Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi Sunday (A) – June 11, 2023

From the Pastor /

The Lord God, concerned about the good of man, gave us 10 signposts to heaven, and among them is – “Remember to keep the Sabbath, the Lord’s day holy“. God knew how much trouble a man would have with keeping this commandment, so He used the word – Remember! The Church, also concerned about the happiness of man, asks us to remain faithful to God and devoutly participate in the Holy Mass on Sundays and holidays. It is our holy duty, therefore, not only to attend the Holy Mass, but also to participate in it devoutly. However, you can see people who, instead of participating in the Holy Mass, are occupied with some other things: watching phones, looking at watches, ehhh, ehhh. There are also those who do not care about the final blessing and leave the Holy Mass earlier. Some of us have lack of faith the Blessed Sacrament and rarely receive it. They are deaf to the call of Christ – “Take and eat, this is my body, Take and drink, this is My blood”. They come to church and go away hungry. Jesus is not only for the elect. He is for each of us. He knows that you are weak, tired of life, that you sometimes lack strength and cannot cope with many things in life. It happens sometimes that a husband drinks, the son is difficult to bring up, the sick mother needs help, the unemployed father looks for support, the disabled child expects care. In these and many other situations, the Eucharist is the remedy for our human illnesses, weaknesses and needs. The Eucharist is the source of our strength to bear our own and others’ burdens of the cross. It is not easy and it often exceeds our strength. So why do we rarely feed on the Body of Christ?

Jesus doesn’t want to dwell in gilded tabernacles, He does not want to be alone in the most beautiful churches. Christ wants to live in our hearts and be our daily bread, so that we have the strength to live our lives well. He wants to be our life companion. So what if we go to church, listen to the Gospel, and do not practice our faith. What kind of witness do we give to our children and young people? They watch whether their mother and father receive the sacraments, Holy Communion, whether they pray. Because of the First Holy Communion, we give our children great parties, we buy them great gifts, and then these children are not at Sunday Mass and they do not accept the Lord Jesus. Why? Because we disregard the third commandment of God and do not come to church with them. The father and mother, by their own example, show the child the way to God. We must ask God for conversion. You cannot be a good person if you do not go to confession, attend Holy Mass and receive the Eucharist. Because you have no religious life in you.

Many of us go to psychologists instead of confession. Remember that you can only talk to a psychologist, while in the sacrament of penance you receive the grace of forgiveness, peace and the gift of healing your soul from all weaknesses. The sacrament is the grace of the Lord. The grace through which Jesus lifts up your spirits and gives you new hope for a better tomorrow. Only when you accept this grace in the sacrament of penance will Jesus heal you from sin and pour the gift of joy and peace into your heart. You cannot carry the burdens of sin for years, because they will cause the curvature of our moral backbone, and thus all mental illnesses, depression and lack of meaning in life. Sometimes we don’t go to confession for many years, and then we’re surprised that everything in our lives has collapsed, that our marriage has fallen apart, that our son or daughter has gone astray and don’t go to church, that our husband or wife looks into a glass. We are surprised at this, but why do we not believe in God? We often say that we are believers but not practitioners. What is faith if it is not expressed in our daily lives? Jesus wants you to be like Him. He needs you to be His witness. In order to change yourself and others for the better, you have to follow Jesus.

Once, on the street of Calcutta, Mother Teresa found a girl, she was 6 years old, she was hungry, she had not eaten for several days. Mother Teresa gave her a slice of bread and she ate it slowly, one crumb at a time. Why? Because she was afraid that when the bread ran out, she would be hungry again. We, living in America, throw tons of bread into the bins. As we do this, let us think of those who are dying of hunger, let us think of those who lack our love, our mercy. Just as Jesus in the Eucharist is good to us and feeds us to the full, let us also be bread for those who live among us. They not only want bread, clothes, a roof over their heads, but above all our kindness and love. So let’s be their daily bread.

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Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi – June 6, 2021

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Passover was the great Jewish feast commemorating – and spiritually renewing – the freeing of the Israelites from Egypt, their crossing of the Red Sea and their forty-year journey through the desert, and year after year this was commemorated. Today’s Gospel takes us to Mark’s account of Jesus giving Passover a whole new meaning on the night before he died. 

At this meal, Jesus does two remarkable things which are quite plausible in His own language. He takes bread – an essential ingredient of Passover – and He says, “This is my body.” Then He takes a cup of wine, saying, “This is my blood… which is to be poured out…” We are used to these words, echoed at every Mass, but, to Jesus’ disciples, these were unusual words for Passover. What we might miss, though, is that Jesus’ disciples do not sound surprised in the least. In Aramaic, Jesus’ own language, similar to Hebrew, the verb “to say” is also the verb “to do”. We’ve actually heard this many times from the beginning of the book of Genesis. God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light. This continues throughout the creation narrative. When God says, “let there be…” it must happen. So, when Jesus says, “This is my body… This is my blood,” He means it in reality. In Aramaic, there is no such thing as a figure of speech. Oddly, we don’t get any indication of reaction here from His disciples, presumably because they knew exactly how their language worked and that Jesus spoke literally when he said, “This is my body… This is my blood.” We do, however, have a very clear idea of what people think when, in John’s Gospel, Jesus says: “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” Jesus does not mean “I am like living bread.” Clearly, Jesus’ entire audience knows what he is claiming – that he, personally, is living bread. Most cannot accept it; the Twelve, led by Peter, say, “Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.” Peter never makes a greater or truer statement. Back to the Last Supper and the Gospel text for today: Jesus, the living bread come down from heaven, is about to equate the surrendering of his own flesh and blood for the life of the world with the bread and wine which he now declares to be his body and blood. His gift is total. And Jesus even gives the bread and wine that is his body and blood to Judas Iscariot, and then, in John’s account of the Last Supper, tells Him to go and do what he has come to do. The Eucharist is the guarantee that God has never, does not and will never hold back God’s love from anyone.

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Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi (“A”) – June 18, 2017

From the Pastor /

When life begins for any of us those first gifts are the ones we need. We need the presence of those who love us. We need the daily nourishment of food so that w emay grow stronger. And we need the joy and the interest and the stimulus of others, wider family and friends to introduce us to the world. When the Lord began to form His own family, His community of disciples, His first gift to them was His very presence. They lived with Him night and day. Each day they grew in their understanding of Him and of who He was. His presence inspired them and gave them joy and hope for life. He fed them with every word He said and the people flocked to hear what He would say. This word was truly nourishing to their lives. A new company was born into the world, the followers of Christ, and it was the word of Jesus and the presence of Jesus that nourished and formed this family. His presence among us would now take the form of a sacred and sacrificial meal, a sacramental gift to bind His Church. Present in these sacred signs, in His word and in bread and wine, the Lord would preserve and nourish His Church throughout the ages. His followers, now called His friends, indeed His brothers and sisters, would become the living presence of the Lord in the world.

By receiving the Body and Blood of Christ into ourselves we can become part of that living Lord in this world. The first manifestation of this is our human presence to others. To be present to others is a simple and powerful act of self-giving. To be present to others in an attentive and kindly manner is to allow the grace of the Lord to be there at work in the world. The second manifestation of Christ is in our speaking. Whenever our words are kind and thoughtful, patient and understanding, then the word of God is alive and active through us. People’s lives are nourished by the words they hear from us. The third gift of Christ to the world comes through the sharing of love and affection, kindness and consolation. The company of the Lord, His friends, live by this spirit. And so the feast of Corpus Christi is the feast of life’s fullness. The presence of the Lord among us, the gift of Himself in the holy Sacrament, and the joy of being part of His company, the Church, is what we celebrate today: gathered together, fed by His word and sent out into the world.

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Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi (“C”) – May 29, 2016

From the Pastor /

All meals carry with them the potential of nourishment and healing and more. Particularly important meals of celebration, shared with others, confirm our identity and allow us to celebrate our very existence and all our lives give to us. We need the food and drink to sustain us, and we need to be thankful for what life provides for us not just in the meal but in the people with whom we share our lives. All these elements are present when we celebrate the Eucharist together. As we come together to remember what He did for us, as we share the message of God’s kingdom, as we pray for healing, as we eat the bread and wine that have become the body and blood of Christ, we make present the mystery of the cross and resurrection. We are truly Christ’s body in and for our world. Christ’s body is made incarnate again through our own humanity, offered to each other as food and drink to nourish and to heal.

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Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi – June 7, 2015

From the Pastor /

If you had gone into a church in the 10th century, you would not have seen a tabernacle, but a dove-shaped container hanging over the altar. It was called a pyx, and the Blessed Sacrament could be placed inside. Jesus is present. This is the body and blood of the risen and living Lord. He deserves our attention, indeed our adoration, not only at the moment of communion but whenever we come into the church.

The custom developed of carrying the Blessed Sacrament in procession, for the veneration of believers. This is part of what we do on Maundy Thursday evening – we take the Eucharist to the altar of repose, so there is a short procession round the church; but the occasion is a sad one, because Jesus is beginning His passion. In many countries on the joyous day of Corpus Christi there are processions through the streets, with the Blessed Sacrament exposed in a precious casing called a monstrance: children scatter rose petals, citizens hang colored banners out of their windows, the town band plays.

What about us? In the tabernacle, here, our Lord is alive and welcoming. The sanctuary lamp, always burning, is a sign of that. Christ invites us to come and spend time with Him. If we have an hour of exposition, with the Eucharist displayed on the altar, it’s a time of opportunity. Here, in the Eucharist, we can have that quiet, prolonged, personal conversation that is the heart of all prayer. Today we can focus on the full beauty of this great gift that we are given. May we always feel the gentle presence of Jesus, drawing us like a magnet to His company.

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Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi – “A” – June 22, 2014

From the Pastor /

We are all, wherever we live and whatever we believe, united in this need of God’s providence; our hunger and thirst, and turning to the earth to satisfy them, is an experience of human solidarity. Today’s feast take us further still. Jesus knows not only the everyday human needs of hunger and thirst, and how they can affect us, but He recognizes, too, that something similar can go on for us in our relationship with God. If missing food and drink makes us unable to live at our best, then missing God attacks our person on a profound level. Jesus not only recognizes this constant human hunger, but responds to it by opening His own Body and life to us, as the way into the heart of God. By receiving Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we receive a food that transforms us into what it is itself – Christ’s own life, lived in joy and love at the Father’s heart.

Going to Holy Mass can all too easily become part of our routine, or an additional thing to fit into a busy schedule. Today’s feast invites us to stop for a while and reflect more deeply on this great mystery of the Eucharist, and renew our living faith in it. To be invited to Mass is to be invited to share Christ’s life of love with the Father; it is an invitation, too, to recognize that here we find ourselves one with God’s people, as St. Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians. Responding to this invitation has implications: about how well we prepare to celebrate the Eucharist; about whether we could fruitfully receive the sacrament more often; about how we live as witnesses to being “one body” in Christ. Above all, it challenges us to think how we can, ourselves, live “eucharistically”. Perhaps there will be moments in the coming week where each of us can be bread for others, broken and shared as Christ is himself.

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