I am repeating my homily this weekend from the one I gave to our First Communicants who celebrated their special Mass on Saturday. You can read about the theme of this homily in our parish bulletin this weekend, a theme that Pope Benedict developed in 2005 when he met with a group of seven year olds in order to discuss this important sacrament. Over the last few months, I have spent a great deal of time with second graders discussing the basic themes of the Real Presence of the Eucharist. The kids and I spent time at a retreat together. We spent time together with their parents at a special "Bread Ceremony." We shared a breakfast together and I read them our annual story from Leo Tolstoy called "Martin the Cobbler" (yes, the same Leo Tolstoy that wrote "War and Peace").

During our time together, I kept asking the kids about the hosts we use for Mass and what ingredients we use to make these hosts. The kids answered correctly by telling me that these hosts are made from the simple ingredients of flour and water. I kept asking the kids what basic ingredient is missing from this bread we use. The kids responded by telling me that the bread is missing yeast. I kept asking the kids what kind of yeast enters the bread when it is changed on the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer. The kids correctly answered by saying that Jesus is the yeast that changes the bread and allows this bread to feed the world.

At this point in my homily, I want to tell a true story about this bread that we use at Mass. When I attended high school seminary in Madison, Wisconsin, I used to visit a group of cloistered religious sisters who used to make the hosts for the surrounding parishes in their convent. The sisters showed me how the bread was made - you mix the flour and the water, you pour the mixture onto special pans, you bake the bread in the oven and then you punch out the hosts from the sheet that was baked.

What I also learned at the seminary I attended was that the sisters learned how not to waste the rest of the sheet of bread from which the hosts were punched out. The sisters used to crush the leftover hosts and then send them to the surrounding seminaries, where the cooks used to use the crushed bread as the coating to the fried chicken we ate during the week. No fried chicken could taste any blander than the stuff we ate at school. Between the bland fried chicken and the fried bologna chunks that the sisters used to feed us, it was a wonder that any of us survived high school seminary at all in Madison, Wisconsin.

That said, the sisters did nothing wrong in sending out the crushed hosts to the surrounding institutions. What the sisters sent out was simple bread - a simple recipe made from flour and water - it had no taste and no other purpose in life but to feed those that were hungry. So the question I asked the second graders concerned how the bread was able to rise. How does Jesus change the bread? Why does this changed substance still look like bread when, in reality, it is no longer that which it appears to be?

For these answers, I turned to the words of Pope Benedict XVI as he spoke to a group of seven year olds in Rome during his first year as a pontiff in 2005. When I read this answer, I found myself amazed at the manner in which Pope Benedict could illustrate a very intense theological concept in such a wonderfully simple way to the second graders. The pope responded to the kids by saying the following:

…there are many things that we do not see but they exist and are essential. For example: we do not see our reason, yet we have reason. We do not see our intelligence and we have it. In a word: we do not see our soul and yet it exists and we see its effects, because we can speak, think and make decisions, etc. Nor do we see an electric current, for example, yet we see that it exists; we see this microphone, that it is working, and we see lights. Therefore, we do not see the very deepest things, those that really sustain life and the world, but we can see and feel their effects. This is also true for electricity; we do not see the electric current but we see the light.

So it is with the Risen Lord: we do not see him with our eyes but we see that wherever Jesus is, people change, they improve. A greater capacity for peace, for reconciliation, etc., is created. Therefore, we do not see the Lord himself but we see the effects of the Lord: so we can understand that Jesus is present. And as I said, it is precisely the invisible things that are the most profound, the most important. So let us go to meet this invisible but powerful Lord who helps us to live well.

…hay muchas cosas que no vemos y que existen y son esenciales. Por ejemplo, no vemos nuestra razón; y, sin embargo, tenemos la razón. No vemos nuestra inteligencia, y la tenemos. En una palabra, no vemos nuestra alma y, sin embargo, existe y vemos sus efectos, porque podemos hablar, pensar, decidir, etc. Así tampoco vemos, por ejemplo, la corriente eléctrica y, sin embargo, vemos que existe, vemos cómo funciona este micrófono; vemos las luces. En una palabra, precisamente las cosas más profundas, que sostienen realmente la vida y el mundo, no las vemos, pero podemos ver, sentir sus efectos. No vemos la electricidad, la corriente, pero vemos la luz. Y así sucesivamente.

Del mismo modo, tampoco vemos con nuestros ojos al Señor resucitado, pero vemos que donde está Jesús los hombres cambian, se hacen mejores. Se crea mayor capacidad de paz, de reconciliación, etc. Por consiguiente, no vemos al Señor mismo, pero vemos sus efectos: así podemos comprender que Jesús está presente. Como he dicho, precisamente las cosas invisibles son las más profundas e importantes. Por eso, vayamos al encuentro de este Señor invisible, pero fuerte, que nos ayuda a vivir bien.

To illustrate this concept for the kids, I showed the kids how electricity works. I told the kids that scientists could use fancy terms in order to describe how electricity works, but all you have to do is turn off a light switch to make the same point. When electricity is not working, you cannot see the lights. When the electric current is functioning, you can play video games, watch television, or use your computer or any other electrical device that is at your disposal. In the world of electronics, sometimes it is easier to describe electricity by showing others the appliances that come alive when the current runs through them.

I think what our Holy Father is trying to get at is that the presence of Jesus Christ is very much present in the changed bread on the altar, but it is also seen in a significant way in the manner which this gift changes those who truly understand its power, its efficacy, and the manner in which the person's life becomes changed by receiving this gift. When the faithful person realizes that Christ strengthens the soul by entering it at communion, the faithful person changes in the way they act, they pray, and the way they live their life. And other people can see it as well - the outside world sees the changed person and starts to wonder how a person can become so rooted in love and the secret to this life of love. As Pope St. Leo the Great once said almost 1600 years ago, our Lord in the Eucharist "does not abandon His adopted, but from above strengthens those to endure whom He is inviting upwards to glory."

The answer, as always, is from the Eucharist for those who believe. Not that the Eucharist is anything less to those who do not understand it as well, but for those who truly understand and believe, the blinders of society are removed from the faithful person in order that this person can truly comprehend the spectacular gift that rests in that tabernacle, on that altar, and in their person during Holy Communion.

On this feast of the Ascension of our Lord, we focus on the beginning verses of the Acts of the Apostles, a text that St. Luke writes as a sequel to the life of Christ. In his first text, the author describes how the Holy Spirit guides our Lord to the waters of baptism, to the desert, through ministry and through the cross and beyond. In the second part of the story, St. Luke describes how this same Holy Spirit fills the hearts of those who follow the Lord and how this ministry extends beyond Jerusalem, through Rome, and to the ends of the earth. In this story, St. Luke implies that the ministry of love extends to this day and beyond and that those infused by this invisible Spirit are charged to live the life of a radical disciple in the same way that an electrical current might give life to an otherwise lifeless object.

Today, we realize how we are infused with this current of life called the Holy Spirit. We realize how this Body of Christ nourishes us in a way that sometimes we do not comprehend or even think about. If we truly realize the efficacy of what we are about the receive, then we very much appreciate the words that Christ left us at the conclusion of St. Matthew's gospel, reminding us that Christ has left us but is still with us: "I am with you always until the end of the age."

On this special weekend, let us pray for those who have received their First Communion and those who were recently baptized and confirmed. Let us pray for those who have been introduced some way to the Holy Spirit. Through them, may we realize that our Lord is with us as well, both now and at every age. Let us preach this message well to the people that we meet.

And this is our prayer.