Signposts On The Way

Monday of the 2nd Week in Ordinary Time Year B

“No one pours new wine into old wineskins.” (Mark 2:18-22)

The gift of the Eucharist is inherently synodal. Through it, the Holy Spirit conforms us to Christ, gracing us to live ever more freely as members of the One whose Body we simultaneously consume and become. Every act of receiving the Lord’s Body and partaking of his Blood should draw each of us more deeply into the mystery of knowing ourselves as members of Christ; vibrant, living organs of his Body and therefore of one another. Received repeatedly and prayerfully over the course of life, the Eucharist empowers us to live our mysterious relationship to one another in Christ, the precious gift by which we are increasingly remade into the synodal mystery of the Church.

Every form of discipleship we each embody – the call to teach, preach, or create; to care for the dying; to serve in the family home, at the altar, or in the monastery - is a call to communion with the One whose very being is eternal communion with the Father; and through him, with him and in him, with every creature under heaven. Nourished repeatedly at the table of Christ’s Body and Blood, each of us becomes, over time and into eternity, a holy icon of Christ; a new skin capable of being filled, good measure and overflowing, with the new wine we are sent out to serve.

May the new wine of the Eucharist empower us to renew our mind and way of living, “that partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit” (Roman Rite, Eucharistic Prayer II). May we, members of God’s People washed, liberated, and joined to the Lord’s broken and risen Body, live in fullness that mystery by which we walk in ever deeper communion – that is, synodally - toward the Reign of God’s love and justice; bearers of new wine and members of One Body, broken and given that we might be one.