Homily for Friday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time

Most of you here today know whether your faith in Jesus is growing stronger or weaker. Do you want a test to see which it is? Answer me this question, then, are you more excited to receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament today than you were when you were on the day of your 1st Communion, or are you less excited. Many of you are perhaps less excited, and see receiving communion today as no big deal, but of course this is not a good thing. Jesus pauses in today's Gospel to see where his disciples are in regarding to having faith in Him. As far as we can tell, 11 of the disciples weren't ready to profess their faith in Jesus as the Christ of God, for only Peter speaks. The question among those of us gathered here this morning for Mass should be similar to this morning's Gospel scene. Before we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we should hear Jesus speaking to us and asking us the question - who do you say that I am? If we are not ready to step forward and answer the question with honesty, then we are probably honestly not ready either to receive the Eucharist I'm not saying that some of us here this morning are more or less ready to receive the Eucharist, but I am saying that at the very least, we should make it our goal to profess our faith in Jesus more and more clearly each day we follow Him, and make a more perfect consecration towards loving Him in the same way that He loves us, if we dare to approach the altar to receive His body and His blood. What is at stake is not so much the danger that we would receive Jesus unworthily, although we should pay attention to that as well. What is at stake really is that we might take the Eucharist without realizing who Jesus is, or how much He loves us, or how completely He wishes to redeem our hearts and our lives each and every time we receive His precious body and blood. Let's not let someone else speak for our faith, but may each one of us step forward like Peter in faith before we step forward together to be transfomred by the miracle we will receive. +m