The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Sollemnitas Corpus Christi
Dt. 8:2-3, 14b-16a; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; Jn. 6:51-58
14 June 2020

Today is our annual observance of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, also called by the Latin name “Corpus Christi.”  Our faith in the Holy Eucharist is one of the most essential and defining doctrines we hold as Catholics.  And so, I want to take a moment to clearly speak what we believe as Catholics about the Holy Eucharist.

First, take note of the words you hear in the long prayer at the altar, commonly called the Eucharistic Prayer, which is rich, over and over again, in sacrificial language.  This should make you consider and realize that what happens at the Holy Mass is a sacrifice.  It is the making present again, here in our midst, of the one saving sacrifice of Jesus’ very offering of self on the Cross.  In the Roman Canon, the first Eucharistic Prayer, which your priests here tend to use most often, take note of a summary of some key Old Testament sacrifices that foreshadow what Jesus would do and command of his Church.  Coming soon after the consecration, these are the words you hear so often: “Be pleased to look upon these offerings… and to accept them, as once you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek.”  All three of these named figures are recounted in the Book of Genesis, after Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden.  They show us that sacrifice is needed if man’s expulsion from God’s presence is to be healed and if man is to be in right relationship with God.  For the sake of quick review, Abel offered a lamb.  Abraham was willing to obey the request to offer his own son.  Melchizedek offered bread and wine.  Maybe the idiomatic light bulb is already going off for you, meaning you better understand what this prayer of the Church places before us as a foreshadowing of God’s fulfillment in Christ: The foreshadowings of a lamb, a son, and bread and wine come together as one and meet their fulfillment in Christ and his New Covenant sacrifice on the Cross.  And, very important, given the memorial Jesus established at the Last Supper and commanded to be continued, the Lord has provided the means for that same sacrifice to be sacramentally present in every age and location of his one Church.

And so, for clarity, Catholics believe that, while the appearance does not change, in fact the bread and wine offered at Holy Mass cease to be the substance of bread and wine and become the true and real living and resurrected Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.  This happens by God’s power in both the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus, the Son of God, who acts through a validly ordained Catholic priest such that wherever a Catholic priest follows the Church’s authentic prayer and intends to consecrate bread and wine they become the Body and Blood of the Lord.  We call this gift of the Lord’s Real Presence the Holy Eucharist.  When received by us we call it Holy Communion.  This is what every Catholic must hold and reverence.  This is the aspect of our faith placed in focus on Corpus Christi.  Because of what we believe about the Holy Eucharist, that it is really Jesus’ presence, then it deserves the utmost reverence and care.  No reverence can really be too much.  If all we have up here is, and remains, only bread and wine, only a symbol of Jesus, or only a reminder of his sacrifice… then frankly it’s just time to go home.

With all this in mind, I want to teach you today to be judgmental.  I know that being judgmental is just about the only capital sin that remains in the minds of most modern men.  You can sort of imagine the devil capitalizing on this: “I mean, I’m Satan, but I’m not judgmental.  The Big Guy takes care of that.”  What I want to teach you today is to be judgmental toward yourself.  Not toward anyone else.  In a move decades ago when the current Mass texts were being decided by the powers that were, at a time when a wider selection of Scripture was being promoted, our sacred liturgy was curiously stripped of any reading of a very relevant Scripture text for today’s solemnity.  It is St. Paul’s witness about the institution of the Holy Eucharist and the implications of that faith, what follows from that Catholic faith.  And you find this text that we no longer hear at Mass anymore for some reason in First Corinthians chapter 11, the chapter after the second reading today (cf. 1 Cor. 11:27-31).  St. Paul writes to the Church in Corinth, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord…. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.  That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”  St. Paul says therefore that we should examine ourselves before Holy Communion.  Be judgmental!  Toward yourself, that is.  If all we have here is bread and wine it would be a rather strange thing for St. Paul to say it could be received unworthily in a way that brings guilt on one for profaning, not bread and wine, but the body and blood of the Lord.  If all we have here is bread and wine it would be a strange thing to say that receiving it unworthily is to eat and drink judgment on yourself, and is the reason that some have even died.  Yet, that is the faith of the Church… because it has always been the faith of the Catholic Church, received directly from the Lord.  We heard that very faith proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospel selection today.

The basic idea here is that because of what we believe about the Holy Eucharist there are things we do and things we don’t do toward It.  We reverence It and worship It as God’s presence among us.  We treat It in a way that clearly speaks that It is not ordinary bread or wine.  We adore It in prayer when It is elevated at Holy Mass after the consecration and we adore It displayed in our adoration chapel.  We do not omit a genuflection toward the tabernacle or kneeling at Mass, assuming health or knee problems don’t prevent us.  We don’t receive It, treat It, or handle It casually.  We realize we shouldn’t present ourselves to receive It if we are not Catholic.  Even if we are Catholic by baptism, we realize we shouldn’t present ourselves to receive It if we have not been fully practicing the faith.  Likewise, we realize we shouldn’t present ourselves to receive It if we are not following an important moral teaching.  We examine and judge ourselves and so we go to confession regularly in order to be in a worthy state of grace for receiving Holy Communion.  We take care to instruct our children and family and other guests here so they understand and follow proper etiquette and are not confused about reception of Holy Communion.  And as we have learned recently, sometimes we simply observe a “spiritual communion” as a means to purify our vision and to build a greater longing for the Lord, just as we also observe a physical fast from food in preparation for Holy Communion.  I have said before that some of the best examples and witnesses of Catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist are those who respectfully refrain from receiving Holy Communion when they know they shouldn’t receive It.  When someone decides to refrain from Holy Communion we shouldn’t assume anything about that person other than they are a courageous soul, with a well-developed faith, and are showing reverence to the Lord’s Real Presence, just as the person does who worthily receives.

Sacrifice is needed if man’s expulsion from God’s presence is to be healed and if man is to be in right relationship with God.  The lamb, the beloved son, and the bread and wine are here joined and fulfilled in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  On Corpus Christi we observe that the perfect sacrifice that pleases God has been offered by the Son on the Cross, and is made present here in the Holy Eucharist.  And so, we examine ourselves in order to live in communion with the Lord whose Holy Communion we desire to receive. 

Pentecost Sunday

Dominica Pentecostes
30-31 May 2020

[Words in brackets refer to variations of this homily depending on whether the Mass and Scripture readings were the Pentecost Vigil with RCIA entrance into the Church, or the Mass and Scripture readings for Pentecost Sunday.]

Pentecost is one of the greatest solemnities of our faith, observing the descent of the promised Holy Spirit filling the Church and disciples, both in ancient times and now, with God’s gifts for mission.  We should understand that some of our feasts have origins in the Jewish faith.  Others are unique to Christianity.  For example, Christians observe Easter which has a connection to Passover.  The Jewish feast of Passover does not observe the same thing as Easter, but they roughly line up on the calendar and in other languages the word for ‘Easter’ bears stronger resemblance to the word for ‘Passover’ than does the English word.  Words like ‘Pascha’ and ‘Pasqua.’  As another example, our feast of the Ascension, the Lord’s return in glory to Heaven, is purely Christian and has no Jewish antecedent.  As a feast, Pentecost has Jewish origins.  In fact, it is one of the three most solemn feasts of the Jewish faith.  As a term, “Pentecost” refers to the “fiftieth day,” since the Jewish feast of Pentecost falls fifty days after the Passover.  The Passover celebrated God’s saving work to bring His people out of slavery.  Upon leaving Egypt the People of Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai about fifty days later (cf. Ex. 19).  Jewish Pentecost originally celebrated the harvesting of grain and the offering to God of the first fruits of the earth.  Later, Jewish Pentecost came to be an important remembrance of God’s giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.  Thus, as an aspect of Jewish faith, Pentecost observed God’s establishing of a covenant in stone with the giving of the Ten Commandments.  It was in part this Jewish feast day that had the apostles, Mary, and other disciples gathered in Jerusalem when the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son took place, thus marking the beginnings of the transition of Pentecost into a Christian feast.  The Church now concludes the Holy Season of Easter with this great solemnity of Pentecost, coming fifty days since Easter Sunday.

From reading the Scriptures you know that prior manifestations of the Holy Spirit had the Spirit descend in the form of a dove (at Jesus’ baptism).  What is significant about His descending in the form of fire as Acts of the Apostles tells us about Pentecost Day [Sunday: in today’s first reading]?  Why the form of fire?  There is a simple but profound answer.  Recall the origin of the Jewish feast of Pentecost observing the People of Israel arriving at Mt. Sinai where God gave the Law.  Exodus 19 [Vigil: tonight’s second reading] tells us what happened on Mt. Sinai as God came down to His people and spoke to them through Moses.  Exodus 19 says, “Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke, for the Lord came down upon it in fire.  The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently” (Ex. 19).  Thus, fire serves as a sign of the divinity of the Holy Spirit who comes down upon His chosen and redeemed people, not to write His law in stone, but in their hearts [Vigil: as the reading from Ezekiel tonight prophesied].  The Holy Spirit descending in fire serves as a further connection to the fulfillment of God’s past actions in the New Covenant established by the Son, Jesus Christ.  Just as the Passover and the Exodus of old are fulfilled in the exodus of Jesus’ death and resurrection, so the Jewish Pentecost of old is fulfilled in God the Holy Spirit descending upon the Church in the form of fire.

For us as Christians Pentecost does not observe God’s covenant with us in stone.  Rather, we might say that we celebrate at Pentecost that God’s covenant with us has come closer and deeper than commandments on stone tablets.  Since Jesus tells his disciples that it is better that he leaves them so that he can send the Holy Spirit, we might even go so far to say that God’s covenant with us has come still closer and even deeper than when God the Son took on our flesh and showed us divine love in human form.  We can make this claim because at Pentecost we observe that if we believe in the Lord Jesus and accept his word and commands, then the Holy Spirit of God comes to dwell within us, to animate us with the very life, power, and love of God.  The question, then, for each of us to consider is whether I give God a tender and receptive flesh, heart, and soul in which to take up residence as in a temple?  Or do I give God only a stony heart in my relationship with Him?

The responsibility that we each must take for our daily prayer life and our moral living, and the strength from God which comes from the life of the sacraments [Vigil: which you are about to receive] are meant to make us greater temples of the Holy Spirit, more pleasing to God, and more closely conformed to the image and likeness in which we were made, but which sin has disfigured and which sin still disfigures.  [Next follows two alternate endings of the homily.  The first was given at the Extended Form of the Pentecost Vigil at which the RCIA class entered the Church after COVID-19 closures delayed their normal entrance at the Easter Vigil.  The second was given at the regular Pentecost Sunday Mass.]

[RCIA: I am so delighted for each of you this evening.  After many weeks of delay, we arrive at such a solemn opportunity to recognize the journey of faith you have been on.  We give thanks to God for all the origins of that faith that has led you, the unbaptized, to enter life in Christ, and we give thanks to God for the origins of that faith that you, the already-baptized, received in other communities.  You have prayed, and studied, and worked to arrive at this moment.  It is fair to say by faith you have already become Catholic.  Tonight, we finally make that official and formal by your entrance into sacramental life and full initiation into the Church.  Thank you for your perseverance and your patience.  I am confident these past many weeks that God has been giving each of us grace, and doing something to prepare us for a mission none of us could predict.  Much like the apostles and disciples who did not know what to expect on that first Christian Pentecost, so we must strive and thirst, as the Gospel said, to drink the rivers of living water that the Holy Spirit provides within us, so that we live a deeper life with God and are prepared for the mission He will ask of each of us: a mission to go out and to make disciples.  Your thirst is met by the living water of daily prayer.  But never forget that the Father had a very specific living water in mind for His people, a living water prophesied and prefigured throughout centuries, finally inaugurated in the covenant of Jesus the Son, placed within us by the Holy Spirit, and meant to be experienced and increased by the life of the sacraments that will now mark your Catholic faith.  Give God a tender receptive flesh, heart, mind, and soul to live intimately with Him now and so to have the hope of the eternal communion of Heaven.]

[Sunday: I am confident these past many weeks that God has been giving each of us grace, and doing something to prepare us for a mission none of us could predict.  Much like the apostles and disciples who did not know what to expect on that first Christian Pentecost, so we must strive and thirst, as other Gospels say, to drink the rivers of living water that the Holy Spirit provides within us, so that we live a deeper life with God and are prepared for the mission He will ask of each of us: a mission to go out and to make disciples.  Your thirst is met by the living water of daily prayer.  But never forget that the Father had a very specific living water in mind for His people, a living water prophesied and prefigured throughout centuries, finally inaugurated in the covenant of Jesus the Son, placed within us by the Holy Spirit, and meant to be experienced and increased by the life of the sacraments of our Catholic faith.  Give God a tender receptive flesh, heart, mind, and soul to live intimately with Him now and so to have the hope of the eternal communion of Heaven.]