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.
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