The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ; 6-6-2021

Ex 24:3-8.  Ps 116.  Heb 9:11-15.  Mk 14:12-16 ,22-26

Deacon Jim McFadden

            As an undergraduate at the University of San Francisco many decades ago,  I was invited to a buddy’s home for supper.  During the course of the dinner conversation, my friend’s Mom asked her son, “Ken, why don’t you go to Mass like Jim does?”  His answer has stayed with me over these 50+ years: “Mom, Mass is sooo boring: it’s the ultimate re-run.” 

            Now, granted that ever since Holy Thursday when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, the Church has been gathering every Sunday, and, indeed, each day around the Eucharist to celebrate the same Sacrifice of the Holy Mass; so, we are very familiar with the “fount and summit” of our worship.  But, that familiarity is not the same as watching the same episode of our favorite sit-com over and over again.  The difference is that the Eucharist is the Sacrament of our Lord’s redeeming Sacrifice in which we, members of his mystical Body, participate.   Jesus’s continual sharing of his Body and shedding his Blood, reaffirms God’s unbreakable bond with us and our fellowship with each other. How could re-affirmation every be boring?  To the contrary, we are drawn to the Eucharist over-and-over again because we are attracted to the Real Presence of the Risen and Glorified Christ.  Jesus is magnetically attractive because he is Life itself and through him we enter into Trinitarian Love, which we are meant to share for all of eternity.  Indeed, we are tasting eternal life here and now at Holy Mass.

            So, my friend Ken, despite going to Catholic schools from 1^st grade through a Jesuit university apparently never got what Holy Mass is about.  Rather than being a boring re-run, we have the opportunity to experience and go deeper into the New and Eternal Covenant which brings to fulfillment our destiny.   All of the preceding Old Testament covenants—the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic—were anticipating the New Covenant which perfectly fulfills our communion with the Triune God and our fellowship with each other.  And, as we participate in this Covenant, no matter our age, gender, vocation, ethnicity, nationality we are cooperating with the Holy Spirit in building a  corporate/communal history that conforms to the will of our heavenly Father.  If we are “fully, consciously, and actively participating” in the Eucharist, Holy Mass can never be boring but draws us into the mystery of God!

            So, with great gratitude, we profess that Jesus is really Present in the consecrated Bread and Wine which draws us into the ultimate “Holy of Hollies.”   At the same time, we have to live the Eucharist once we leave this church building.  Eucharist means “thanksgiving.”  So, we give thanks that Jesus is giving us his life to us and inviting us to partake in his very Being: at Communion his soul and divinity enters into our body, which should be transformative provided we are “fully, consciously, and actively participating” in this mystery. As we are nourished by his Body and Blood, we are assimilated into him.   Since Jesus  is Love Incarnate, at Communion we receive his Love within us—not to hold it back as our individual possession—but rather to share his Life with others.  That is the Eucharistic logic: we receive his love within us and we share it with others.

            People of God, every time we participate in the Eucharist, we are renewing our promise to be missionary disciples.  As we contemplate Jesus, Bread broken and offered, Blood poured out for our salvation, we profess that this is our Way to eternal Life. The Real Presence of Christ penetrates the very core of our being,  which sears away our selfish attitudes, individualistic impulses,  and our egoic agendas.  This Eucharistic fire purifies us from a transactional approach to religion in which we calibrate how much I’m going to give to the Church community based on how much I’ve received.  The Real Presence ignites our desire to make ourselves Bread of Life to the world.  In union with Christ Jesus, bread broken and blood spilled, we pour our lives out for the good of our brothers and sisters.

            Thus, the celebration of Corpus Christi reveals our attraction to the Risen and Glorified Christ and, at the same time, our transformation in him.  As St. Athanasius proclaimed in the late 4^th century, “The Son of God became Man so that man could become God.”  It is through the logic of the Eucharist that we learn concrete love, that we learn patience and sacrifice, as Jesus did on the Cross.  The sacrificial giving of the Eucharist challenges us to be welcoming to all people, to build bridges and not walls, to be available to those who seek understanding and compassion; it empowers us to offer hope to those who have been beaten down by life; it compels us to be with those whom Jesus associated: the marginalized and alone. 

            Brothers and sisters, let us ask ourselves, if we’re not becoming the Bread of Life to others, are we fully participating in the Eucharist?  As Evelyn Underwood, the great early 20^th century spiritual writer put it, “As Christ gives himself to feed us so we have to incarnate something of his all-loving, all-sacrificing soul.  If we do not, then we have not really received him.  That’s the Plain truth.”  Her insight: there is no Real Presence that does not demand real commitment.

            The living presence of Christ in the Eucharist is like a door—an open door between the parish building and the road of our ordinary experience, between faith and how history is unfolding in the 21^st century, between the city of God and the city of man.  The question is: do we want to walk through this portal and live the Logic of the Eucharist? Amen.