THE EUCHARIST CELEBRATES THE GOSPEL

SAINT JUAN MACIAS, RELIGIOUS

1 Cor 15:12-20; Ps 17:1,6-8,15; Lk 8:1-3

The Church and the Gospel

In our previous reflection, we highlighted the relationship between the Gospel and the Church. We consider the Church as the Gospel believed and lived. We enrich our membership in the Church through a deeper understanding of the Gospel, and we understand the Gospel more through a better participation in the life of the Church. The core of the Church’s life is the Eucharistic celebration. The Eucharist is the font of the Church’s spirituality and life. As we noted yesterday, the Eucharistic celebration outlines our redemptive process, which is contained in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The very commencement of the Eucharistic celebration, with the invocation of the Trinity and the sign of the cross, offers a summary of what will happen through the celebration. The Gospel is the initiative of the Triune God, who willed to redeem us from our sin, death, and evil by restoring us to the divine communion. Thus, at God’s invitation and with the divine authority, we commence every Eucharistic celebration as our reception and practical living of the Gospel. Our invocation of the Trinity and the sign of the cross demonstrate our readiness to die to ourselves. The sign of the cross also demonstrates our willingness to plunge ourselves into the will of the Triune God, proceeding in the name of the Trinity. Though death features at the very beginning of our celebration, the name and presence of God bring life.

This is profound and leads to our understanding of the whole Eucharistic celebration. Death features at the very beginning because that is our present reality, from which we seek God’s redemptive intervention. The Gospel is God’s redemptive intervention. To understand the darksome death, we must consider its cause, our sins against God. So, our examination of our individual and collective conscience, moved by our sufferings and pains, reveals the nature of our sins, with the guiding light of the Holy Spirit. To deny the reality of sin and death is to turn away from human sufferings; and to overlook human suffering is to reject God and his offer of salvation in Jesus Christ. Saint Paul points these deep connections in our faith and celebration out to the Corinthians. “Now if Christ raised from the dead is what has been preached, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ himself cannot have been raised, and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is useless and your believing it is useless.” We are sinners; our suffering and death force that fact on us. God promised us redemption; his word reveals that to us. Our redemption is now offered in the Gospel; our faith assures us of that. We receive our redemption in Jesus Christ, which we celebrate in the Eucharistic communion.

The removal of resurrection from the Gospel by some Corinthians emptied the Eucharistic communion of its essence, making it an empty ritual or meal. Therefore, we lie and deceive ourselves when we celebrate the Eucharist, which is equivalent to preaching the Gospel. “Indeed, we are shown up as witnesses who have committed perjury before God, because we swore in evidence before God that he had raised Christ to life. For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins. And what is more serious, all who have died in Christ have perished.” This is the implication of our lack of attention to the Eucharistic celebration. We fail to enter divine communion properly because we fail to acknowledge our sins and sinfulness, accept the sufferings and death resulting from them, and embrace the redemptive presence of God with us. This is unlike the women who committed themselves to Jesus Christ and his mission in the Gospel. “With him went the Twelve, as well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits and ailments.” They provided for the Lord and his apostles from their own resources.

Juan Macias drew inspiration from the Gospel and committed himself to Jesus Christ. He was born on March 2, 1585, in Ribera del Fresno, Spain. He lost both his parents when he was four and was raised with his younger sister by his uncle, whose surname was Macias. He was visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist from an early age; he decided to join the Dominicans after meeting some friars in the parish Church. This decision led him to travel to Peru, South America. On 23 January 1622, Macias entered the Dominican Priory of St. Mary Magdalene in Lima as a lay brother. He made his final vows a year later, on 25 January 1623. He was a contemporary of St. Martin de Porres, who was in the Priory of Santa Domingo. He worked as the assistant porter or doorkeeper and lived in the gatehouse. He fed hundreds of the needy every day and dedicated his life to prayer for souls in Purgatory. He trained his donkey to walk unguided through the streets of Lima with bags to collect food from donors daily. He kept the habit of praying the Rosary constantly until his death on 16 Sept 1645. May his prayers help us to be attentive to the mysteries of Christ we celebrate daily.

Let us pray: O God, who in your kindness called your servant blessed Juan Macias to the following of Christ, grant, we pray, through his intercession, that, denying ourselves, we may hold fast to you with all our heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.