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Good evening everybody, again is so great to see so many of you who are here this evening. It is a wonderful encouragement to see us gather in this way to deepen in our knowledge and love of the Holy Eucharist, and the gift that our Lord gives to us in the Eucharist.
Let us go ahead and begin, and let us begin with a prayer, and what I’d like to do as our opening prayer is to read what is called the kinosis hymn of Christ Jesus; the hymn of self emptying of Christ our Lord. Is found in Philipians , chapter two, six through eleven.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Father in Heaven, be in our minds and in our hearts and in our wills, that we might listen to the words of Christ Jesus, Your Son. Though He was in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God, something to be grasped at. Rather, He emptied himself, and took the form of a slave being born in the likeness of men. He was known to be of human state and it was thus that He humbled Himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross. Because of this, God highly exulted Him and bestowed on Him the name above every other name; so that at Jesus’ name, every knee must bend in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth; and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father "Jesus Christ is Lord."

Last week as we spoke about the Eucharist, as we spoke about the Holy Mass we spoke of it as a Sacrament of unity. If you remember we spoke about the Mass as the great sign, and the great source of unity which unites us to God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord and which unites us to each other, to the Church. I contrasted the Sacrament of the unity, the Holy Mass, with the anti-sacrament of division, remember? We spoke of the devil and the food that is given mankind from the devil causes division; that what he gives to us, what he desires for us is an anti-sacrament of division. And Christ gives us a new food in the Eucharist, which is truly the Sacrament of unity, Which undoes the division which was the will of the evil one in favor of the unity which is the will of the Father. And I mentioned this week that what we would talk about is the Mass, the Eucharist, the giving of Christ to us in the Eucharist as the model for Christian living. Do you want to know how to act in the Christian life? Do you want to know how to love in the Christian life? You need to look no further than to the very center of that altar. Do you want to know how to live, how to act, how to serve, how to love? Look to the altar. That will tell us everything we need to know; we look to the actions of Christ Jesus, and those are to be the pattern for our actions. And there’s my whole talk right there.

We are celebrating, actually this was yesterday, the feast of a brand new Doctor of the Church, Theresa of Liseux; Theresa of the Child Jesus. As you know she lived at the end of the last century, she died when she was twenty four, and she has been lifted up, this young woman, has been lifted up as a Doctor of the Church . What does that title mean? It means someone whose writing, whose summary of the faith is so powerful, is so beautiful , that their writings on the Christian life are such a beautiful summary of our faith that this person is called a Doctor of the Church. Someone whose writing in life is lifted up to the Universal Church throughout the world as a person worthy of reading their writings, of imitating their lives.
Theresa of Liseux, her entire life could be summarized in what is called the doctrine of spiritual childhood. Her whole life was one of saying "Christ will specially bless us, will powerfully unite us to Himself when we are little, when we are small, when we are a child before the Lord." He specially blesses us not when we are mighty, not when we are talented, not when we can do everything ourselves just fine, thank you very much; but when we are like a tiny little ball in the hands of God and we say ‘Dear Lord Jesus may You find joy in holding this little life before You’.
This is what she says, this is a summary of what she calls the spiritual childhood. She is writing to the Mother Superior of the convent who asked her to put thoughts to paper, and she didn’t want to do it, but she did it out of obedience. And this what she says to the Mother Superior of her Carmel:
"You know mother, I’ve always wanted to be a saint." -Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all say that? If we could say that from the depths of our hearts... ‘you know I’ve always wanted to be a saint!’- "Alas, I have always noticed that when I compare myself to the saints there is between them and me the same difference that exist between a mountain and an obscure grain of sand trampled under foot by the passers by.  Instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself ‘God cannot inspire desires that are unreasonable; I can then in spite of my littleness aspire to holiness’, it is impossible for me to grow up, and so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to Heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short and totally new." -So she’s about to describe what it’s famously called The Little Way. Have you heard that before? The Little Way of Saint Theresa? She now describes what the little way is; the little, short, easy way to Heaven, she says.- "We are now living in an age of inventions, and we no longer have to take the trouble of climbing stairs, for in the homes of the rich an elevator has replaced these very successfully. I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection. I searched then in Scriptures for some sign of this elevator, the object of my desires, and I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom ‘Whoever is a little one, let him come unto me’, and so I succeeded, I felt I had found what I was looking for. But I wanted to know, oh my God, what You would do to the very little one who answered Your call. I continued my search and this is what I discovered: ‘As one whom a mother caresses, so I will comfort you. You shall be carried at the breast and upon the knees they shall caress you.’ Ah! Never did words more tender and more melodious give joy to my soul. The elevator which must rise me to Heaven is Your arms oh Jesus. And for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little, and become this more and more. Oh my God, You have surpassed my expectations. I want only to sing of Your mercies."
Talk about writings out of step with modern times, right?. Modern times which is the whole will to power. You and I, the desire for power, for control in our lives. As Saint Theresa is saying, what delights our Lord is remaining small so that Christ can gather us up into His arms, and being small, lift us up to His heart. Lift us to the Father. "I had to remain little, and be this more and more." Is really very beautiful, The Little Way of Saint Theresa. And it is this writing that is at the heart of her thinking; and it is this writing that has made her a Doctor of the Church... Interesting.
We are most pleasing to God not when we do for Him but when we stand as little children before Him, looking to Him for all we need. This is an imitation of Christ Jesus in the kinosis hymn that we read as our opening prayer. Kinosis means self emptying; the emptying of Jesus in favor of the will of the Father. "Though He was in the form of God, He did not deem equality with God; rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave being borne in the likeness of men. It was thus that He humbled Himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross." And the question as we hear these words of Saint Paul is why must Jesus empty Himself? Why must God become little? Why must God, the all powerful One Who is fullness itself, why must He empty Himself and become little; and last week we spoke about this. And we said that before the first sin of Adam and Eve, before they ate this anti-sacrament of division mankind enjoyed the fullness of God’s favor, that our life was one of unspeakable fullness and joy, and after the fall man’s history has been one of death, one of sin, one of sorrow and one of  despair. What is a great word for that? Emptiness. All of mankind’s history following the fall is one of emptiness. Where once there had been fullness in the presence of the Father (remember He came to them in the cool of the evening breeze and Adam and Eve delighted in the fullness of God’s presence? They would literally dance for joy as God came to them in the cool of the evening breeze?), and what replaces that is emptiness, utter, absolute emptiness. Heaven is empty and all that awaits mankind is an empty black death.
In order that the Father might heal mankind, Jesus His Son reproduces in Himself this history of mankind. Christ Jesus in a sense summarizes in His own life, in His own person this sorry history of mankind. In other words, Christ takes upon Himself all of these thousands of years of emptiness. Where mankind has become little because of their failure to obedience before God, Christ Jesus becomes little. As mankind becomes empty, Christ Jesus becomes empty. He takes on this broken humanity as mankind becomes subject to death, the Son of God becomes subject to death. As mankind knows weariness through the thousands of years, Christ the Son of the Father will know weariness. As mankind discouragement, so Christ discouragement... Ah, how I long to gather the little ones before me as a mother gathering her hens, but ah you would not listen oh Jerusalem, you would not listen. So all of what mankind in her emptiness experiences, death and discouragement, emptiness and sorrow, Christ Jesus recapitulates. Has everybody heard that word before? Recapitulates, it means chapter by chapter throughout history, from the beginning, the first chapter, the fall of Adam and Eve up to the dawn of Christ’s birth every single chapter of Salvation History, of man’s history is summarized in Christ, is there in the life and person of Christ Jesus. Every chapter from beginning to end is there in Christ Jesus. Recapitulates, each chapter is made present in the life of Christ Jesus the Lord. So those are two words that I’m going to be using this evening a fair amount: Kinosis, the self emptying of Jesus, and the Recapitulation of mankind’s history in Christ Jesus, chapter by chapter the sorry tale of man’s sin and death is there in the life of Christ Jesus the Son of God.
Saint Ireaneus over fifteen hundred years ago said this: "When Christ became incarnate and was made man, He recapitulated in Himself the long history of mankind and procured for us a shortcut to salvation", isn’t that an interesting word? Christ made for us a shortcut, He is the shortcut to salvation, not just "a" shortcut, but the only one there is, the only way to salvation. "So that what we have lost in Adam, that is being at the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus. For this reason Christ experienced all the stages of life" -he’s using the word ‘recapitulates’- "Thereby, giving communion with God to all mankind." The only way for union with God is because Christ takes on our human situation, chapter and verse, down to the smallest detail, anything we can experience, Christ experiences save sin. But even in that, He becomes sin upon the cross. He doesn’t sin, He becomes our sin upon the cross.
And now we come to words that are critical. "Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘no slave is greater than his master’? If they’ve persecuted Me, they will persecute you also." In other words, we are to imitate the self emptying of Christ Jesus,  and in doing so, our salvation is assured. In the self emptying and imitation of Christ no slave is greater than his master. What we expect in Christ, that will be repeated in us also. The path He walks we must imitate. The concrete expression of our unity with Christ and unity with others is imitating the path, the way of Christ Jesus our Lord.
And what is the pattern for our self emptying, what is the pattern for our kinosis? For our emptying before God the Father, being the little toy in the hands of God, as Saint Theresa talks about, being the little ball in the hands of God. Being the little child that can be easily picked up in the arms of Christ Jesus. That is the self emptying that Saint Theresa speaks of, that is imitating Christ Jesus in His self emptying. How do we do this, what is the motto that we follow so that we might be able to do this? Well, the entire Mass, the Sacraments of the Church, the Liturgical year of the Church. That is our pattern; the entire Liturgical year of the Church, recapitulates the life of Christ and the history of salvation. In other words, Jesus’ life is chapter and verse a summary of mankind, and the Liturgical year and the Mass is a summary of the life of Christ.
Let me just explain a little bit, especially for those in RCIA. What is the Liturgical year? I said the Liturgical year summarizes the life of Christ, it is chapter and verse the summary of the life of Christ Jesus our Lord. The Liturgical year starts when? What Sunday begins the Liturgical year? First Sunday of Advent. What is the last Sunday of the Liturgical year? The Sunday before which is... Christ the King, exactly, the feast of Christ the King. So every year in November we begin and end a new year, doesn’t begin January first, it begins in November. And every year the whole Church re-lives the entire life of Christ and the entire history of mankind’s salvation from the beginning of time till its very end. So what readings do we hear the First Sunday of Advent? We hear of Adam and Eve, we hear the very beginnings of creation and the promise of a Savior. So those four Sundays of Advent are the Old Testament. Advent comes to an end with what feast? Christmas, the summary of the birth of Christ, the incarnation of the Son of God for our salvation and during the Christmas season we recall His infancy His childhood, the finding in the temple. And then we enter into the season of Lent, the great season of fast and prayer and during that time we recall the passion, the suffering of Christ Jesus our Lord and His death upon Calvary. Those forty days, the entire Church throughout the world is in the desert with Christ Jesus, and we are with Him in His suffering, walking beside His cross as Simeon carried His cross, so the Church in the forty days of Lent. And then what follows Lent? The greatest feast in the life of the Church, the feast of Easter, the resurrection of our Lord. And then we have fifty days that follow Easter, which is a summary of the appearances of Christ Jesus before His ascension to the Father, His appearance to the infant Church, the appearance to the apostles and the disciples. And then with Pentecost we celebrate the descend of the Holy Spirit which is the sign and the source of the Church’s infallibility. The Church teaches the truth which is the person of Christ Jesus until the end of times because of the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. And then from Pentecost until the feast of Christ the King we celebrate the time that we are in now, the in-between time, in between His first coming and His second coming in Glory at the end of time, when He will be revealed as the King of all creation. He is revealed that as now, but He will take up His kingship in all His fullness when He comes again in glory. So every year the Church recapitulates the life of Christ, Jesus recapitulates the life of mankind, the Liturgical year summarizes the life of Christ; and we as the Church re-live His life every year and we approach now soon the feast of Christ the King. And at the very center of the Liturgical year is the daily and Sunday celebration of the Holy Eucharist, of the Holy Mass. And this year of grace which has the Mass at its center is the very high point, the summary of Jesus’ emptying Himself for us.
So the Mass is a pattern of how we are to live; is a pattern of how we are to imitate Christ Jesus, who takes the emptiness of mankind upon himself... Why? In order to take it away, in order to heal it, in order to restore fullness where there had been emptiness. Why do we take emptiness upon ourselves? In imitating Christ, we do this that we might receive the fullness of God’s grace.
All of the life of Christ Jesus our Lord can be summarized with four words taken from the very center of the Mass. What do you think those words might be? There are four words in the prayer of consecration which summarized the life of Christ Jesus and summarize our imitation of the life and actions of Christ Jesus. What might those be? During the course of the meal, Jesus took bread, He blessed it, He broke and gave it to His disciples saying, This is My body. There are four verbs there that are a summary of the life of Christ Jesus our Lord; and a summary of the life of Church and of our life. Let me show you what I mean.
In the last supper Jesus takes bread. That important action, what is He doing? That He takes bread in His sacred hand. Again the words of Saint Paul, "He emptied Himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men." It’s interesting how Saint Paul uses the word "took" there, isn’t it?  He took the form of a slave, He took on our emptiness, He took on an emptiness that the Father desired Jesus to assume upon Himself, and in this way heal humanity. He doesn’t take things to Himself, He doesn’t take the world to Himself, He doesn’t even take our love to Himself. What does He take to Himself? Emptiness,  He takes emptiness to Himself. He takes the emptiness that the Father desired, He takes humanity’s emptiness. Humanity’s sin to Himself. That’s what he took when He takes the bread. That is a summary; that bread is going to be broken, His life is broken. Why? Because when He is broken our emptiness is broken, and is healed. This free embrace by Jesus of humanity’s emptiness finds its high point in the cross which proceeds directly from the altar, because He takes up bread He is going to die on the cross. That is the price of taking up mankind emptiness; when He takes up this bread, that is the price of His kinosis, His self emptying. Then once the bread is taken it is then blessed, "This is my body which is to be given up for you", that blessing of the bread is a wonderful reminder that Jesus is that blessed One. And who blesses Jesus? The Father. The Father blesses Jesus. In Matthew seventeen - five "This is My beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased, listen to Him." What does the word ‘Christ’ mean? The anointed one. Who anointed Christ? The Father. So Christ is the anointed One, the One who is delightful in the Father’s eyes, the One upon Whom the Father’s favor rests. The beloved One who is blessed by the Father because He is equal to the Father, but takes on our emptiness. So that bread that is blessed by Christ, He blesses it because He is the blessed one of the Father. And then once the bread is blessed, once it is set aside, once it becomes Sacred as Jesus is Sacred, once it becomes Divine as Jesus is Divine; once it becomes a thing of Heaven on earth, because Jesus is a thing of Heaven upon earth, it is then broken; just as that bread is too large to be eaten as it is, and must be broken so that it might be eaten. So Christ must be broken that mankind’s emptiness might be fed and might be replaced with the Father’s fullness.
That bread is broken, that is Christ’s will being broken. Not my will oh Father but Thine be done. As He kneels in sweat and blood in the garden of Getsemani His will is broken in favor of the Father’s will. And that’s why Christ Jesus can break the bread of the Eucharist. And then this bread made Sacred, made Christ Jesus the Lord is given. When that bread is given, Divinity is given to humanity. And like we said last week, all pagan religions thrive on the concept that god needs to be fed with humanity. Catholicism thrives on the truth that humanity is fed with Divinity. The Catechism says this: "All of Christ’s riches are for every individual and are everybody’s property. Christ did not live His life for Himself but for us and for our justification." That’s paragraph five-nineteen in the Catechism. So you see how the mass, these actions: Took, blessed, broke and gave are a summary of Jesus. He takes on emptiness, He is the blessed One of the Father who takes on our emptiness; in being broken He heals our emptiness and  in giving Himself he feeds our emptiness and gives us life and wholeness and the Father’s joy.
These actions of Christ are recapitulated in the Mass; chapter and verse, they take place in the Mass. Jesus was taken, blessed, broken and given so He is taken, blessed, broken and given in the Mass. The Mass is a recapitulation of this life of Christ summarized in the last supper. When is Jesus taken in the Mass? What correspond in the Mass to the word "took"? When are the things to be made Holy taken? The offertory, when the gifts are brought from the back. And who brings them? The people of God bring them. They are brought forward and they are taken by the priest who stands in the person of Christ (In persona Christi), and they are place upon the altar. And so the best fruits that the Church can offer are then placed upon the altar. That is our sacrifice. They become the Church’s sacrifice to the Father. When is this bread and wine blessed? During the prayer of consecration; when everyone kneels in great attention and in adoration. During the words of consecration, the eucharistic prayer, the blessing takes place. When is this bread become Christ Jesus broken? During the "Lamb of God", what is called the ‘fraction rite’, right before Holy Communion, that is the immediate preparation. He must be broken, so that He can be given to us. When? In Holy Communion.
So the taking is offertory, blessing is the eucharistic prayer, the breaking is the Lamb of God, the giving is Holy Communion. The Mass is directly connected to the last supper, which is the summary, the recapitulation of the life of Christ. Have you ever thought of that before? It is directly connected to the life of Christ; it summarizes chapter and verse the life of Christ which is the total obedience and emptying to the Father’s will.
And let me close with this then.
In our lives, those words: Took, blessed, broke and gave apply to our life directly. Do you want to be faithful to the Father? Then we let those four words take place in our lives; because we must be taken, blessed, broken and given. If we are to imitate Christ Jesus, we must imitate His actions of emptying Himself in favor of the Father’s will.
Paragraph five-twenty one in the new Catechism reads like this: "In all of His life Jesus presents Himself as our model, Jesus is our model. He is the Perfect Man who invites us to become His disciples and follow Him. In humbling Himself He has given us an example to imitate. Through His prayer, He draws us to pray and by His poverty, He calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way."
So, how do we imitate Christ Jesus? In being taken. You and I, must become in such a way that its easy for us to be taken up in the hands of Christ Jesus our Lord, that we might become responsive to His will. How do we do this? Theresa of Liseux talks about the spiritual childhood, being a tiny child who needs the father for everything. When you and I come to the Mass, you and I are praying: "Dear Lord I choose You. Lord keep me as Your child close to Your heart. Lord may Your will be done, not mine." We take spiritual childhood upon ourselves when we come to the Eucharist, which is the same thing as saying ‘we take Jesus’ emptiness upon ourselves’. If only we could do that we would not be afraid. It’s only because we believe we have to be perfect before the Father that we are afraid. But little children don’t have to be perfect, it’s only because we think we have to have our entire lives in control that we are afraid, but little children aren’t in control, and the Father takes care of them. Little children look for their mothers and fathers for everything and so they are not afraid. And we must learn to imitate them.
Jesus takes emptiness upon Himself. We imitate Him by struggling with the spiritual childhood of becoming empty. Once our Lord Jesus can take us, then He can bless our lives. Once Jesus is given the gift of our lives, just as the priest receives the bread and wine that comes down the altar, and it can’t be placed on the altar until is received, it can’t be blessed until it is received; so you cannot be blessed until your life is received by the Father and placed in the Father’s hands. And that is why the words of our Lord are so powerful in the beatitudes: "Blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the persecuted, blessed are the pure of heart." That is the program of spiritual childhood summarized by our Lord. That is the program of kinosis, of self emptying. To be the meek one, the persecuted, the little one, the pure of heart. In this way we truly are blessed by the Father. Blessed are those who are meek.
When the Father blesses us, and He does so continually, that blessing is for a purpose. Why does the Lord bless us? So that he might break us.
God spent an entire life time bringing Saint Maximilian Colby to perfection, He spent decades bringing Saint Maximilian Colby to this incredible holiness. Maximilian Colby gave his life to Christ Jesus, Jesus took it and blessed it and He made of Maximilian Colby this incredibly beautiful soul. And what does He do with this soul that He took all those decades to fashion? He recklessly breaks it in the fires of Auschwitz. And it is consumed.
Edith Stein, Blessed Edith Stein, this brilliant woman became a Carmelite. Absolutely brilliant woman, one of the most brilliant women of our century. She becomes a Carmelite and becomes even more brilliant in holiness. God leads this woman to remarkable sanctity and what does He do with this woman, taken and blessed? He recklessly breaks her in the concentration camps of Germany as well.
God takes Pierre Giorgio Frasati, this young man, leads him to the heights of perfection and what does He do with him? He breaks his life with polio and he becomes a model for young people throughout the world.
God is very reckless with His saints. God is very reckless with them. He is reckless in spending those persons upon whom He spent a lifetime forming them in the image of His son, and when they are made in His image He spends them.
Little Theresa of Liseux, God spends her short life in bringing her to the heights of perfection and then He says "would you let Me spend you in a night time of spiritual darkness? Would you let Me take you from the light and in the absolute darkness that I will place you use you to save people whom you will never meet in order to unite them to Me?" And she will it, and she dies broken by the Father. But in that she knows joy. Pierre Giorgio Frasati dies in joy, Blessed Edith Stein and Saint Maximilian Colby die in joy because they have been broken by the Father. How blessed are we if we become children small enough that we can be blessed by the Father and at some high point of our lives be broken for the salvation of our soul and for the feeding of other souls. We must be broken so that we might be given. We become what we receive. Christ Jesus broken and crucified for the salvation of the world.
We must be broken who have been blessed by the Lord Whom we receive in the Eucharist, and being broken that finally we can be given.
Does it sound absolutely awesome? Does it sound absolutely impossible? Does it sound even desirable? We would say in our world nowadays "Why would anybody seek this kind of blessedness just so that they can be broken? Who wants to be recklessly spent by the Father?" But if the Father recklessly spent the Son upon the cross, He wants to recklessly spend us. The elderly of our parish who are in nursing homes and who are sick, and who are visited by you in the nursing homes and in their homes, they know this truth, don’t they? They know if they are wise that the greatest fruit ever accomplished in their lives is because they’ve offered their broken bodies, broken by age and disease, to the Father for the salvation of souls. Because their whole life, they know instinctively that what God is doing in their old age and suffering is breaking them for the salvation of the world.
We become what we receive; and what we receive is the broken, risen Lord Jesus. That is our Joy, we that the Lord might give us the grace to be so little that he can take everything in our lives and in the taking He blesses it and gives us a spiritual childhood until He leads us to the point to the day when we can be broken and be given for the salvation of souls. May we become what we receive, the broken Christ Jesus Who in taking on emptiness gives fullness and gives joy without end.
The Catechism reads as so: "We must continue to accomplish in ourselves the stages of Jesus’ life and His mysteries, and often to beg Him to perfect them in us and in His whole Church; for is the plan of the Son of God to make us and the whole Church, partake in His mysteries to extend them to the whole Church."
How is the mystery of Christ’s life, death and resurrection extended to the world? Well folks, you are it, you are it. You are to be the hands and the feet, the open side, the mind and the heart of Christ. You can only do that if you become what you receive by being blessed by our Lord, allowing Him to break us and to give us for the salvation of the world.
May our Lord make our parish a school of holiness, a place where this might take place with great power, with great beauty. Because its the only way to joy, there is no other joy except in the cross and resurrection of Christ which is recapitulated in the life of the Church at the center of the Eucharist.