These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.
Jesus said, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. (Jn 6:51-58)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081824.cfm
Food is essential to physical life. Food is essential to our spiritual life. The food that Christ gives is the gift of himself, the Eucharist, the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.
Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, says the Lord GOD. Return and live! (Ez 18:1-19, 13b, 30-32)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081724.cfm
“Return and live!” God’s invitation calls us to hope in mercy and to see ourselves as being able to change. A new heart and a new spirit is possible because it is God who opens the way for us. Even in the face of death, God promises resurrection. And as the Blessed Virgin Mary reminds us, with God all things are possible.
Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you when you were a girl, and I will set up an everlasting covenant with you, that you may remember and be covered with confusion, and that you may be utterly silenced for shame when I pardon you for all you have done, says the Lord GOD. (Ez 16:1-15, 60, 63)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081624.cfm
In the middle of the Exile, after they had lost everything, the prophet Ezekiel still holds out the promise of pardon and the hope of an everlasting covenant.
Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through man, the resurrection of the dead came also through man. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life. (1 Cor 15:20-27)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081524-Day.cfm
The old translation for the Preface for the Ascension of the Lord says: “Where he has gone, we hope to follow.” Today’s feast of the Assumption of Mary reminds us that one day, we too, like Mary, will follow him, for he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. And as Mary sings in her hymn of praise: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord . . . for he has lifted up the lowly. Holy is his name.”
Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 133)
R. The glory of the Lord is higher than the skies.
From the rising to the setting of the sun is the name of the LORD to be praised.
High above all nations is the LORD; above the heavens is his glory.
R. The glory of the Lord is higher than the skies.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081424.cfm
As the Eucharistic prayer says: “You never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name” (Eucharistic Prayer III). It is this praise of the Lord that filled the heart of Maximillian Kolbe (1894-1941) and moved him to offer his life in place of a fellow prisoner in Auschwitz who had a family. He died on this day a martyr of charity.
