Jesus the Christ was, as you well know and firmly believe, Son of God and Son of Man. As the Son, the Word of God, He shared with His Father and the Holy Spirit in the original creation when God made all things; and that is why -- now that all things are in the process of being made new – the Son become Incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, having been crucified in His flesh and, by the power of the Spirit, raised from the dead, now appeared to His Apostles locked in the Upper Room for fear of the Jews and breathed His Spirit upon them. His breathing upon them was precisely the sign of a new creation being made. Just as God had breathed on the original creation (Genesis 2:7):
The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Likewise Jesus, appearing in the midst of His disciples and having shown them the wounds in His hands and His side, said to them (John 20:19-22):
Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."
And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said, "Receive the
Holy Spirit.”
God is making all things new, and Jesus, the Risen Lord, divinely glorious in His risen humanity, shares in His Father’s work by breathing the Holy Spirit upon His Apostles, thereby making them into the nucleus of that new creation where sin is to be overthrown by the cleansing and empowering presence of God's Holy Spirit. A new creation indeed: the Family of God, MOTHER CHURCH, work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where God bestows new life-in-Jesus, and where Jesus calls upon His disciples to love one another by the Spirit He bestows on them, just as He, Jesus, loved those to whom His Father had sent Him.
LIFE and LOVE! That is what fellowship with Jesus is all about! LIFE and LOVE, sustained in and inspired by the Eucharist, that is what Christianity is all about here on earth.
Our closest bond is, humanly speaking, flesh and blood, and God’s new creation is not alien to, or at variance with, deep-rooted natural human awareness. That bond, however, is made supernatural and becomes capable of sustaining eternal life and love’s ultimate commitment, by our partaking of and sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ! In Jesus our Lord, Who gave Himself for us and offers Himself to us as food for eternal life, we are made uniquely and supremely one as adopted Children of God: family in Jesus of Him Who is pleased to be our Father. It is not human family, not shared sufferings, most certainly not racial superiority or hatreds, that can unite us, but only and exclusively our being one with and in Jesus -- the supreme, divine, reality in the whole of God's creation -- by the Spirit, for the Father, and for His plan and purpose to make ‘all things new’.
Dear People of God, the liturgical Sacrifice of the Eucharist and our personal, sacramental, reception of and commitment to the fruit of that sacrifice, is the supreme sign of our saving oneness with Jesus, the supreme seal of our filial embracing of the Father’s good-will for His adopted children, and the bonding of our human togetherness in mutual reverence and rejoicing. Treasure your Mass and pray with confidence for Mother Church and our new Pope Leo.
