Corpus Christi, June 10, 2012
St.Ignatius Church. Fr. Joseph T. Nolan
The title of today’s feast, Corpus Christi, obviously means the body of
Christ. But what is that body? The consecrated host, yes. The bread
becomes Christ’s body. The church has never pretended it could adequately
explain how this is so, but the doctrine has never been less than this:
through the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the priest saying the words of
consecration, the bread becomes the real sacramental body of Christ, his
real presence to the communicant who receives him with faith. With the
help of Thomas Aquinas we have tried to explain this, apart from faith, with
theories like transubstantiation, the accidents or appearances remaining and
the substance changing. But now we look for a new explanation, since
physicists have been telling us since 1970 that there are no such things as
substance and accidents. This should not cause dismay; there is always a
failure of language when dealing with the deepest mysteries, and with God
most of all.
The complaint is justified that says: for too long more attention was paid
to what happened to the bread in the eucharistic rite than what
happened, or should be happening, to the people. We are consecrated,
too. Our baptism means that we, too, are members of that body. To repeat
the words of our greatest dignity: we are the body of Christ. We say "Amen"
at the moment of Communion. We should indeed say it; it's an affirmation, a
sign of our willingness to become even more a member of that body, striving
in small and sometimes large ways to love and serve as Jesus did. To be his
presence in the world.
Many words we use in worship, as well as gestures like breaking the bread
and holding out the cup, are symbols or metaphors full of meaning. God uses
them as instruments of grace, to let truth lay hold of us in different ways as
we have need, or according to our state of life. Take those words from the
heart of the Mass, "this is my body, given for you." We associate them
with Christ. Of course. It is Christ on the cross. We could also associate
them with Mary, the woman who gave him life. With hands on the womb
that bore him, the breasts that nursed him, she is uniquely entitled to say to
her son, "This is my body, given for you." I recall one special occasion when
I held another Mary in my arms. Perhaps I should make it plain that she was
all of eight pounds and four days old! I was rejoicing with her parents at
whose marriage I had officiated a year before. I looked with amazement at
Lise, this lovely person who gave of her own flesh and blood to create new
life. Every parent to every child can say: "This is my body, given for you."
A martyr could say those words to God. Oscar Romero, at the altar in the
city named for the Savior, knowing, even as Jesus knew, that the violence
would destroy him. A couple who marry could say those words. Here is the
heart of the marriage vow: "This is my body, given for you. This is my life,
now shared with you."
A man or woman, most of us anyway, spend a life in labor through the body.
Not just with muscles but with brains. We grow weary and fatigued within
this house of flesh. But we work to do good work, not just to make money
but to continue God's act of creation, a vocation to which all of us are called.
Rising to a new day, there is meaning in those words from the servant of
God--you or me-- "this is my body, this is my life today--given for you."
And also for the life of the world.
And consider this: when our earthly life is over, in a Catholic funeral the
body is brought before the altar. If it is only ashes, they too are brought
here. The body belongs in this holy place (don’t be satisfied with a service
at the funeral home). In this flesh a human life took form, reached out,
touched and loved. In this body a man or woman laughed, played, wept and
worshiped. Labored, suffered, died. How fitting at the Mass of Resurrection
that we join this life to Christ's sacrifice and say, “This is my body, given
for you.”
It's all one body. Wordsworth wrote a line he later changed; he said, "I saw
one life, and felt that it was joy." There is one life, and one joy--it is all
God's, and it is shared with us. And there is one body. It is Christ's.
Corpus Christi. For centuries this day called forth a splendor of song,
procession, incense, and familiar hymns, all in honor of the Blessed
Sacrament. This should not be lost. But there is in the church a new
emphasis on the eucharist which sees the presence of Christ in the bread,
yes, but in you, and you, and you--in all of us. We owe a profound reverence
to each other, a humble and loving service to each other. This new emphasis
is one reason the communion has become, for most of us, a completion of
the Mass, food for the journey, not a reward for being good. I suggest this is
what the Lord had in mind when he said, "This is my body, given for you."
If the body of Christ is a daily bread, is it for everyone? If you are speaking
of the non-Christian or non-believer, that's a difficult question. Meaning or
belief and some quality of faith always should enter in. Let me put it this
way: we do not feel right barring anyone from the sacrament. Some would
argue that this sacrament, as well as penance, is a ritual that signifies
healing, becoming whole, and it is precisely in our brokenness that we need
it even more. We need to know that we belong to One who is stronger than
us, and who loves us unfailingly, despite our failures. .
Communion, we said, is intended to be a daily bread--strength for the
journey. So is the word of God, that other bread by which we live. And both
word and sacrament are the church's method of assuring us that we do not
walk alone, nor without a script to give hope and meaning to our lives. Read
again – better yet, memorize and meditate-- that incomparable passage in
Luke, the journey to Emmaus. The travelers are us, and the hidden stranger
is Jesus, who explains the scriptures to them. And you know how it ends;
“they knew him in the breaking of the bread.” So do we.