Aug. 16, 2009: 20th Sunday Ordinary (B)

A couple of years ago I was leading a communion service at a nursing home nearby us. As I was giving communion to an elderly lady, she looked at me and said, "Are you my husband?" I replied, "Ummmm, no." One of the volunteer whispered into her ear, "That's Deacon Paul, here to give you communion." I was reminded of this little incident when I was reading an article in the last Sunday's New York Times.

The article began with a 19-yr-old Adam Lepak saying to his mom, "You're fake." His mom, Cindy Lepak replied, “What do you mean ‘fake,’ Adam?” she said. Adam replied,“You’re not my real mom,” he said. “I feel sorry for you, Cindy Lepak. You live in this world. You don’t live in the real world.” Cindy was used to this. Earlier that day, Adam spent all day doing physical therapy and memory drills that required him to remind himself-- I had a motorcycle accident, I hit my head and have trouble remembering new things, I had a motorcycle accident. Yet, the brain damage was severe enough that Adam lost the ability for his right and left brain to cooperate together; his memory may work, but the emotion centers are not sync'd with these memories. Adam remembers what his family looks like, but they don't feel like that they are his family. So he has deep suspicions about them. Adam, on bad days, insist that his mom and dad are impostors, body doubles, or a duplicate version. He also has problem recognizing himself in the mirror. It looks like him, but doesn't feel like it's himself.

The article raises some interesting questions. How do I come to know myself? How do I come to recognize my mama and my daddy? Many of you have visited Women's Hospital's nursery. Nowa days if you go there, there are no babies in display because they are all with their mamas. But in the old days, all the babies were in the plastic bed for you to point and say hi. And I'm sure the little babies would have raised their hand and said, "Hey maw-maw and paw-paw, I'm here! Uncle Boudreaux, comment ça va?" The reality is that new-born baby's vision is blurry for several weeks and can see only as far as 12 inches. That's about the distance between the baby and mama's face while the baby is nursing. So within several weeks, the baby begins to recognize mama's face visually. When daddy helps with bottle feeding, his face will be reconized, too. For the baby, then, there is a connection between the meal time, someone looking at me, and an overall feeling that I'm being loved. And in the baby's complex brain, one region will store the image of mama and daddy, and another region stores the emotions of warmth and love. This is how children bonds with us parents isn't it? So experts encourage family mealtime to strengthen family bonds. That means no TV and other electronic distractions during mealtime. I hear that now some mother's have to text on their cell phone to get the children scattered in the house to come to the dinner table.

For several Sundays, Our Lord has been emphasizing in the gospel how we need to eat his body and drink his blood to have eternal life in us. Why this emphasis? Why has weekly eating of Jesus' body and blood have become obligation for us? Is there some deeper mystery behind this obligation? In order to get into this mystery, I would like to go back to Adam who had brain injury. In Adam's case, the motorcycle accident damaged what's equivalent of major highways of his brain. Now his brain has to use the back roads to function; so all sorts of detour signs have to be put up so that the traffic can be rerouted. Undamaged brain cells need to recruit nearby, healthy brain tissues to bypass damage and compensate for lost function. And in order to reroute this traffic, brain experts say that brain needs to be active, solving problems, and rebuild relationships. And that's what Adam does everyday repeating to himself-- "I had a motorcycle accident, I hit my head and have trouble remembering new things, I had a motorcycle accident." This is where we have something in common with Adam.

We had something equivalent to motorcycle brain injury happen to us, spiritually. We were born without consciously recognizing who created our very soul and who knitted us in our mother's womb. In the beginning, it wasn't so; our spiritual brain injury was due to the Fall of Adam and Eve. And without proper religious education, we may live the rest of our lives not recognizing our own Heavenly Father, despite the fact that He continues to support and sustains us, just as Mr. and Mrs. Lepak cares for their son 24/7 regardless of whether their son calls his own mom and dad fake or impostors. And we also know that sometimes even when we have gone through pre-K thru Catholic high schools and Catholic colleges, we may still abandon our own Heavenly Father believing that He's just a make-belief or a myth. A good example of this is the novelist, Anne Rice, whom I talked about last week.

How does Heavenly Father tries to rehabilitate us from our spiritual injury? He uses mealtime--that is, the mass--to rebuild that invisible, supernatural bond with us. Just as a mother gives her infant the milk that her very own flesh and blood produced, Our Lord gives his very own flesh and blood to nurture and rebuild relationship that was once severed. We know that mother's milk changes to exact needs of the infant as they grow. Likewise, Our Lord's body and blood gives us just the right grace for that week. The Lord is doing His part 24/7. As the doctors told Adam to keep his brain active, we need to do our part to keep our spiritual brain active. And there no better therapy than coming to mass faithfully every week. When Jesus is on our hands at communion, the distance between Jesus in the Eucharist and our face is around 12 inches. It is a perfect time to gaze at the Lord and recognize Him who gazes back at us with incomparable affection.