Number one - not!

Wow.  Unusually for me of late, I was closely following a couple college football games on television last night, hoping against hope for a at least one big upset.  As a Domer from South Bend, I was rooting hard for Stanford to upset Oregon or Baylor to beat Kansas State.  Nothing against those Ducks or Wildcats, but they were between my beloved Fighting Irish and a chance for being number one.

Amazingly, both Stanford and Baylor won!  For the first time in decades, Notre Dame fans could chant "We're number one!" and mean it!

Of course, in our heart of hearts, we don't really believe that silly claim, for if you look up "ephemeral" in the dictionary, there is a picture of a football fan pointing a finger to the sky.  Sometimes, it's only the next weekend, when the claim is proven false - once again.  And yet, these claims of position and rank can dominate our our everyday lives and can completely determine how we relate to each other.

We rank ourselves against others based on the schools we attended, the jobs we have, the houses we live in or the money we make.

We rank ourselves against others based on our gender, the color of our skin, our age, the countries we are from, or what we believe or not believe about God.

And we may even rank ourselves against others based on the number of Masses we attend, the length of our prayers, the devotions we perform or the sins we don't commit.

Almost 2000 years ago, St. Paul reminded his disciples in Corinth, as he reminds us to this day, that this need to rank and compare is fundamentally, diametrically, and radically opposed to our faith.  It belies our baptism.

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?  Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.  (1 Cor 10:16-17)

As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12:12-13)

The theologians explain to us that the sacrament of the Eucharist involves two "ontological changes."  Now, "ontological" is certainly a five-dollar word, one that theologians love to use, but it simply means that it relates to the very existence of something or someone.

The first "ontological" change is one we have known since our first instructions in the faith: the bread is mysteriously changed into Christ's body and the wine changed into His blood.  But this change is truly a mystery, undetected by our mere human perceptions, for we see no change to the elements, we taste no change, we smell no change, we simply believe.

The second "ontological" change we may not think about as much, yet it is much more demonstrable than the first.  For St. Paul reminds us that as we partake of the Eucharist, sharing the one loaf and the one cup, our community undergoes a change.  We become, as Paul says, one body.  When the minister presents the host to us and states "The Body of Christ," our "Amen" asserts that not only has the bread been changed, but we - as a community - are also changed into the Body of Christ.

And with this faith, our community changes from one based on rank to one based on equality, from one based on competition to one based on mutuality, from one based on retribution to one based on reconciliation, from one based on power to one based on love.  We turn to the other, rather than the self.  We become one God, and thus one with each other.

"We're number one!" - Not hardly.

"We're one!" - with the grace of God, most assuredly.