Celebrating the Eucharist with Mary

Homily of Fr. Eugene Cañete, MJ on the vespers of the Solemnity of our Lady of the Immaculate Conception

Back in the 1920’s, a priest , a minister and a rabbi lived in a small town, which had very strict laws- absolutely no drinking and no gambling. Despite those laws, these three men met every Wednesday night for a friendly card game. Everyone in town knew about it but there was no objection until a new police-in-charge arrived in that town. He stumbled upon these three men in one of their card games. He confiscated the cards and arrested these three men. He brought them before the judge who was embarrassed because he had known them for a very long time. However, he felt that he had to investigate them. So he said to the priest, Father, I will ask you first. Were you gambling? The priest replied, well, your honor, we need to consider the definition of gambling. Gambling is an enterprise of chance in which one attempts to take advantage of the money of the opponent. We were not doing that. We were just having a little fun. So, no, I was not gambling. The judge turn to the minister, and asked, Reverend, were you gambling? The minister said, your honor, mathematics is my hobby, I was observing by the laws of probability with what frequency certain cards made a regular appearance. That is not gambling. And so, I was not gambling. Then the judge then asked the rabbi, Rabbi, were you gambling? The rabbi looked at the judge, shrugged his shoulder, and asked, your honor, with whom?

That is one of the liturgical questions, with whom? When we come to church, we should indeed ask ourselves, with whom are we going to celebrate? Obviously, the answer is, with Christ. When we talk about celebrating the Eucharist, we cannot dissociate it from the person of Jesus. The very first thing to keep in mind in the celebrating the Eucharist is the event, something that happened in history, of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Christian paschal mystery. The second is that this celebration of the Eucharist makes this event of history a present reality among us. For a faithful people, it is important to keep in mind that Jesus gave us this Eucharist so that we may celebrate his death and resurrection until he comes again. The paschal mystery is yet to be perfectly fulfilled as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of Lord Jesus. For a faithful people, the truth is, the Lord is not dead, he is alive and he is active during our celebration. Precisely, we can only celebrate the Eucharist through with, and in Christ. So when we say that the Eucharist is the center of our lives , we are not in fact professing that Christ, as word and sacrament, occupies the center of our life?

There is in the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, an important, if not an even deeper level of the meaning of Jesus occupying the center of the community. Here, though, Mary is given a central role, a special place. Jesus, his mother, Mary, and the disciples were present at the wedding feast. When the wine runs short, Mary comments on the lack of it and so requests the waiters to do whatever Jesus tells them. John the evangelist here describes Mary’s response to Jesus in such a way that her faith is never in doubt, never in doubt. Without witnessing any miraculous signs, Mary knows what Jesus will do. She demonstrates that her relationship to Jesus is based on her faith in him, and not merely on their biological relationship. No doubt, Jesus’ death, to which the Cana sign points to, is a death Mary will witness and remember. If we indeed take seriously the celebration of the Eucharist with Mary , perhaps it is time to take a second look at how the Eucharist, or the Eucharistic meal, is nourishing our faith life as a religious and as a community of religious. Mary’s continuing role within the community is always that of a concerned mother, pointing in obedience to Jesus’ word, understood now in the light of death. Celebrating the Eucharist with Mary is indeed taking Mary as our model of faith, from unbelief to belief, from belief to deeper faith, so that in our sometimes slow and painful growth in faith, and in trying to discern the signs of the times, we continue to nourish our faith with Jesus’ word and sacrament, and respond with compassionate action to Jesus’ challenges in everyday. My class in IFRS, Fr. Percy’s class, and the RVM first year novices were at the warehouse of Camp Aguinaldo packing the goods for the typhoon victims of Quezon. I thought that was a concrete sign of solidarity. I hope this was also inspired by the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus’ giving himself for the well-being of humanity and inspired with Mary who sang the Magnificat as a song of solidarity for the powerless of this world.