Today is kind of busy.
Many of us are celebrating Fathers' Day, the day where we (in theory) honour our fathers or celebrate being a father. African Americans are commemorating Juneteenth, the day when the news of Emancipation was finally proclaimed in Texas and today is the festival celebrating the end of the slavery of African Americans in the United States of America. The whole month of June is considered Pride month for the LGBTQ+ population, considered both a celebration of legal victories won to protect the LGBTQ+ community, but also an ongoing protest against discrimination, denigration, and outright violence still perpetrated against them.
And it is the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In this Solemnity, Christians who observe it acknowledge that
In His sacrifice on the Cross and His Resurrection from the Dead Jesus won for us reconciliation with God the Father.
In partaking of His Body and Blood all who share in this gift share in His Nature, that is, all our racial barriers and cultural barriers and orientation barriers fall away.
In this reconciliation between God and Humanity we seek the reconciliation of all Humanity, first among ourselves as the Body of Christ, and then with others as the Royal Priesthood, interceding for the world.
The new manna in the Wilderness of our current lives, the bread of the Presence of God, the cup of Blessing, the Passover Lamb that delivers us from eternal death, Christ in the Sacraments, particularly the regular food and drink of this particular sacrament, breaks down the barriers that separate us from each other and from God.
How can one bash someone for whom Christ died? How can we call lesser or deny opportunity to a person of a different colour when Christ has reconciled that person to the Father, for whom there is no distinction of persons? Perhaps those of us who found nothing but pain in relationship with our biological/familial fathers or whose relationships were good but now sundered in death can find healing in our souls by the balm provided in a new relationship with the Father of all?
If anyone says they love God, but hate their brother, they are a liar, as St. John the Divine wrote in his first epistle to the Church. Perhaps as we learn to love each other we learn to love God. In the Sacrament we find His love, and with that love extend it to others and grow in love with Him.
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