Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. -Year B - Sunday, 18 August 2024 (EPISODE:492)
Readings for Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.- Year B
FIRST READING: Prov 9:1-6
Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7 (diff). "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord."
SECOND READING: Eph 5:15-20
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (John 6:56). Alleluia, alleluia! All who eat my flesh and drink my blood. Live in me and I in them, says the Lord.
GOSPEL: John 6:51-58
Image Credit- Shutterstock Licensed. Stock Photo ID: 2234077357 - Pelican feeding its young with its own blood by piercing its body. Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for mankind religion symbol concept. - Photo Formats- Photo Contributor: funstarts33
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Please listen to the audio-recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers and homily), for Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year B - Sunday, 18 August 2024 - by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-20th-sunday-ordinary-time-year-b-episode-492/s-9KFGN2WaW2y
(EPISODE:492)
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Homily: Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.Year B - Sunday, 18 August 2024
Prologue: It is that wonderful time to come together and listen to God's word, to praise God and offer prayers to the Lord. This weekend, the readings speak of eating and drinking. There are clearly different types of food that we can eat, some are very good for us, and some are very unhealthy for us. Jesus is clearly speaking about receiving him in the Eucharist - in his Body and Blood. Our Lord is strongly teaching us to take in only that which is truly nourishing for our lives. Jesus offers us everything that is truly good and life-giving. His presence in the Eucharist, transforms, nourishes and strengthens us in our daily mission. His Gospel message and the values contained in his Word give us nourishment in our Spirit and our attitudes. Jesus offers us a diet of only the very best. Also, did you know there is an old Latin Hymn, "Adore Te Devote" by the Great theologian Thomas Aquinas, in which Our Lord Jesus is addressed (among other titles) as: "O Pelicanus" - (O Pelican !)- There is a beautiful symbolic reason for this, which I will explain in the homily...
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In the readings this weekend, we hear of our Lord telling the crowd, in no uncertain terms, that he is offering himself to them in the Eucharist, so that as they eat the bread and drink the chalice of Eucharist, they are truly taking in the presence and person of Jesus into their hearts, into their bodies, and becoming united with Christ and his mission. Jesus wanted to make it quite clear that he wanted us to become living, cooperating, and free instruments of his grace, and that this included receiving Eucharist, so that we could be as closely united to Jesus in our lives and in our work as could ever be imagined. What a profound and amazing gift that Jesus is giving to us.
I've got a little everyday example of God's grace, and something interesting. I was looking around a few years back online for some piano music, and I came across some albums by the great American composer George Gershwin, 1898 to 1937. He was a brilliant American composer and pianist.
This album I came across was called Gershwin Plays Gershwin, and I was intrigued since these recordings of his music were made between 1916 and 1933, and of course sound recordings were very, very not high-tech back then. I thought, well I'll be scratchy and very hard to hear, even allowing for modern digital restoration and enhancement techniques. These recordings turned out to be something quite different and extraordinary, and they were as clear as a bell to listen to, just as if we were sitting there listening to him playing the piano now.
And I asked myself, how is that possible? How can this be perfectly clear but claim to be the playing of the actual Gershwin? The answer is because Gershwin recorded in a technique arguably the forerunner for digital technology. Yes, even way back then in the 20s. You see, he recorded his music on piano rolls, that is, paper rolls with little slots cut into them that exactly replicated his playing as he played, and they were designed to be played back on a real piano, a pianola or the type.
So these are effectively modern recordings of his own playing, amazingly experienced, just as if he was playing the music here and now. I mention this example because the activity of God's Holy Spirit through us, his humble mortals, has often been compared to the human breath being breathed into a finely tuned musical instrument. When the Holy Spirit fills us up and inspires our actions effectively, it's not like a scratchy faded old record of a bygone event, not just a pale reproduction, but rather it's truly God's gracious action here and now, experienced in its fullness, in its touchable way, in and through his cooperating human instruments.
For real, clear and effective, quite extraordinary. In some ways, the sacraments are God's perfect digital music. God is really and truly touching us in and through his presence in the sacraments, not just a pale symbol or a sign that harks back to a long-gone event, but a perfect and real representation of God's actual presence and action in and through the sacramental encounter.
So when Jesus gives us the Eucharist, the bread broken and the chalice poured out for us, this is truly the presence of Jesus in his body and blood, not merely a scratchy copy, but the real thing presented to us. We are asked to take in his body and blood in the Eucharist, to be united with him, body and soul, and to take in the words of scripture and to become finely tuned instruments through which God's grace can be experienced, here and now, in this world and in this community. It's a true miracle, better than any human technology could ever achieve.
Here's another thought. When I was at seminary, we had an option to learn a little bit of Latin, and a few of us felt that since it was a very important part of our tradition of the Church, we should at least have an opportunity to have a grasp of Latin. I'm glad of this, but really how I learned any Latin is a mystery of religion, it was so difficult, there were so many irregular verbs and declensions, my mind boggled, and I would come to classes feeling I hadn't put enough preparation into the next classes, so I'd worry that I'd not be able to answer any questions about it.
Mysteriously though, several things did seem to sink into my brain, as if by a form of osmosis, that is, just by being immersed in the language of Latin, some things did stay with me, and they stay to this day. For example, pronunciation stuck with me, and the general structure and basic vocabulary stayed with me, and also a few phrases really stuck with me, some for various reasons. Our lecturer, Father Michael McClure, who is from Toowoomba Diocese, would present us with old Latin hymns and get us to pronounce the Latin contained in these beautiful hymns, and it was a really great way of teaching, by singing in Latin, it seemed to get in better.
I was intrigued one day when we were reciting an old hymn set to the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, the great doctor of the Church, it was a hymn to Jesus, and the mysterious Latin words echoed out, O Pelicanus. I thought to myself, that's odd, that sounds like Aquinas is saying to Jesus, O Pelican, very odd, surely this is a mistranslation, but no, it wasn't. But why was St. Thomas Aquinas calling Jesus O Pelican, why would a pelican be a symbol of Jesus? And here lies an interesting story.
The symbolism of a mother pelican feeding her little baby pelicans is rooted in ancient legend. In ancient thinking, the humble pelican was believed to be very self-sacrificing to its young, especially in times of famine. The mother pelican was seen to wound herself, to vuln herself, another Latin word that comes from the same derivation as the word vulnerable, that means being able to be pierced, being able to be wounded.
So the pelican was seen to strike her breast with her beak, and she would feed her young from her own blood to prevent starvation. Another version of this legend was that the mother fed her dying young her own blood to revive them from death, but in turn lost her own life. This legend, as I mentioned, comes from a slight observational confusion.
A pelican feeds her young, not by piercing its own chest and having blood come out, but by regurgitating food that is stored in its upper throat. This occurs by the bird lowering and raising its neck repeatedly onto its breast, hence its action looks like it's piercing its own chest, and the reddish fluid, which is actually food, flows out, which the young then feed upon. So even though it's a misunderstanding, the symbolism is quite clear and beautiful, and you can see how it's been used as an image of Christ, whose own blood saved us all, and he died for us, but then rose again.
Given this tradition, one can easily see why the early Christians adopted it to symbolise our Lord Jesus Christ. The pelican symbolises Jesus, our Redeemer, who truly gave his life for our redemption and the victory over sin and death he made through his passion and death. We were dead to sin and have found new life through the blood of Christ.
Moreover, Jesus continues to feed us with his body and blood in the Holy Eucharist. I remember seeing a beautiful tabernacle, I think it was Rosalie Church, and I think maybe even Ipswich Church, and it had the image of a mother pelican piercing its breast and feeding its young chicks. So that symbolism is beautiful and quite widespread.
The Gospel today reminds me about all of this because Jesus is using very clear, very dramatic, and quite stark words to explain how he intends to be made present to us, to allow us to draw life from him by partaking in the Eucharist, which is clearly a sharing in the body and blood of Christ, so that we might be united in Christ's life. Jesus had the problem of conveying the meaning of Eucharist to his followers, and as you can imagine it was very, very difficult. It was quite clear that he meant them to understand the dramatic reality of the action of the Eucharist, whilst at the same time not wanting them to be so repelled by the idea of eating flesh and blood.
Christ truly meant us to understand that in Eucharist we truly receive him in his body and blood, and become united to him in his life. All that matters, and I'm grateful to my long-suffering Latin lecturer for this, is that Christ gives his life and body and blood for all of us. Jesus wants us to enter into that relationship of faith of life with him that's so close that we are to be truly united with Christ.
And what we celebrate here in Eucharist is the real and touchable, tangible expression of the life that we share with God made flesh, for the life of the world. The Pelicanus, whose chest was pierced, and his own life force flowed out so that we might have life.
And verse six of that wonderful hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas,
"Adoro Te Devote"
Verse 6.
Lord Jesus, Good Pelican,
wash my squalidness and clean me with your blood,
One drop of which can free
the entire world of all its sins.
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References:
Fr Paul W. Kelly
https://btk.ppke.hu/uploads/articles/8528/file/6-1-10.pdf
Audio-CD. Gershwin Plays Gershwin. The Piano Rolls: Volume 1. "Rhapsody in Blue" By George Gershwin. Publisher: Nonesuch. (November 5, 1993). ASIN: B000005J1I. Reference Link: http://a.co/2fR2tCc - Portions used for the purposes of Review.
Image Credit- Shutterstock Licensed. Stock Photo ID: 2234077357 - Pelican feeding its young with its own blood by piercing its body. Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for mankind religion symbol concept. - Photo Formats- Photo Contributor: funstarts33
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year B -(Sunday, 18 August 2024) (EPISODE:492)
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
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{{Greetings}} welcome everyone, we gather - Reflection upon God's word, and encounter Christ's presence. On this Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Our Gods love and mercy knows no bounds, and so let us recall our sins so as to worthily celebrate this Holy Sacrifice.
option two on the cards Have mercy on us, O Lord. For we have sinned against you. Show us, O Lord, your mercy. And grant us your salvation.
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
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Memorial Acclamation
3. Save us, Saviour of the world, for by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free.
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Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7 (diff). "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord."
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (John 6:56). ). Alleluia, alleluia! All who eat my flesh and drink my blood. Live in me and I in them, says the Lord.
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PREFACE: Ordinary 8
Eucharistic Prayer various 1
(theme variation: theme 2 )
(post version: v2-long)
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{8. Bless you all and May God's grace guide you each and every day of this week.}
2. Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
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Details relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection" - Led by Rev Paul Kelly
Prayers and chants — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)
Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)
"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009, The Grail - Collins publishers.
Prayers of the Faithful - " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'. E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993). (Sydney Australia).
Sung "Mass in Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin" - By Jeffrey M. Ostrowski. The Gloria, Copyright © 2011 ccwatershed.org.
"Faith, Hope and Love" theme hymn - In memory of William John Kelly (1942-2017) - Inspired by 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Music by Paul W. Kelly. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.
"Quiet Time." Instrumental Reflection music. Written by Paul W Kelly. 1988, 2007. & This arrangement: Stefan Kelk, 2020.
"Today I Arise" - For Trisha J Kelly. Original words and music by Paul W. Kelly. Inspired by St Patrick's Prayer. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.
Sound Engineering and editing - P.W. Kelly.
Microphones: - Shure Motiv MV5 Digital Condenser. And (2024+) Rode Nt-1 + AI-1 Sound Mixer.
Editing equipment: -- MixPad Multitrack Studio Recording Software v10.49 (NCH Software).
NCH – WavePad Audio Editing Software. Masters Edition v 17.63 (NCH Software)
Sound Processing: iZotope RX 10 Audio Editor (Izotope Inc.)
[Production - KER - 2024]
May God bless and keep you.
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