reflections
updated May 26, 2010

Eucharist:  Toward the Third Millennium, published by Liturgy Training Publications in 1997, is a collection of presentations made on the 25th anniversary of Catholic University's liturgy studies program.  The last chapter of the book contains the homily of Gerald Sloyan offered during Eucharist celebrated at the end of the symposium.  Sloyan ended his homily with these words:

"What matters is this: that we give back to the Giver of all good gifts the very best of these gifts, the only Son, in sacrament.  We symbolize this exchange by offering to the God of beauty the beauty of the earth.  All the world around us is a metaphor for the divine glory.  We must let it speak a fitting praise as we engage in this eucharistic, or any sacramental, behavior."

Two centuries earlier Paul of the Cross said, "Listen to the sermon preached to you by the flowers, the trees, the shrubs, the sky, and the whole world.  Notice how they preach to you a sermon full of love, of praise of God, and how they invite you to glorify the sublimity of that sovereign Artist who has given them being."

This gem can be found in The Sermon of All Creation: Christians on Nature, ed. by Judith and Michael Fitzgerald.