Open Hands, Open Heart

Take it. This is my body.

Some time ago I was over at my brother's house

trying to help fix something up high

that my sister-in-law could not reach.

I was doing something up high with my both hands

and I needed a second set of hands

to hold some screws that I was trying to put in.

I called my nephew to come help and he came right over.

But as I reached down to give him the screws, he had both hands full.

In one hand is the ubiquitous iPhone

and the other one has the remote control.

I looked at him and said,

“Could you put one of those down. I need your hands.”

He put it down but I had to ask him, right?

It was sort of obvious, but sometimes we forget

that to receive something, we have to have open hands.

That is what Henry Nouwen, the great theologian and Catholic priest

wrote in a book called Open Hands, Open Heart,

“Most Catholics, when we come to church on Sunday,

in fact, do not have open hands or an open heart.

When we come, our hands and our hearts

are full of many other things, and they are not open.”

In fact, he challenged us in a very strong way.

He said, “many of us have fists clenched tight,

full with many things that keep us from

in fact receiving the Lord in fullness.”

So the question then becomes, what are we holding onto?

When we come to the Eucharist, we are meant to have open hands.

Yes, we put out our open hands, but is our heart open?

What is holding us back?

There are many things that often hold us back;

that make our hands tight.

Maybe we are consumed with holding onto

some of the things that have been bothering us,

whether it be inside the family

or whether it be real anxieties of ill health

or struggle with things that are going on

or more serious concerns in family life

or in our professional life at work.

Yes. Our hands can be held tight.

Our hearts are closed.

Sometimes it can be just something as simple

as our busyness that close our hands.

Because in fact, we are not open,

because we are busy doing many other things.

Look around the church.

If people were really taking it seriously,

then the church would be full at every single mass,

We do not get 6,000 people at mass each Sunday.

Their hands are closed, their hearts are closed,

not because of badness but because they are busy

doing many things and sometimes even very good things.

Busyness can be what keeps our hands

and our heart closed tightly away.

But there are times that our fists and our hearts are closed tight

because we are holding on to some deeper things

that we really need to let go of.

Like some unforgiveness and brokenness

that has happened in our life.

We have clenched fists and our hearts are not just closed,

but in fact are hardened to the forgiveness of

those individuals who have hurt us.

Or maybe even to ourselves who we may have hurt

and we do not know how to forgive.

We believe that this is not just bread and not just wine.

We believe this is the body and the blood of Christ.

That is the core of our Christian faith.

That is the feast day we celebrate today.

And we believe that when it is transformed into

the body and the blood of Christ,

we receive it with open hands and say “amen”;

that we promise to become what we receive.

We promise to become the body of Christ broken for others.

We have promised to become the blood of Christ poured out for others.

We can only make that promise by God’s grace,

and we have to cooperate with it.

And that cooperation is in fact opening our hands

and letting go of what we are holding onto.

Not a TV remote and an iPhone,

but maybe the hurts pains of the past.

A busyness that holds us back,

a distractedness in our life that keeps us away.

And we need to let it go.

With God's grace we accept the gift of his grace,

and that this mystery which we profoundly believe

in will then transform us from the inside out.

And then we become what we receive.

We become the body of Christ.

We become the living body of Christ for the world to see.

But that all starts with opening our hands and opening our hearts first.

And we need God's grace to do that.

Today we come humbly before this table

to participate in the most profound of all the mysteries

that we celebrate the body and blood of Christ.

But we do so knowing that we have to allow God

to help us with this opening process,

to let go of what we are holding onto

and to open our hearts to this healing, to his grace.

Then we receive and we become what we receive.

I encourage those who are at home,

who are holding onto some suffering and pain

because you are home bound.

You are not able come, but you must do the same thing, let go.

But some of you at home maybe are holding onto convenience,

sitting and having your coffee on a Sunday morning.

I know it is really nice and

we keep doing this because we want you to have some nourishment.

But I challenge you that now is the time to let go of the convenience

and come on back down, to roll down

and to make the hard work of getting here

so that in fact you can receive the body of Christ

and become what we all promise to become:

the body of Christ for others.

But wherever we are,

the work we have to do is to open our hands and to open our hearts,

and to let God do his powerful transformation from the inside out.

That we become what we receive,

the body of Christ for the world.

Take it. This is my body.