Father Richard Kunst: Go to weekday Mass. Seriously, go!

Apologetics 

We all know the story of Moses and the burning bush. Moses, out in the Sinai Desert, sees a burning bush that is not being consumed and approaches to take a closer look, when God speaks from the bush telling him that he is to lead his people out of captivity and into the Promised Land. Moses asks the name of the one speaking, and the response comes, “I am who am.” In ancient biblical Hebrew that, of course, is “Yahweh,” a name so sacred to the Jewish people that they would not even utter it. 

But is it really a name? Is it who God is, or is it what God is? Maybe a bit of both. 

Referring to this “I am,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “This divine name is mysterious just as God is mysterious …. Hence it better expresses God as what he is – infinitely above everything that we can understand or say” (CCC 206). When God said “I AM” from the burning bush, he was not saying that he was one being among many but that he was Being itself. We are beings because Being desired to give us being because of love, which is what he is. Read that sentence a few times to try and appreciate it! 

This Being, which is not a being but the Being, became a human person. The voice speaking to Moses from the burning bush was none other than the second person of the Trinity. The second person of the Trinity, God the Son, became incarnate (in the flesh) as Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the Virgin Mary. 

On multiple occasions in the Gospels, Jesus identifies himself with the voice from the burning bush, but he does it most forcefully in John’s Gospel. “I AM the bread of life” (John 6). “I AM the light of the world” (John 8). “I AM the door” (John 10). “I AM the good shepherd” (John 10). “I AM the resurrection and the life” (John 11). “I AM the way, the truth and the life” (John 14). “I AM the true vine” (John 15). 

In the eighth chapter of John, when Jesus is debating with the Jewish people the nature of his identity, he says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM” (8:59) Notice how Jesus did not say, “Before Abraham, I was.” He says “I AM,” because he is Being and not a being. 

As I already said, we simply cannot comprehend the magnitude of this reality, but let’s take this a step further. As Catholics we believe that the Eucharist is the fullness of God’s presence in the appearance of consecrated bread and wine. It is what the Second Vatican Council called the source and summit of the Catholic faith. We believe this because Being incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, said it, both at the Last Supper and in John chapter six when he repeatedly states that “I am the bread of life, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not have life within you.” We believe the Eucharist is the fullness of God’s life because God the Son said so. 

Think of the implications of what all of this means. When we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving the very life of God. We are receiving him who is Being. We are receiving “I AM” into our very self. It has been repeatedly pointed out by saints and theologians from the past that when grass is eaten by a cow, the grass gets lifted up to be part of the higher being, namely the cow, and when we eat a steak or a burger, the cow gets lifted up to be part of the higher being, which is the human person. But that is not how it works with the Eucharist. When we receive Communion, we are eating the higher being, in fact we are eating Being — I am who am — so we get lifted up to be part of Being. 

We cannot comprehend this, because God is utter transcendence and so much higher than what we can conceive or imagine, but just ponder the supreme privilege it is to receive the Eucharist. In my ministry as pastor I am always stressing the importance of going to weekday Mass so as to receive the Eucharist often, but I especially do it for the season of Lent. And I have to say in humility that many people listen, as my weekday Mass crowds during Lent are always the largest. 

But at the end of Lent (as I did this year), I always encourage people to continue that most sublime practice of receiving the Eucharist daily, to receive Being daily, to receive “I AM” daily. We can never fully appreciate the Eucharist on this side of the grave, but suffice it to say there is nothing better for the good of our immortal soul than the Eucharist, so to receive him daily is the best thing we can possibly do. 

Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. James and St. Elizabeth in Duluth. Reach him at [email protected].