On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. While Armstrong prepared for his moonwalk, Aldrin unpacked some bread and wine. He describes what he did next. “I poured the wine into the chalice. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon and the very first food eaten there were communion elements. I sensed especially strongly my unity with our church back home, and the Church everywhere.”
He then read this passage from the Gospel, “I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.”
How awesome! Despite the ingenuity, creativity, resources, and research that enabled these two men to stand on the surface of the moon and look back on earth, Buzz Aldrin knew that apart from God, we could do nothing. His story illustrates the point of today’s Gospel. We, the branches, must remain united with Jesus, the vine, if we are to bear much fruit. We unite with Jesus by gathering together as a faith community, listening to his word and sharing his body and blood in the Eucharist.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus told his listeners, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them.” The Jesus who rose on Easter Sunday is alive, he is the one we find in our midst whenever we pray.
Think back to the story Barnabas shared with the other apostles in the first reading. On his way to Damascus, Saul encountered the Lord Jesus in a great flash of light, who asked, “Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked and the voice replied, “I am Jesus whom you persecute.” Saul, whom we remember as Paul, was puzzled. He never persecuted Jesus. He had never even met Jesus. However, he was persecuting his followers. Saul then realized that Jesus and his followers were one and the same. Trying to separate Jesus from his followers would be like trying to separate a head from its body.
The church is not just a building where we come to worship. The Church is the people who gather to pray, you and I, in the name of Jesus. To be church, to have Jesus, we come together as a faith community. When we come together, especially to celebrate the Mass, we make Jesus visible to the world around us. By our words and actions, we show others where they too can find Jesus.
We give this sacrament of bread and wine that brings us together two very different names: Eucharist and Holy Communion. Eucharist comes from the Greek word for thanksgiving. With bread and wine we offer God gratitude for our exodus from sin, the many marvels of creation, and the gift of his son, Jesus Christ who redeems us.
The alternate name, Holy Communion, reminds us that this sacrament is a prayer of the faith community. Whenever I celebrate Mass, which transforms bread and wine into the real presence of Jesus Christ, I do so in communion with you who share the conviction proclaimed by Jesus elsewhere in John’s Gospel, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”
The Eucharist creates and celebrates our unity as Catholics. It is the prime symbol of our oneness. As people of faith, we celebrate Eucharist, not as passive spectators, but as active participants. If the Eucharist is to impact us, we cannot afford to be passive and nonchalant about receiving Jesus.
As any gardener will tell us, a branch cannot bear fruit once it is snipped off the vine. This is the concern that Jesus is voicing here. Do we, as branches, stay connected to him, the vine, when we leave this gathering and place? As our dismissal at the end of Mass suggests, we are to go in peace, glorifying the Lord with our lives.
Do we or are we compartmentalizing our lives so that we hardly glorify God or imitate Christ by what we say and do in our homes, at work, in school or in market places? We cannot separate our lives into “church” and “world,” as though one has nothing to do with the other. When you disconnect the two, Jesus cautions that you become a branch cut off from the vine, no longer bearing fruit.
The great Christian truth is we are connected to something larger than ourselves. We are connected to the earth, we dare not pollute by our selfishness. We are connected to nature and all of creation. We are an interconnected human community, making up the mystical body of Christ. We are a communal people responsible for one another.
Our actions have consequences. What we do and say here should be the same as what we do and say when we leave here. We are the branches that make the risen Jesus visible to our age just as past generations made Jesus visible to us.
Bread is not made from a single stalk of wheat nor is wine made from a single grape. To the contrary, bread is made from many grains of wheat and wine is made from many bunches of grapes. Likewise, this assembly is made up of many individuals who come together, empowered by the Eucharist to go forth and be a very visible sign to others that Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, is truly present in their midst.