Corpus Christi 2023 - The power and witness of the Corpus Christi Procession

 Just a few weeks ago we celebrated the Feast of the Lord’s Ascension. And St. Luke gave us a very interesting detail about the apostles who witnessed the Lord’s Ascension, do you remember? St. Luke told us, “While the apostles were looking intently at the sky as the Lord was ascending into heaven, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. And they said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” As if to say, why are you just standing around. The Church isn’t supposed to just stand around, immobile, paralyzed. Don’t just stand there. It’s time to move. 

Well, tomorrow/this morning, we are going to do just that. We are going to take to the streets, bringing the Lord Jesus in procession out into the world—in our Corpus Christi Procession.

Why will we process with the Eucharist through the streets surrounding our parish church? The procession is an act of homage and worship. We do it because we love the Lord, we want to honor him, we want to spread his glory in the world. We seek to honor God and to extend the thanksgiving and glory we give to God at the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass out in the world. 

It’s also an act of imitation, in a sense. Our Lord went into the highways and byways, preaching. And so we bring the Lord into the streets of our neighborhood, that he may preach through his Eucharistic Presence. 

We may appear strange to unbelievers: carrying enshrined in the elaborate monstrance, what looks to the world as a piece of bread. Why do they do this strange thing, they might ask? But that question sparked by our procession might be the beginning of God’s truth breaking into their lives. So we gladly process with the Blessed Sacrament for the world to see, that the Lord may draw souls to Himself through this act of devotion of his Church.

For finally, the procession is an act of evangelization. Showing to the world that believing in Jesus makes a difference in our lives. Look how he gathers people from all different walks of life, he feeds us all, he invites us all to follow him.

Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 spoke about the power of Eucharistic Processions. He said, “The Corpus Christi procession teaches us that the Eucharist seeks to free us from every kind of despondency and discouragement, wants to raise us, so that we can set out on the journey with the strength God gives us through Jesus Christ.”

There is a lot of despondency and discouragement out there, no? There have been few eras in human history with such discouragement and loneliness. Drugs and alcohol, porn and prostitution, binge watching, binge eating, binge shopping are signs of that loneliness and emptiness in modern society, signs of spiritual starvation. And the Corpus Christi Procession is a countersign to the world that there is something more, something that satisfies, something worthy putting down your iphones, getting out off your couch, out of your house, in order to obtain. It’s a sign that God has visited his people and gives us the food that strengthens us for the challenges of life. 

Pope Benedict goes on. He says, The Corpus Christi Procession witnesses that, we can find our way through this life if we allow ourselves to encounter “the One who is the Word and the Bread of Life” and if we let ourselves “be guided by his friendly presence.” Our humble yet joyful Eucharistic Procession shows that Christ’s presence is a friendly presence, one that invites. After all, we are here today because we have responded to that invitation, and the Eucharistic Procession is one way the Lord extends that invitation to others. 

Finally, Pope Benedict asks, “Without the God-with-us, the God who is close, how can we stand up to the pilgrimage through life, either on our own or as society and the family of peoples? The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the God who does not leave us alone on the journey but stays at our side and shows us the way. Indeed, it is not enough to move onwards, one must also see where one is going! “Progress” does not suffice, if there are no criteria as reference points. On the contrary, if one loses the way one risks coming to a precipice, or at any rate more rapidly distancing oneself from the goal.”

With all of the confusion and chaos in the world, humanity needs a reference point, needs to know that something is true and good. And if God is not the reference point, then we are distancing ourselves from Him—we are nearing the precipice, the edge of a cliff.  And doesn’t it feel like that right now? Doesn’t it feel like our society is on the edge of a cliff and is dangerously close to falling off? 

But the Eucharist Procession, says, God can lead us through this difficult time. God can lead us through the chaos. It’s not yet too late. Follow Jesus. Trust Jesus. 

When our blessed Lord saw the hungry crowd  he said, “I am sorry for the multitude. They have nothing to eat.” But he fed them. And in the Gospel today, he explains how, he gives not just ordinary physical bread for the sustenance of our bodies. But the Bread of Life for the sustenance of our souls.

And the Church is tasked with feeding the world with both. Feeding the physically hungry. And also making invitation to the table at which the Lord feeds our souls. He sends us out to the spiritually starving multitude of the world, and he sends us out to say, God has food for you, inside his Church, come inside, God sees how hungry you are. The Savior feeds us. Step away from the precipice. God is here. The hungry, lonely night is over. 

“This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever" for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Corpus Christi 2022 - Why Eucharist?

 During my eighth year of seminary, we devoted an entire semester simply to study the Sacrament which is at the heart of today’s feast: the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the Eucharist. We studied how the scriptures, like St. Luke's feeding of the multitude, as we heard today, influenced the early Christians. We studied some of the ancient Eucharistic Prayers. We studied the medieval Theologians, especially Thomas Aquinas, who composed the prayers and hymns for today’s feast.

And at the end of the term, after hours and hours and hours of reading ancient texts and obscure theologians and the church’s most recent documents, our professor, Fr. Michael Woost—now Bishop-Elect Michael Woost tells us that the best way to prepare for the exam is to “study everything”, as the exam would be comprehensive of all the material we’ve covered since class one.

So I studied the 9th century Eucharistic Controversies, Thomas Aquinas, Pope John Paul II, and what cutting-edge theologians were writing about. Exam-day arrived and I was ready! So we get to the classroom and Fr. Woost passed out the blank exam booklets which we’d use to answer the exam questions. But, he then explained that the exam only had one question. He then handed us a small piece of paper with the exam’s only question, which consisted of two words and a question mark.  The big exam question was “Why Eucharist?” 

Fr. Woost said, “you have two hours, I suggest you use it wisely.”  I see my classmates open their exam book and start writing. And I just sort of sat there stunned for a moment. What do you mean, “Why Eucharist?” I’ve studied Hugh of St. Victor, St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, Blessed Sacrament Priest Eugene LaVerdie, Cardinal Ratzinger, I memorized the third Eucharistic Prayer, and most of the first and second ones. And this simple question just stunned me.

My first thought was to write, “Why Eucharist? Why Not!” and hand that in. But if I did that, I probably would not have been ordained. So, as my classmates were writing and writing and writing, I’m just sort of sitting there. I had no idea where to start.  How can you answer that question?  “Why Eucharist” is like asking, “Why did God give us the Eucharist?” and it seemed pretty arrogant to presume we can even come close to answering that. We don’t call it the “Mystery of Faith” for nothing. 

So, I sat there for what seemed like 15-20 minutes before writing a word.  I felt stupid.  And it probably took me a little too long to pray for inspiration. But when I did, I got an image. The image of kneeling in the chapel, in front of the monstrance, just prior to benediction. This is something that I had experienced hundreds of times. And I thought of the words of the priest, right after the Tantum Ergo. “Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us and the peace of the kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.” That is the prayer, prior to benediction, written by St. Thomas Aquinas…for today’s feast.

So when those words popped into my head, I thought, Thanks be to God, thank you St. Thomas. Because that prayer answers the question, “Why Eucharist?” So, you can tell I didn’t fail the exam, because…well, here I am.

So  hoes does today’s feast answer the question “Why Eucharist?” The Collect says it all. “Lord Jesus, you gave us the Eucharist as a memorial of your suffering and death” The Eucharist is given to us as a “memorial”. We are not angels, we have imperfect memories, we forget things, we need reminders. And the Eucharist is to help us remember that Jesus gave his Body and Blood for us on the cross.  Without that great labor of love, there would be no hope of heaven for any of us. 

When we celebrate Mass, we are transported to the Mount of Calvary; we kneel on the Mount of the cross, that we may be sprinkled with his cleansing blood. The Eucharist is the memorial of the Cross that Church has celebrated every week for 2000 years. For without this weekly reminder, Christians begin to drift away from the Church, we drift away from the power of the Cross; the power of His blood begins to dry up in our lives. “Do this in memory of me” the Lord says. And faithful to his command at the last supper, we come to mass every week for the Eucharist.

“Why Eucharist” The second part of that beautiful prayer, continues to answer that question “May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us and the peace of the kingdom.” 

The Eucharist is not an empty exercise. This act of worship has more power than anything else on earth to bring us grace and peace if we are open to it. When we come to Mass, and are open to it, we can experience deliverance from our sinful ways, help to face temptations, and the peace of the kingdom. We come to mass with the anxieties of uncertain futures and past sins, we bring our strained relationships, new loves, old hatreds and resentments, we bring our successes or distressing failures, our promotions at work and job losses, happy marriages, broken marriages, good health and impending deaths, our feelings of closeness with God, our feelings of His absence. 

Whatever is going on in our lives, we come here to the altar to worship, to experience grace and Christ’s closeness, that the power of the cross may flow into all those relationships, all those successes, failures, challenges, and temptations, that they might be transformed like the bread and wine. 

Why Eucharist? The Body and Blood of Jesus is the food of truth and spiritual life that sustains us on our earthly journey and mission. Without the Eucharist we will never overcome our sins, we will never love each other as we should, we will never spread the Gospel as we are tasked. “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you do not have my life within you.”

Thanks be to God for this great gift, left to us that we may never, never forget, and always, always know the fruits of his saving sacrifice for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus (Corpus Christi) 2021 - Become what you receive, Imitate what you celebrate

 On the Feast of Corpus Christi I always like to reflect upon the great extraordinary miracles which remind us that the Eucharist is more than ordinary bread and wine, it is the real presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus—true God and true man.

There is the famous Eucharistic Miracle which became the impetus for this Feast. The story of the doubting priest, Father Peter of Prague. As he celebrated the Mass, and held aloft the consecrated host, the host began to bleed. After the Pope himself investigated the bleeding host, he inaugurated this feast of Corpus Christi, so that the entire church universal might celebrate with great solemnity, our belief that at holy mass, ordinary bread and ordinary wine is transformed by the power of the holy spirit, into the very body and blood of the Lord Jesus.

I came across another story, which I’d never heard before—a dramatic Eucharistic miracle in the French town of Faverney [fah-vuhr-NAY], in 1608, in the local Benedictine monastery. 

This monastery had a tradition of inviting the townspeople to solemn adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Pentecost Sunday and the following Monday. That year the Pentecost services were well attended. At nightfall, when the doors to the church were shut, two oil lamps were left burning before the Blessed Sacrament, which was left exposed on the altar in a simple monstrance.

When the sacristan reopened the doors on Monday morning, he found the church filled with smoke, and flames billowing on all sides of the altar. He ran to warn the monks, who rushed to the church to put out the blaze.

While the flames were being extinguished, one of the monks noticed that the monstrance with the Eucharist was hovering in mid-air. The fire had devoured the altar, turning it into a heap of ashes, but the monstrance remained suspended in mid-air. Of course the monks fell to their knees in adoration.

Word quickly spread, and throughout the day villagers, priests, monks from other abbeys, and plenty of skeptics were constantly flowing in and out of the church, gazing at the miracle, which continued throughout the day and Monday night. 

Tuesday morning, Mass was celebrated on a nearby altar, and during the consecration, the congregation saw the monstrance slowly descend to the makeshift altar that had been brought in to replace the one destroyed in the fire.

The suspension of the monstrance had lasted at 33 hours and was confirmed by dozens of witnesses, who later gave official depositions to the bishop.

These dramatic Eucharistic miracles remind us that at every Mass, God causes a miracle to occur— during the words of consecration, the humble, normal substances of bread and wine are changed into Christ's living body and blood. Of course, the physical accidents of bread and wine remain. It looks like bread, smells like bread, tastes like bread. But on the supernatural, substantial level, the Eucharist is Jesus. Which is why following the words of consecration, we all express our wonder, awe, and belief in this miracles when we give our response to the priest's invitation: "The mystery of faith." Our faith is able to fathom a deeper reality than ever our senses can detect. 

The Eucharistic is not just a symbol. We don’t love symbols, we don’t kneel down and adore symbols, we don’t strive to better ourselves for a symbol. But we do kneel down and adore the Eucharist, we treat it with the highest level of reverence we can muster, because the Eucharist is really and truly Jesus Christ, present. He is truly present in the tabernacle. He is made present on the altar through the prayers of the priest. He is truly present as you receive him in Holy Communion. And he makes Himself present that you may love Him, and adore Him, and know Communion with God through Him, and receive the transforming grace you need to be faithful to Him in the concrete circumstances of your life. Helping you, like Him, to become a pleasing sacrifice to God, to be broken and shared for others.

St. Augustine said that when you receive the Eucharist with faith, faith in his real presence, faith with his ability to transform you and sanctify you, you become what you receive. Pope Francis echoed St. Augustine recently when he said the Eucharist allows us to imitate what we celebrate. 

The Eucharist is Jesus. And receiving the Eucharist worthily, with faith, enables us to imitate Jesus in His love—His love of the Father and the Holy Spirit—and His love for humanity. The Eucharist enables us to comfort the afflicted like Jesus, to counsel the doubtful like Jesus, to feed the hungry like Jesus, to teach the ignorant like Jesus, it humbles us to wash the feet of our brethren like Jesus, it gives us strength to bear our crosses like Jesus and rise to eternal life like Jesus. 

Following the 11am Mass we will make procession with the Blessed Sacrament around our property. A Eucharistic procession is an act of imitation. As we make the simple walk, we imitate our Lord who walked from town to town preaching the Gospel throughout Judaea and Galilee, walking the streets of Jerusalem, carrying his cross in the hot sun, parched and bleeding, on his way to offer the ultimate sacrifice on Calvary. 

Our procession is also an act of evangelization—a way of inviting others to Faith. How strange we will likely appear to those who see us processing—carrying enshrined in gold, what looks to the world as a piece of bread. Why do they do this strange thing, they might ask. And that can be the beginning of God’s truth breaking into their lives.

The procession is also a reminder to us. That’s what we’re supposed to do every day. Being visible signs of the goodness of our Eucharistic Lord—spreading his love and the faith He taught for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

October 2020 - First Friday Holy Hour - Bread of Angels

 

After witnessing the Eucharistic Miracle in Bolsena Italy, the Pope tasked one of the well-known theologians of his day, the saintly domnican friar Thomas Aquinas, with composing the orations for a new feast in honor of the Body and Blood of Christ—the feast of Corpus Christi.

In addition to composing the beautiful hymn, the pange lingua, whose last verses we sing at benediction, "Tantum Ergo Sacramentum", St. Thomas composed for Corpus Christi a second hymn titled “Sacris solemniis” --on this sacred solemnity. Thanks to Mozart a few centuries later, we are particularly familiar with the last two stanzas of the sacris solemniis, which begins “panis angelicus fit panis hominum” the bread of angels is made into bread for men.

As we gather for eucharistic adoration on this feast of the holy angels, this evening, I thought I would reflect on that beautiful phrase “panis angelicus” so that perhaps we could love and appreciate the Eucharist as the angels do. Why does the great angelic doctor, Thomas Aquinas, refer to the Eucharist as the bread of angels?

Well the phrase “bread of angels” is first found in scripture in the 78^th Psalm: “God rained manna upon them for food; grain from heaven he gave them. Man ate the bread of the angels; food he sent in abundance.” While making their way to the promised land, God fed the Israelites with manna. The manna would appear daily, as a gift from heaven. It was believed that God used angels to place the manna every day, so it was rightly called the bread of angels.

The Lord takes up similar language in the bread of life discourse, teaching how he would feed the Church with the true bread from heaven in the Sacrament of his flesh and blood. “I Am the true bread that came down from heaven.” That daily manna in the desert was therefore a foreshadowing of the true bread of angels, Christ himself, who feeds the Church daily with his body and blood as we make our way to heaven.

Christ feeds us with his body and blood, so that our earthly journey may end in his presence in heaven. In the 4^th century, St. Augustine writes, so that man could come to behold  the vision of God the Lord of the angels became man, that we may partake of the bread of angels in heaven.

Thomas Aquinas expounded upon this idea in his Summa Theologica. The Eucharist can be called the bread of angels, for in a sense the angels feed on Christ. They do not physically consume Christ, as they do not have physical bodies. Rather they consume him spiritually, by beholding him, adoring him and worshiping him. 

We humans, on the other hand, partake of Christ, the Bread of Angels, according to our human nature, by receiving him under the sacramental species.

And yet, when we kneel in adoration of Christ in the Eucharist we are able to share in an angelic experience of Christ. We are really and truly side by side with the angels this evening. We worship him, we adore him along with the angels. 

We do so, imperfectly. So, it is quite fitting for us, on this feast of the holy angels, to ask your own guardian angel this evening to enflame in your heart the same love that burns in his angelic heart. Ask your guardian angel to help him to contemplate Christ on earth, that you may come to behold him face to face in heaven, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Corpus Christi 2020 - Eucharistic Miracles and Real Presence

We come to the great feast of Corpus Christ, the origins of which date back to an extraordinary event in the year 1263.  A priest named Peter of Prague was making his way from his home city of Prague to Rome on pilgrimage. Peter of Prague was a pious priest, though he harbored some doubts about the Lord’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. Perhaps, this is why he was making the pilgrimage, to help renew his Faith. Well, as he neared the Holy City, Father Peter stopped in the Italian town of Bolsena to offer his daily Mass. And during Mass, a miracle occurred which certainly cleared up his doubts. At the moment he lifted up the consecrated host, the host began to bleed. The blood ran down his hands and his arms and dripped down onto the corporal on the altar.

Astonished, Peter of Prague quickly made his way to the nearby town of Orvieto, where Pope Urban IV was visiting.  He knelt down before the Holy Father and confessed his former doubt of the Real Presence told the Pope of this extraordinary miracle. The Pope sent a delegation of Cardinals to investigate, and when the facts were ascertained, he ordered that the Host and the corporal bearing the stains of Blood be brought to him.  After seeing the signs of the miracle himself, the Pope ordered the sacred items to be placed in the Cathedral of Orvieto, where they are still on display.

Traveling with Pope Urban during this period was the greatest theological writer of the time, of all time, no? St. Thomas Aquinas.  In honor of this miracle, the Pope asked the Dominican friar to compose the liturgical prayers for a feast honoring the Real Presence of the Lord. We celebrate that Feast today, the Feast of Corpus Christi.

There are many stories of Eucharistic miracles throughout the centuries like the one experienced by Peter of Prague, miracles in which the Lord God bolsters the faith of the doubting, or gives supernatural proof of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

One of my favorites is from 13th century Portugal: the story goes that there was a woman living in the town of Santarem, Portugal. The woman had begun to suspect that her husband was unfaithful, for he had withdrawn his affections. She became desperate to win back her husband’s attention, and so she turned to a strega, a witch. The witch promised that the husband would again love her like before, but for a price. The woman was tasked with stealing a consecrated host from church and bringing it to the witch. This frightened the woman, as she knew this to be a terrible sacrilege, but she agreed. After receiving communion in her parish church, St. Stephen, she did not consume the host upon receiving it, but took the host out of her mouth and placed it in her scarf.

On her way to the house of the witch, a miracle occurred: the Holy Host began to bleed. The woman panicked, and out of fear, she hurried home and placed the scarf with the Host at the bottom of a wooden chest in her bedroom. Her husband returned home, and the two retired for the evening, though due to her dreadful state she could barely sleep, the guilt of her sin tormented her—she could not get the image of that Bleeding Host out of her head.

And then, in the middle of the night, brilliant rays of light began to shine from the chest. The couple awakened to the spectacular vision of angels kneeling down and adoring the Host contained in that wooden chest.

The woman could no longer keep secret her terrible deed. She confessed her great sin to her husband. Both repented and spent the rest of the night kneeling in adoration and reparation before the miraculous Host.

The next morning they informed the parish priest who returned the Host to his parish Church of St. Stephens in a solemn procession. The host continued to bleed for days, when it was finally encased in a reliquary made of bees wax.

A hundred years later, the new priest went to move the reliquary to the tabernacle, when the beeswax disintegrated, but the bleeding host remained. The host was placed in a case of glass, and throughout the centuries, it has bled repeatedly, and several images of Our Lord was seen in the host.

These stories are important, they bolster our faith in the Real Presence, the remind us that in each host, in the smallest particle of each host, is the body and blood of Our Lord, who says in the Gospel, my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink. Now, most of us will never witness an Extraordinary Miracle, of seeing a bleeding host, and that’s fine because and we don’t need to. Blessed are those who believe without needing such extraordinary measures. The gift of supernatural faith enables us to know that Our Blessed Lord is truly present in the Eucharist. And, if you are struggling to believe this doctrine, please ask the Lord for help: Lord help my unbelief. Don’t just write off this doctrine as superstition, ask God for help. If you believe yourself to be too modern, too intellectually sophisticated to believe in the Real Presence, you do need help, you do need God to help ignite a faith that has grown cold, or polluted by worldly categories.

There is a crisis of faith in the real presence. Last August, remember, Bishop Robert Barron made national news lamenting a recent Pew Research report that over two-thirds of Catholics have lost their faith, or never had faith, that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist—that bread and wine are truly transformed, not just symbolically, but truly, into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

Two-thirds of Catholics. Perhaps they’ve been failed by their Catechists, perhaps by faithless clergy or religious, perhaps by their parents who themselves exhibited little-to-no Eucharistic faith, or they themselves have allowed secular materialism to destroy their faith. Whatever the reason, we must pray and work for a renewal of Eucharistic faith. The more the Eucharist is profaned or abandoned, the more we need to receive it with love and reverence.

Again what does it matter? Belief in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist is an essential doctrine of our Saving Faith. It is a conduit for grace, and transformation. Belief in the real presence leads us to make our lives worthy of its reception, to strive to adorn our souls with virtue, to make our souls fitting receptacles, spiritual tabernacles for our Eucharistic Lord.

The Eucharistic is not just a symbol. We don’t love symbols, we don’t kneel down and adore symbols, we don’t strive to better ourselves for a symbol. But we do kneel down and adore the Eucharist, we treat it with the highest level of reverence we can muster, because the Eucharist is really and truly Jesus Christ, present. He is truly present in the tabernacle. He is made present on the altar through the prayers of the priest. He is truly present as you receive him in Holy Communion. And he makes Himself present that you may love Him, and adore Him, and know Communion with God through Him, and receive the transforming grace you need to be faithful to Him in the concrete circumstances of your life. Helping you, like Him, to become a pleasing sacrifice to God, to be broken and shared for others.

May this feast help us to enshrine the Eucharist with Love, with worship in spirit and in truth, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Corpus Christi 2019 - Ecco Gesu

I once heard Cardinal Dolan, Cardinal Archbishop of New York, tell the story that one year, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, he was privileged to carry the monstrance in the great Eucharistic Procession in the town of Orvieto, Italy. Orvieto, I explain in my pastor’s column this weekend, is known, not just for its fine Italian white wines, but is the place where Thomas Aquinas wrote the prayers for this great Feast, instituted by Pope Urban IV about 750 years ago.

So, as you might imagine, the Eucharistic procession in Orvieto is quite a spectacle: flowers line the main street, the alley ways are jammed with people, medieval tapestries are hung from the windows. And Cardinal Dolan described how as he made his way, carrying the Blessed Sacrament in procession, something caught his eye, which he has never forgotten. He glimpsed a young father holding his three year old son. And he saw the young father point to the Holy Eucharist and whisper to his son, “Ecco Gesu”, “Ecco Gesu”, look, there is Jesus, look, there is jesus.

Every Mass of course, but especially today, On this Feast of Corpus Christi—the Body and Blood of Jesus--the Church is invited to Ecco Gesu, to look to the blessed sacrament and see Jesus, with renewed faith today.

I recall another story Cardinal Dolan tells about the Eucharist. In 1979, Pope John Paul II visited Washington D.C. And shortly after the visit, Cardinal Dolan was celebrating Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in our nation’s capital, and a gentleman came up to him after Mass in the Sacristy. 

And the man said, “Father, I’m a professor of sociology at Catholic University here on campus, and I’m not a Catholic, but I’ve been very intrigued by the visit of Pope John Paul II.  And do you think I could speak to you about faith and even about the possibility about becoming Catholic.” Now you can imagine how that is like music to a priest’s ears. So, obviously the Father Dolan agreed.

And In the course of the conversation, it become evident that this professor had a tough problem with the reality of faith. He was an academic, a rigorous scholar. So for him everything had to be empirically verified, everything had to be scientifically accurate, everything had to be argued out and accepted only on the weight of verifiable evidence. He had a tough time with faith—he just couldn’t make that leap—that act of trust and confidence—and he admitted it, and he knew it, and was struggling to understand

In one of their sessions, he admitted to Archbishop Dolan, “you know, I go to Mass all the time. I don’t go to Holy Communion obviously, but I watch.  When the priest holds up that piece of bread, he looks at it, and says, ‘this is the lamb of God.’ And all the people look at that piece of bread, and they pray to it, and they say, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you.’

And I watch, and the priest holds up that piece of bread and says ‘the body of Christ’, and the people look at that piece of bread and say, ‘Amen’ which I think means ‘I believe.’  Why, why, why, do you and all those people speak to that piece of bread as if it is Jesus Christ Himself?”

And Archbishop Dolan, said, “because it really is, because it is, we believe it is Jesus Christ Himself!”

The professor then said that at that moment he appreciated for the first time what pure faith was all about: when there was absolutely no scientific proof, no verifiable evidence, no empirical data, still to say ‘I believe’.

That man, by the way, is now, not only a Catholic, he’s a Benedictine Priest.  He discovered the nature of pure faith. 

Ecco Gesu.

Since that First Holy Thursday, you and I believe, the Church believes that at every single valid Mass, Jesus does for us what he did for his apostles at the Last Supper—he changes bread and wine into his very body and blood.

We believe that in the Eucharist Jesus Christ is really and truly present, and when we worthily receive Him, we are intimately in union with Him.  And my brothers and sisters, we believe this, not based on scientific evidence or empirical data, but on faith—faith we have received from the apostles.

If you went to the credence table and took the pieces of bread that I will consecrate in a few minutes and put it under a microscope and analyzed it, you would see bread. And then, you looked at that same host under a microscope after the consecration you wouldn’t see a bit of difference, there would physically be no difference—physically. But there would be all the difference in the world. As we believe that bread truly becomes the Body of Christ, so much so, that we look to it, and what appears to our senses to be bread, we say, in faith, Ecco Gesu. Look, there’s Jesus.

And visitors in our midst should detect our faith through our gestures, through our acclamation, through our song. They should be edified by our handling and reception of the holy Eucharist. Our reverence should cause them to question: is it really him, is he really here? Ecco Gesu, yes, he is.

This weekend, one of our young parishioners, Ben Smith, will receive Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist for the first time. Remember, how excited you were, how reverently you came forward, the love, the wonder and awe of your first Holy Communion. I remember, mine, many years ago, wondering what that moment was going to be like; asking, will I feel Jesus in my heart? Will this change me? I remember being very careful not to drop the precious host, having been taught that the host, even the smallest particle of the host, is more precious than the most expensive diamond in the world, because it is Jesus Himself; you shouldn’t drop the host any more than you should drop a newborn baby. And, I remember going back to my pew after that first Holy Communion, kneeling down, closing my eyes, experiencing a a very special closeness to Jesus.

Every reception of Holy Communion is meant to change us, to deepen our love for God and neighbor, to strengthen us against sin and temptation, to make us more courageous in spreading the Gospel and performing the works of mercy.

In all of our joys, ecco gesu. In all of our struggles, ecco gesu. In all of our woundedness, ecco gesu. In him we place our hope. In him we learn to love. In our confusion, in our sadness, in our hunger and thirst for righteousness. Ecco Gesu.

On this Feast of the Lord’s Body and Blood, we pray that we may celebrate Eucharist with every ounce of reverence we can muster, every ounce of gratitude for his great sacrifice for us, that our hearts may be transformed, and that through this saving sacrament we may be made worthy of the kingdom of heaven for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Corpus Christi Sunday 2017 - The Eucharist and the Father

We are blessed with a beautiful convergence of liturgy and life this weekend! As a nation, we celebrate Father’s Day. And liturgically, we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Our Lord.

What does these two celebrations have in common? I’d say, “quite a bit!”

On Father’s Day’s we thank our fathers. Without our earthly fathers, we would not have life. So many of our fathers provide for their families through the sweat of their brows. They make sacrifices so that their families may enjoy the good things of the world. Our earthly fathers teach us virtues like courage, fortitude, patience, patriotism, and self-sacrifice. So we thank our earthly fathers today both living and dead.

The Eucharist is also about thanksgiving. The very word Eucharist comes from the Greek New Testament ‘Eucharistia’ which means thanksgiving. Every time we gather for the Eucharist, we first and foremost give God thanksgiving for the gift of our salvation, for sending His Only Son to die for our sins. Without this sacrifice, there would be no hope of heaven.

And, the Eucharist is the great thanksgiving to the Father for all of his work. For everything He has accomplished in creation, redemption and sanctification, for everything accomplished by God now in the Church and in the world, for everything that God accomplishes in bringing the Kingdom to fulfilment. Thus the eucharist is the Church expressing her thankfulness for all God's blessings; she offers thanksgiving on behalf of the whole creation.

This is why a week without Eucharist, just doesn’t feel right. In the Eucharistic prayer the priest prays on behalf of the people and in the name of the Christ the Son: it is right and just, our duty and our salvation always and everywhere to give you thanks, heavenly Father.

Failing to honor and thank God for the blessings we enjoy throughout the week is serious matter. So the entire Body of Christ, all of God’s people, need to gather for Eucharist every week, and failing in this obligation is a serious sin, which must be confessed if one wishes to receive Holy Communion in a state of grace.

On Father’s Day we also honor our fathers, and we are reminded of the fourth commandment to Honor our father and mother, always. The Catechism says that honor and respect flows from gratitude for our parents.  So we recommit to obeying our Father’s in what they ask for the good of the family.
The Eucharist is about honoring the Father as well. For, obedient to His Father’s Will, Jesus poured Himself out for the salvation of the world, he instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. We honor the Father, by uniting ourselves to Jesus in this celebration.

In Catholic Europe, Father’s Day has been celebrated on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph, patron of Fathers, since the Middle Ages.  In the U.S. the third Sunday of June, is set aside for our Dads, only recently, coming as a sort of afterthought to complement Mother’s Day in May. Perhaps, this is a reflection of our sometimes-complex or strained relationships with our earthly fathers.

For some, Father’s Day evokes mixed feelings at best, hurt feelings at worst. Earthly Fatherhood is meant to be a reflection of the goodness and graciousness of the Heavenly Father. And yes, so many of our Father’s reflect God’s goodness. But sometimes, sadly, they don’t; or our expectations of them are unrealistic. Some father’s run away from their responsibilities, some father’s betray their children’s trust.

On Father’s Day we hope that some of the “Father-wounds” we carry around, can begin to heal.
And here is another important connection with the Eucharist. It is through the Eucharist, that the wounds of sin and division come to be healed. When we receive the Eucharist in a state of grace, there is healing of our spiritual wounds. Our relationship with the Father wounded by sin is healed, our relationship with our neighbor is healed.

Also the wounds that come from the wear and tear of life. Not to mention our own sin, but think of how many violent images, perverted images we see, stories of corruption of man’s inhumanity to man. The corruption of the world takes its toll. Our culture is like living in a poisoned underground mine filled with noxious fumes which obscures the true light of the sun. But in the Eucharist, the Father gives us a breath of fresh air, and glimpse of the light of the True Son, His Son, given for us all.
So, when we receive the Eucharist, our souls are oriented to the Father the source of all healing and life, our souls are oriented to the Son, who shows that the meaning of life is to do the will of the Father, and our souls are oriented to the Holy Spirit who restores the gifts from our Father which we lost through sin.

The Eucharist is the Father’s answer to the prayer His Son taught us: “Give us this day our Daily Bread”.

Where the world teaches self-reliance—to be independent of our fathers, Jesus teaches that our relationship with the heavenly Father must be different. Growing in holiness means become increasingly dependent on God and childlike, turning to God for our daily bread.

Sometimes we develop “trust-issues” with God, because our earthly trust has been betrayed or injured. Some people conclude that God doesn’t love them, or doesn’t exist, because they have been so betrayed.  But Jesus teaches us to trust that the Heavenly Father does love us, he cares us about us, he wants what is best for us, and wants us to turn to Him, to learn to rely on him, to trust, to obey, and to surrender to His Holy Will.

At the Eucharist we become children again, children of the Father. We honor our Father by obeying his command to keep holy the Sabbath. We sing like children, praising our Father in joy. We come before the Father humbly, admitting our failures to be the people he made us to be. We come to thank Our Father for his manifold gifts. We come to the Father to learn how he thinks, to hear His words, to be instilled with his wisdom. And we come to the Eucharist as children to be fed by the Father.

As we come forward to receive the Eucharist today, may we do so thankfully, humbly, and open to the healing the Father wishes to effect in our lives and the gifts he wishes to bestow upon us from His bounty for the glory of God and salvation of souls.