Currently on television there is a commercial for the new KIA ,
which features a city filled with rats playing on wheels –
the kind one normally finds inside of cages.
The rats are peddling a rapidly as they can, the wheels are spinning,
but they are obviously going nowhere very fast.
Up to an intersection in the road rolls a sporty little car,
filled with joyful rats dancing to a blasting stereo.
The theme displayed on screen at the end of the spot is:
“KIA Soul: A new way to roll.”
This commercial is a silly and exaggerated portrayal of the impossible…
rats, at least in my limited experience, do not drive cars and play stereos.
Like many marketing ploys, the implicit message is that
is that this new car will transform the unfulfilling “rat-race” of ordinary life
into a happier and brighter way of living.
The world tells us that stylish products will make us happy and fulfilled.
We know better, of course.
A stylish car called “Soul” will never make us happy, and its allure passes quickly.
It is when our human souls are pure, when they are free of sin and devoted to God,
that true peace and fulfillment are found.
The nourishment on which our souls depend is above all, the Holy Eucharist.
In the Eucharist we find a reality that takes us beyond the material realm,
a gift that infuses nourishment, life and vigor to human existence
a sacrament that reveals the total love and grace of Christ,
who gives Himself – His Body and – as food for our souls.
The Eucharist opens our minds and souls, truly every aspect of our human lives,
to a Eucharistic life, to a new, more vibrant, and complete way of living.
To truly live a Eucharistic way of life,
we must first recognize and appreciate the unique gift of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is a meeting of persons: us and the person of Jesus Christ,
an encounter with the divine that is necessarily intimate and effective.
The Eucharist is nothing ordinary…not mere bread and wine…
but the Body and , soul and divinity, of the Son of God…
who died on the Cross and has risen from the .
Once we have truly come to see what the Eucharist truly is,
then we are called to respond by spending time with Jesus in prayer
and by living as Eucharistic people, who love others with the love of Jesus.
Perhaps the Eucharist has never touched you this way.
Perhaps it has never brought you to tears…brought you to your knees…
reduced you to awe and wonder…at the gift of the Altar!
Perhaps Mass is a beautiful experience of prayer, with music that moves your spirit,
but the experience only goes that deep and no farther.
In such a place along the spiritual journey, we find Thomas,
who, in today’s Gospel, sees Jesus,
but refuses to believe all that is true about Him…that He is risen…
until he touches the nail and spear marks for himself.
Jesus does not reject Thomas in his doubt, but instead calls him closer to Himself,
and invites him, “Come, take a look…understand…and believe.”
So, too, Jesus meets us in our lack of understanding,
and He calls us to Himself, longing for us to connect with Him,
to truly believe…rejoice in His presence …and then to live a new life.
Anything less than falling in love with Jesus and living a totally Eucharistic life
means that we are spinning in emptiness and going nowhere.
Today Jesus invites us to be so close to Him that we see His wounds…
to be washed in the which poured forth from those wounds…
and to find in the Holy Eucharist the nourishment for our souls
that will transform ordinary life into unsurpassable joy.
(4:00 Mass)
It is into this Eucharistic life that Jesus tonight welcomes Annie Winkhart
the first of many children in our parish to receive First Communion this year.
And into the new and glorious life of the Sacraments we welcome Megan Anne,
whom with her family we now invite to the font for Baptism.
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