The Eucharist Inside and Outside the Church.

As we reflect on the Holy Eucharist today, I wanted to share with you a part of an article by Bishop Mark Seitz, the bishop of El Paso Texas, and the Chair of the Bishops’ Committee on Migration. In part of the article he connects the immigration issue with our celebration of the Eucharist.

 

Bishop Seitz writes, “I’m a Christian and a priest. Every day I celebrate the Eucharist with the community in my diocese, and during that prayer we ask that our sacrifice of reconciliation might bring about…the peace and salvation of all the world. This living vein of compassion in which we find ourselves as a community is the context for that prayer. I offer the Eucharist that the Lord might bring peace and salvation to this people, my people. In my diocese, that includes those who approach and pass through seeking a better life, and oftentimes just bare life. They, too, are part of us, for we were once one of them. The many immigrants who are dying in the desert are part of my community and are also worthy of the Lord’s peace and salvation. My community also includes the more than fifty thousand persons in my diocese who do not have the benefit of documents. They, too, are just as much a part of my community. One in three of them live with a U.S.-citizen child. A campaign of mass deportation would represent a moral and deeply social crisis in my diocese, one that would tear at the heart of who we are. And as I have traveled the country in my role as chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, beyond just the economic and political damage, I have seen that the reverberation of such a hateful campaign would also threaten our identity as a nation.

 

“These are the perspectives of a Christian and a priest….

 

“In the social tinderbox of our country right now, there must be a credible response of faith. Our Christian faith must give us something to say to the world at this moment….Allow me to offer a framework for a short-term response….

 

“To state it clearly, the actions that I have described to close the border to the vulnerable, to deprive hundreds of thousands of persons of legal status, to broaden the state of exception and deny due process, and to move in the direction of mass deportations, are all morally indefensible from a Catholic perspective. These actions will divide families, divide communities, undermine the rule of law, and increase the numbers of those dying at borders” (Bishop Mark J. Seitz, DD, “The Living Vein of Compassion,” Commonweal, June 2025, p. 29).

 

What does all this have to do with the Eucharist? If we go back to the biblical accounts of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he was often accused of eating with the wrong people. A statement we hear many times is, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” And it wasn’t just sinners. He touched lepers, he welcomed tax collectors, he went to people outside of Israel, such as the Samaritans. He told stories that made foreigners the heroes (such as the “Good Samaritan,” who stopped to help a man beaten and left for dead, when others failed to do so).

 

One of the songs we have sung, especially since we brought people together into one parish, is All Are Welcome. Do you remember? “Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live. A place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive. Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace; here the love of Christ shall end divisions: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.”

 

The Eucharist is all about what unites us, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, and children of the one God. The Eucharist reminds us of who we are; and it challenges us to become who we say we are.

 

There can’t be two sets of rules: welcome and love inside the church, then divide and hate in our society, our nation, our culture. If the celebration of the Eucharist somehow fails to nourish, challenge and change us, then it’s only a pretty ceremony, but not a life-giving Sacrament.

You might also like

Father's Homilies

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent December 7, 2025

By Charlene Currie • December 17, 2025
Is It Right?

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent November 30, 2025

By Charlene Currie • December 4, 2025
How Far Do You Want to Go?

Homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe November 23, 2025

By Charlene Currie • November 28, 2025
Prairie Chickens and Eagles Homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe November 23, 2025 An American Indian tells about a brave who found an eagle’s egg and put it into the nest of a prairie chicken. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All its life the changeling eagle, thinking it was a prairie chicken, did what the other prairie chickens did. It scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. It clucked and cackled. And it flew in a brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers no more than a few feet off the ground. After all, that’s how prairie chickens were supposed to fly. Years passed, and the changeling grew very old. One day it saw a magnificent bird soaring far above in the cloudless sky. Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. “What a beautiful bird!” said the changeling eagle to its neighbor. “What is it?” “That’s an eagle—the chief of the birds,” the neighbor clucked. “But don’t give it a second thought. You could never be like him.” So, the changeling eagle never gave it another thought. And it died thinking it was a prairie chicken. Today, we are celebrating the fact that Jesus Christ is the King of all God’s creation. And yet, it is strange that the gospel passage chosen for this feast is the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion. Notice how weak he is. Consider how he is laughed at and made fun of. “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God….If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” So, the problem is one of expectations. The bystanders were looking for an eagle, and all they saw before them was a prairie chicken! And yet, at the end of the gospel, this prairie chicken seems to have some power that prairie chickens don’t normally have. When Jesus is asked by the thief being crucified with him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” Jesus replies, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Hardly a promise that could be made by a prairie chicken! What’s going on here? I’d like to refer us to a passage we find in the writings of St. Paul, a section of his letter to the Philippians that is the second reading on Palm Sunday, when we reflect on the crucifixion of Jesus. Here it is: “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Jesus taught the way of humility and service. He came to raise others up, especially those who were bowed down by poverty or prejudice. He taught that there was no greater love than to lay down one’s life for the love of others. Greatness is found not in building oneself up at the expense of others, but in building up others, especially those who need it the most. So, Jesus emptied himself, to the point of looking like a prairie chicken, and in doing so he showed us the way to the eternal kingdom by means of humble service, that we might become who we truly are, eagles destined to soar beyond the clouds.