ourselves to him without reserves—ourselves with all we are and possess, desiring only, as good stewards of his kingship, to manage with him and for him everything that is under our control. Then, Jesus says:

The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.... On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you (John 14:12-14, 20).

When we have abandoned ourselves totally to Christ, and he to us, we speak as his stewards, managing what is his. We speak in his name. We are one. Be aware of that in Communion.

Initiative: Be conscious in Communion. Let Christ’s presence fill you.

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