Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Body and Blood of Christ

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate with great joy one of the most wonderful feasts on our Church calendar, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Through this greatest of all gifts, we have been made one with our God who loves his people beyond all imagining. We experience this love in perhaps one of the most basic ways of our human existence, which is to say by being fed. Learning to satisfy our hunger is one of the first things we learn; we learn who we can depend on and develop close relationships with those people. Today’s feast brings it to a higher level, of course. The hunger we’re talking about is not mere physical hunger, but instead a deep inner yearning, a hunger for wholeness, for relatedness, for intimate union with our God. This is a hunger that we all have, and despite our feeble attempts to do otherwise, it cannot be filled with anything less than God.


    God has repeatedly sought a covenant with us. Eucharistic Prayer IV beautifully summarizes God’s desire: “You formed man in your own image and entrusted the whole world to his care, so that in serving you alone, the Creator, he might have dominion over all creatures. And when through disobedience he had lost your friendship, you did not abandon him to the domain of death. For you came in mercy to the aid of all, so that those who seek might find you. Time and again you offered them covenants and through the prophets taught them to look forward to salvation.” And unlike human covenants, which have to be ratified by both parties, and are useless unless both parties agree, the covenant offered by God is effective on its face. God initiates the covenant, unilaterally, out of love for us. Our hardness of heart, our sinfulness, our constant turning away from the covenant do not nullify that covenant. God’s grace transcends our weakness, God’s jealous love for us and constant pursuit of us is limitless.


    Today’s Liturgy of the Word shows us the history of the covenant. The first reading recalls the covenant God made with the Israelites through the ministry of Moses. The people agree to do everything the Lord commanded, and Moses seals the covenant by sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice and saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of his.” The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews makes the point that if the blood of sacrificed animals can bring people back in relationship with God, how much more could the blood of Christ draw back all those who have strayed. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, as he himself said in the Gospel: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”
    And so we, among the many, benefit from Christ’s blood of the covenant. The preface for the Eucharist Prayer today says, “As we eat his flesh that was sacrificed for us, we are made strong, and, as we drink his Blood that was poured out for us, we are washed clean.” God’s desire for covenant with us cannot be stopped by sin or death or the grave because his grace is mightier than all of that.

    We disciples are called then to respond to the covenant. Having been recipients of the great grace of God’s love, we are called to live the covenant in our relationships with others. Which isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes people test our desire to be in covenant with them; sometimes they don’t even want to be in covenant with us. But the model for our relationships with others is the relationship God has with us. And so sometimes we have to unilaterally extend the covenant, even if the other isn’t willing, or doesn’t know, that we care for them. God wants to offer the covenant to everyone on earth, and he may well be using us to extend the covenant to those he puts in our path.


    We do this in so many ways. We might occasionally bring a bag of groceries for the Plainfield Interfaith Food Pantry, or even a few things for our micropantry here at the parish. We might spend time volunteering in our school or religious education program, or in any of our many ministries here. Any time we can freely give ourselves to others, we are extending the covenant to them by loving them unconditionally, as God has gloriously done for us.


    God’s covenant with us is renewed every day, and celebrated every time we come to receive Holy Communion. When we receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are renewed in the covenant, strengthened in grace and holiness, and brought nearer to our God who longs for us. We who are so richly graced can do no less than extend the covenant to others, helping them too to know God’s love for them, feeding them physically and spiritually.

    The Psalmist asks today, “How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he has done for me?” And the answer is given: by taking up the chalice of salvation, drinking of God’s grace, renewing the covenant, and passing it on to others. May the Body and Blood of Christ keep us all safe for eternal life!

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Bilingual Procession Mass)

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Bilingual Procession Mass)

    This is the homily I preached for our bilingual Mass including the Procession with the Blessed Sacrament. I fear my Spanish was lacking, but I did the best I could…

    Quizás el aspecto más distintivo de nuestra devoción católica es nuestra celebración de la Eucaristía. Afirmamos firmemente que no es solo un símbolo. Es el verdadero Cuerpo y Sangre de nuestro Señor. Sabemos que estamos espiritualmente ante la presencia de nuestro Señor cada vez que recibimos la Comunión o ante la Adoración al Santísimo. Aún más, creemos que, en la Eucaristía, nos convertimos en lo que recibimos: nos convertimos en parte del Cuerpo Místico de Cristo, y en ese Cuerpo todos nos convertimos en uno. Nosotros los católicos creemos que la Eucaristía nos hace uno, y por eso es bueno que todos nos unamos para celebrar esta fiesta del Santísimo Cuerpo y la Sangre de Cristo.

    Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Catholic worship is our celebration of the Eucharist.  We state very strongly that it’s not just a symbol.  It is the actual Body and Blood of our Lord.  We know that we are spiritually in the presence of our Lord whenever we receive Communion or adore the Blessed Sacrament.  But even more, we believe that, in the Eucharist, we become what we receive: we become part of the Mystical Body of Christ, and in that Body we all become one.  We Catholics believe that the Eucharist makes us one, and because of that, it is good for all of us to come together as oneto celebrate this feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

    I remember when I travelled to Mexico when I was in seminary to learn Spanish.  I have forgotten, unfortunately, a lot of what I learned, but I’ll never forget the first day.  The first day was a Sunday, and we flew into Mexico City, got picked up by the school, and then we were introduced to the families we would be living with.  The people I was going to live with assumed correctly that I wouldn’t have been to Mass yet, so on the way home we went to Mass at the cathedral in Cuernavaca.  So I’m attending Mass with only my high school Spanish, and the little bit of liturgical Spanish I picked up from when we used Spanish in Mass at seminary.  A lot of what I heard, I didn’t understand, but there was one thing I couldn’t miss, and that was the Eucharist.

    We may express our unity in many ways in the Mass.  We all sing the same songs.  We all stand or sit together.  We might all join hands at the Lord’s Prayer.  And those are all okay things, but they are not what unites us.  They put us on a somewhat equal footing, but that can happen in all kinds of gatherings.  The one thing that unites us at this gathering, the experience we have here that we don’t have in any other situation, is the Eucharist.  The Eucharist unites us in the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, where all division must necessarily cease.  The Eucharist is the definitive celebration of our unity.

    On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are called to take comfort in the many ways God feeds us. We know that when we pray “give us this day our daily bread,” we will receive all that we need and more, because our God loves us and cares for us. But to really trust in God’s care can sometimes be a bit of a scary moment.

    It was certainly scary for the disciples, who asked Jesus to “dismiss the crowds” so that they could go into the surrounding cities and get something to eat. They were afraid for the crowds because they had come to the desert, where there was nothing to eat or drink. They were afraid for the crowds because it would soon be dark and then it would be dangerous to travel into the surrounding cities to find refuge and sustenance. And, if they were to really admit it, they were afraid of the crowds, because all they had to offer them were five loaves of bread and two fish – hardly a meal for Jesus and the Twelve, let alone five thousand.

    But Jesus isn’t having any of that. Fear is no match for God’s mercy and care and providence, so instead of dismissing the crowds, he tells the disciples to gather the people in groups of about fifty. Then he takes the disciples’ meager offering, with every intent of supplying whatever it lacked. He blesses their offerings, transforming them from an impoverished snack to a rich, nourishing meal. He breaks the bread, enabling all those present to partake of it, and finally he gives that meal to the crowd, filling their hungering bodies and souls with all that they need and then some. Caught in a deserted place with darkness encroaching and practically nothing to offer in the way of food, Jesus overcomes every obstacle and feeds the crowd with abundance. It’s no wonder they followed him to this out of the way place.

    The disciples had to be amazed at this turn of events, and perhaps it was an occasion for them of coming to know Jesus and his ministry in a deeper way. They were fed not just physically by this meal, but they were fed in faith as well. In this miraculous meal, they came to know that their Jesus could be depended on to keep them from danger and to transform the bleakest of moments into the most joyous of all festivals. But even as their faith moved to a deeper level, the challenge of that faith was cranked up a notch as well. “Give them some food yourselves,” Jesus said to them. Having been fed physically and spiritually by their Master, they were now charged with feeding others in the very same way.

    Christ has come to supply every need. In Jesus, nothing is lacking and no one suffers want. All the Lord asks of the five thousand is what he also asks of us each Sunday: to gather as a sacred assembly, to unite in offering worship with Jesus who is our High Priest, to receive Holy Communion, and to go forth to share the remaining abundance of our feast with others who have yet to be fed. After the crowd had eaten the meal, that was the time for them to go out into the surrounding villages and farms – not to find something to eat, but to share with everyone they met the abundance that they had been given. So it is for us. After we are fed in the Eucharist, we must then necessarily go forth in peace, glorifying the Lord by sharing our own abundance with every person we meet.  We too must hear and answer those very challenging words of Jesus: “Give them some food yourselves.”

    What we celebrate today is that our God is dependable and that we can rely on him for our needs. Just as he was dependable to feed the vast crowd in that out-of-the-way place, so he too can reach out to us, no matter where we are on the journey, and feed us beyond our wildest imaginings. The challenge to give others something to eat need not be frightening because we know that the source of the food is not our own limited offerings, but the great abundance of God himself. We need not fear any kind of hunger – our own or that of others – because it’s ultimately not about us or what we can offer, but what God can do in and through us.

    In our Eucharist today, the quiet time after Communion is our time to gather up the wicker baskets of our abundance, to reflect on what God has given us and done for us and done with us. We who receive the great meal of his own Body and Blood must be resolved to give from those wicker baskets in our day-to-day life, feeding all those people God has given us in our lives. We do all this, gathered as one in the Eucharist, in remembrance of Christ, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes again.

    Que el Cuerpo y la Sangre de Cristo nos mantengan seguros para la vida eterna.  May the Body and Blood of Christ keep us all safe for eternal life.

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate with great joy one of the most wonderful feasts on our Church calendar, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  Through this greatest of all gifts, we have been made one with our God who loves his people beyond all imagining.  We experience this love in perhaps one of the most basic ways of our human existence, which is to say by being fed.  Learning to satisfy our hunger is one of the first things we learn; we learn who we can depend on and develop close relationships with those people.  Today’s feast brings it to a higher level, of course.  The hunger we’re talking about is not mere physical hunger, but instead a deep inner yearning, a hunger for wholeness, for relatedness, for intimate union with our God.  This is a hunger that we all have, and despite our feeble attempts to do otherwise, it cannot be filled with anything less than God.

    What we see in our God is one who has always desired deep union with his people.  Salvation began with the creation of the whole world, the saving of Noah and those on the ark, the covenant made with Abraham, the ministry of the prophets, and ultimately culminated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world.  God never lost interest in his creation; he didn’t set the world in motion and then back off to leave everything to its own devices.  God has time and again intervened in human history, offering us an olive branch, seeking renewal of our relationship with him, and bringing us back no matter how far we have fallen.

    God has repeatedly sought to have a covenant with us.  Eucharistic Prayer IV beautifully summarizes God’s desire. It says: “You formed man in your own image and entrusted the whole world to his care, so that in serving you alone, the Creator, he might have dominion over all creatures. And when through disobedience he had lost your friendship, you did not abandon him to the domain of death.  For you came in mercy to the aid of all, so that those who seek might find you.  Time and again you offered them covenants and through the prophets taught them to look forward to salvation.”  And unlike human covenants, which have to be ratified by both parties, and are useless unless both parties agree and commit to them, the covenant offered by God is effective on its face.  God initiates the covenant, unilaterally, out of love for us.  Our hardness of heart, our sinfulness, our constant turning away from the covenant does not nullify that covenant.  God’s grace transcends our weakness, God’s zealous love for us and constant pursuit of us is limitless.

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word shows us the history of the covenant.  The first reading recalls the covenant God made with the Israelites through the ministry of Moses.  The people agree to do everything the Lord commanded, and Moses seals the covenant by sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice and saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his.”  The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews makes the point that if the blood of sacrificed animals can bring people back in relationship with God, how much more could the blood of Christ draw back all those who have strayed.  Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, as he himself said in the Gospel: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”

    And so we, among the many, benefit from Christ’s blood of the covenant.  The preface for the Eucharist Prayer today says, “As we eat his flesh that was sacrificed for us, we are made strong, and, as we drink his Blood that was poured out for us, we are washed clean.”  God’s desire for covenant with us cannot be stopped by sin or death or the grave because his grace is mightier than all of that.

    We disciples are called then to respond to the covenant.  Having been recipients of the great grace of God’s love, we are called to live the covenant in our relationships with others.  Which isn’t always the easiest thing to do.  Sometimes people test our desire to be in covenant with them; sometimes they don’t even want to be in covenant with us.  But the model for our relationships with others is the relationship God has with us.  And so sometimes we have to unilaterally extend the covenant, even if the other isn’t willing, or doesn’t know, that we care for them.  God wants to offer the covenant to everyone on earth, and he may well be using us to extend the covenant to those he puts in our path.

    We do this in so many ways.  Here at Saint Mary’s, one of the important ways we do that is through the Interfaith Food Pantry which serves so many families each month.  Often food pantry donations dwindle in the summer when we are thinking about other things, or are away on vacation.  But the need for their ministry does not change.  One important way that we can extend the covenant of grace that we have received is to feed the hungry.  I would like to invite all of you to think about a donation of food for the poor the next time you do your grocery shopping.  It will go a long way to helping needy families through the summer months.

    God’s covenant with us is renewed every day, and celebrated every time we come to receive Holy Communion. When we receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are renewed in the covenant, strengthened in grace and holiness, and brought nearer to our God who longs for us.  We who are so richly graced can do no less than extend the covenant to others, helping them too to know God’s love for them, feeding them physically and spiritually.

    The Psalmist asks today, “How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he has done for me?”  And the answer is given: by taking up the chalice of salvation, drinking of God’s grace, renewing the covenant, and passing it on to others.  May the Body and Blood of Christ keep us all safe for eternal life!

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    In the summer of my first year of seminary, the diocese sent me to Mexico to learn Spanish.  This time next week, I’ll be wishing that worked a lot better than it did!  I have forgotten, unfortunately, a lot of what I learned, but I’ll never forget the first day.  The first day was a Sunday, and we flew into Mexico City, got picked up by the school, and then introduced to the families we would be living with.  The people I was going to live with assumed correctly that I wouldn’t have been to Mass yet, so on the way home we went to Mass at the cathedral in Cuernavaca.  So I’m attending Mass with only my high school Spanish, and the little bit of liturgical Spanish I picked up from when we used Spanish in Mass at seminary.  A lot of what I heard, I didn’t understand, but there was one thing I couldn’t miss, and that was the Eucharist.

    In our second reading today, Saint Paul says, “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”  No matter where we live or what language we speak, we are one body in Christ, who gives himself completely to us … all of us.  We try to symbolize that in lots of ways in the liturgy: saying the same prayers, singing the same songs, even holding hands at the Lord’s Prayer.  All of that is nice, but the most important way that we show our unity is when we come to the altar and receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord, who gave himself so that we may be one in him, and may have the strength to follow him to heaven one day.

    One of the greatest joys for me the last six and a half years here at Notre Dame has been celebrating that with you.  Whether it was daily Mass or Sunday Mass, or a First Communion, a wedding or a funeral, or even Christmas or Easter Mass, all of that has been a great privilege to celebrate with you.

    Now over these last years here at Notre Dame, I’ve learned a lot.  And I’ve even learned from Father Venard, and so I want to include a joke at this point in my homily!  The new pastor arrived at his parish, and as he was unpacking and putting things into the desk in his office, he found a note attached to three envelopes in a little bundle.  The envelopes were numbered one to three.  They were from the priest he was replacing and the note said that if ever things got bad and there was a little storm, he should open an envelope, beginning with the first.  He chuckled a bit, and set them aside, and things went so well that he almost forgot about them.  Until there was a controversy.  Things were getting ugly, and he remembered the envelopes and decided to open the first.  It said, very simply, “Blame me, your predecessor.”  So he did.  He blamed the priest before him, and everyone accepted that, and they moved on.  But eventually there was another controversy, and so he decided to open the second envelope.  It said, “Blame the pastoral council.”  So that’s what he did.  He blamed the pastoral council and things blew over and they moved on.  But, after a little while, there was a third controversy, so in desperation, he opened the last of the envelopes.  This note was a little longer than the others, but the first line really got his attention: “Prepare three envelopes.”

    I won’t be leaving three envelopes for Father David, but I do want to leave you with three things.  The first is thanks.  I don’t know how I can ever express my gratitude enough.  So many of you have been with me in good times and bad, and have supported me and taught me and worked with me and made me a better priest and a better man in Christ.  I have worked with some of the finest people I’ve ever known on our parish staff, on our parish council, finance council, school board, buildings and grounds and most recently on the capital campaign.  I have enjoyed rolling up my sleeves with you on service day, singing with you at the Christmas Concert, and serving with the many fine people who help me make the Liturgy happen here each week.  You have brought me soup when I was sick, and cookies when I needed joy, and asked about my family and made them feel part of the family here.  Many wise priests have told me that you never forget the first parish where you were a pastor, and I am certain they are right.  I will never forget you, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

    The second thing I want to leave you with is an apology.  I know there are days that I haven’t been at my finest for many reasons.  So if you’ve encountered me when I’ve been preoccupied or grumpy or frustrated, if ever I have been less than Christ to you, please know that I am so sorry.

    And finally I want to leave you with a gift.  This one is one that maybe you’ve picked up along the way, because I talk about it a lot.  The children know it by heart.  And that gift is that God loves you more than anything.  All of you together, and each of you individually, are loved so much by God that he sent his Son into the world to bring us all home to heaven one day.  He loves us so much that he could not bear to live without us, so he sent his Son to die in our place, and rise up over death so that we could have life.  If that’s the only thing you remember about God, let it be that: that God loves you.  And if the only thing you remember about me is that I told you that, it will be more than enough.

    God loves you, and I love you too.  I won’t forget you, you’ll always be in my prayers, and I hope I’ll be in yours.  We will always be one body in Christ.  And because of that, I don’t say goodbye; I just say I love you.  And I look forward to that great day when, as Saint Benedict wrote, we all go together to everlasting life.

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    During World War II, the officers of the Third Reich’s secret service forcefully recruited many 12- and 13-year-old boys into the Junior Gestapo. The harshly treated boys were given only inhumane jobs that they were to perform without rest or complaint. After the war ended, most had lost contact with their families and wandered aimlessly, without food or shelter. As part of an aid program to rebuild postwar Germany, many of these youths were housed in tent cities. There, doctors and nurses worked with them in an attempt to restore their physical, mental and emotional health.

    Many of the boys would awaken several times during the night screaming in terror. But one doctor had an idea for handling their fears. After serving the boys a hearty meal, he’d tuck them into bed with a piece of bread in their hands that they were told to save until morning. The boys began to sleep soundly after that because, after so many years of hunger and uncertainty as to their next meal, they finally had the assurance of food for the next day.

    On the last day of my dad’s life, I gave him Holy Communion for what would be the last time. He was able to pray with us, and was so grateful to receive the Sacrament of Jesus’ own Body and Blood. We call that last Communion Viaticum which, in Latin, means “bread for the journey.” Like the former Junior Gestapo boys who slept soundly because they knew they had food for the next day, my dad was able to rest in Christ knowing that he would be able to eat at the heavenly banquet table.

    On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are called to take comfort in the many ways God feeds us. We know that when we pray “give us this day our daily bread,” we will receive all that we need and more, because our God loves us and cares for us. But to really trust in God’s care can sometimes be a bit of a scary moment.

    It was certainly scary for the disciples, who asked Jesus to “dismiss the crowds” so that they could go into the surrounding cities and get something to eat. They were afraid for the crowds because they had come to the desert, where there was nothing to eat or drink. They were afraid for the crowds because it would soon be dark and then it would be dangerous to travel into the surrounding cities to find refuge and sustenance. And, if they were to really admit it, they were afraid of the crowds, because all they had to offer them were five loaves of bread and two fish – hardly a meal for Jesus and the Twelve, let alone five thousand.

    But Jesus isn’t having any of that. Fear is no match for God’s mercy and care and providence, so instead of dismissing the crowds, he tells the disciples to gather the people in groups of about fifty. Then he takes the disciples’ meager offering, with every intent of supplying whatever it lacked. He blesses their offerings, transforming them from an impoverished snack to a rich, nourishing meal. He breaks the bread, enabling all those present to partake of it, and finally he gives that meal to the crowd, filling their hungering bodies and souls with all that they need and then some. Caught in a deserted place with darkness encroaching and practically nothing to offer in the way of food, Jesus overcomes every obstacle and feeds the crowd with abundance. It’s no wonder they followed him to this out of the way place.

    The disciples had to be amazed at this turn of events, and perhaps it was an occasion for them of coming to know Jesus and his ministry in a deeper way. They were fed not just physically by this meal, but they were fed in faith as well. In this miraculous meal, they came to know that their Jesus could be depended on to keep them from danger and to transform the bleakest of moments into the most joyous of all festivals. But even as their faith moved to a deeper level, the challenge of that faith was cranked up a notch as well. “Give them some food yourselves,” Jesus said to them. Having been fed physically and spiritually by their Master, they were now charged with feeding others in the very same way.

    Christ has come to supply every need. In Jesus, nothing is lacking and no one suffers want. All the Lord asks of the five thousand is what he also asks of us each Sunday: to gather as a sacred assembly, to unite in offering worship with Jesus who is our High Priest, to receive Holy Communion, and to go forth to share the remaining abundance of our feast with others who have yet to be fed. After the crowd had eaten the meal, that was the time for them to go out into the surrounding villages and farms – not to find something to eat, but to share with everyone they met the abundance that they had been given. So it is for us. After we are fed in the Eucharist, we must then necessarily go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord by sharing our own abundance with every person we meet.

    You might do that by participating in a small faith community or a Bible study, sharing the Scriptures and our own living faith with your brothers and sisters. Maybe you would do that by becoming an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, and dedicating yourselves to the ministry of distributing the precious gift of the Lord’s own Body and Blood each Sunday, or even volunteering to bring Holy Communion to the sick and homebound. But you could also do that by volunteering with our food pantry. Then too, sharing our abundance of spiritual blessing doesn’t have to be very elaborate. You might just bring a meal to a friend going through a hard time or visit a neighbor who is a shut-in. Jesus is the font of every blessing, and it is up to us to share that blessing with everyone in every way we can. We too must hear and answer those challenging words of Jesus: “Give them some food yourselves.”

    What we celebrate today is that our God is dependable and that we can rely on him for our needs. Just as he was dependable to feed the vast crowd in that out-of the-way place, so he too can reach out to us, no matter where we are on the journey, and feed us beyond our wildest imaginings. Just as the Junior Gestapo boys were able to rest easy as they clutched that bread for the next day, so we too can rest easy, depending on our God to give us all that we need to meet the challenges of tomorrow and beyond. The challenge to give others something to eat need not be frightening because we know that the source of the food is not our own limited offerings, but the great abundance of God himself. We need not fear any kind of hunger – our own or that of others – because it’s ultimately not about us or what we can offer, but what God can do in and through us.

    In our Eucharist today, the quiet time after Communion is our time to gather up the wicker baskets of our abundance, to reflect on what God has given us and done for us and done with us. We who receive the great meal of his own Body and Blood must be resolved to give from those wicker baskets in our day-to-day life, feeding all those people God has given us in our lives. We do all this in remembrance of Christ, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes again.

    May the Body and Blood of Christ keep us all safe for eternal life.

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate with great joy one of the most wonderful feasts on our Church calendar, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Through this greatest of all gifts, we have been made one with our God who loves his people beyond all imagining. We experience this love in perhaps one of the most basic ways of our human existence, which is to say by being fed. Learning to satisfy our hunger is one of the first things we learn; we learn who we can depend on and develop close relationships with those people. Today’s feast brings it to a higher level, of course. The hunger we’re talking about is not mere physical hunger, but instead a deep inner yearning, a hunger for wholeness, for relatedness, for intimate union with our God. This is a hunger that we all have, and despite our feeble attempts to do otherwise, it cannot be filled with anything less than God.

    What we see in our God is one who has always desired deep union with his people. Salvation began with the creation of the whole world, the saving of Noah and those on the ark, the covenant made with Abraham, the ministry of the prophets, and ultimately culminated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. God never lost interest in his creation; he didn’t set the world in motion and then back off to leave everything to its own devices. God has time and again intervened in human history, offering us an olive branch, seeking renewal of our relationship with him, and bringing us back no matter how far we have fallen.

    God has repeatedly sought to covenant with us. Eucharistic Prayer IV beautifully summarizes God’s desire: “You formed man in your own image and entrusted the whole world to his care, so that in serving you alone, the Creator, he might have dominion over all creatures. And when through disobedience he had lost your friendship, you did not abandon him to the domain of death. For you came in mercy to the aid of all, so that those who seek might find you. Time and again you offered them covenants and through the prophets taught them to look forward to salvation.” And unlike human covenants, which have to be ratified by both parties, and are useless unless both parties agree, the covenant offered by God is effective on its face. God initiates the covenant, unilaterally, out of love for us. Our hardness of heart, our sinfulness, our constant turning away from the covenant do not nullify that covenant. God’s grace transcends our weakness, God’s jealous love for us and constant pursuit of us is limitless.

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word shows us the history of the covenant. The first reading recalls the covenant God made with the Israelites through the ministry of Moses. The people agree to do everything the Lord commanded, and Moses seals the covenant by sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice and saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his.” The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews makes the point that if the blood of sacrificed animals can bring people back in relationship with God, how much more could the blood of Christ draw back all those who have strayed. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, as he himself said in the Gospel: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”

    And so we, among the many, benefit from Christ’s blood of the covenant. The preface for the Eucharist Prayer today says, “As we eat his flesh that was sacrificed for us, we are made strong, and, as we drink his Blood that was poured out for us, we are washed clean.” God’s desire for covenant with us cannot be stopped by sin or death or the grave because his grace is mightier than all of that.

    We disciples are called then to respond to the covenant. Having been recipients of the great grace of God’s love, we are called to live the covenant in our relationships with others. Which isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes people test our desire to covenant with them; sometimes they don’t even want to be in covenant with us. But the model for our relationships with others is the relationship God has with us. And so sometimes we have to unilaterally extend the covenant, even if the other isn’t willing, or doesn’t know, that we care for them. God wants to offer the covenant to everyone on earth, and he may well be using us to extend the covenant to those he puts in our path.

    We do this in so many ways. Here at Notre Dame, one of the important ways we do that is through our food pantry which serves over 60 families each month. Our Food Pantry has the distinction of bringing the food donations to the families, which is so helpful to those who do not have reliable transportation. Over the past months, our food donations have dwindled, and we were hopeful of a large donation from the food drive by the Clarendon Hills Post Office, but it was not as large as we had hoped. During the summer months, food donations tend to dwindle further, although the need for them does not. One way that we can extend the covenant of grace that we have received is to feed the hungry. I would like to invite all of you to bring a bag of food for the poor next week, even though this is not our regular food pantry collection week. It will go a long way to helping needy families through the summer months.

    God’s covenant with us is renewed every day, and celebrated every time we come to receive Holy Communion. When we receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are renewed in the covenant, strengthened in grace and holiness, and brought nearer to our God who longs for us. We who are so richly graced can do no less than extend the covenant to others, helping them too to know God’s love for them, feeding them physically and spiritually.

    The Psalmist asks today, “How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he has done for me?” And the answer is given: by taking up the chalice of salvation, drinking of God’s grace, renewing the covenant, and passing it on to others. May the Body and Blood of Christ keep us all safe for eternal life!

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    If you’ve ever travelled abroad, to a country where English is not the spoken language, maybe you’ve had this experience.  I travelled to Mexico when I was in seminary to learn Spanish.  The first day I was there, we went to Mass at the local Cathedral.  Even though at that point my Spanish was pretty sketchy, still I recognized the Mass.  That’s because we celebrate it in the same way, with the same words – albeit in a different language – everywhere on earth.  In the Eucharist, we are one.  “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”  That’s what St. Paul tells the Corinthians today, and we are meant to hear it as well.  We are called to unity with one another as we gather around the Altar to partake of the one Body of Christ.

    We may express our unity in many ways in the Mass.  We all sing the same songs.  We all stand or sit together.  We might all join hands at the Lord’s Prayer.  And those are all okay things, but they are not what unites us.  They put us on a somewhat equal footing, but that can happen in all kinds of gatherings.  The one thing that unites us at this gathering, the experience we have here that we don’t have in any other situation, is the Eucharist.  The Eucharist unites us in the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, where all division must necessarily cease.  The Eucharist is the celebration of our unity par excellence.

    Having said that, there are obvious ways in which we can notice that we are not, in fact, one.  The Eucharist, which is the celebration of our unity, can often remind us in a very stark and disheartening way, of the ways that we remain divided with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  The most obvious of these ways is the way that we Catholics remain divided with our Protestant brothers and sisters, and in fact, they with each other as well.  The proliferation of Christian denominations is something we can soft-petal as “different strokes for different folks,” but is in fact a rather sad reminder that the Church that Jesus founded and intended to be one is in fact fragmented in ways that it seems can only be overcome by a miracle.  In our Creed we profess a Church that is “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.”  By “catholic” here, we may indeed mean “universal” but that does not, of course, mean that we are in fact one.

    Another thing that divides all of us from one another is sin.  Mortal sin separates us not only from God, not only from those we have wronged, but also from the Church and all of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  When we have sinned greatly, we are not permitted in good conscience to receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, because we cannot dare to pretend to be one with those we have separated ourselves from through mortal sin.

    “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him,” Jesus says to us today.  When we remain in him, we also remain united to one another through Christ.  This is what God wants for his Church, so today we must recommit ourselves to unity, real unity.  So if you have not been to Confession in a while, make it a priority to do that in the next week or so that you can be one with us at the Table of the Lord.  And at Communion today, we must all make it our prayer that the many things that divide us might soon melt away so that we can all become one in the real way the Jesus meant for us.

    “I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
    whoever eats this bread will live forever;
    and the bread that I will give
    is my flesh for the life of the world.    ”

    On this feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, we pray that every person may one day come to share in the flesh of our Savior, given for the life of the world, and we pray that his great desire might come to pass: that we may be one.

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    Today’s feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is an incredible privilege for us to celebrate.  That our God, who is higher than the heavens and more glorious than anything we could ever possibly imagine, would give himself to us, his creatures, so completely that we would have him as our food and drink, sustenance for body and soul, into eternity, is a mystery almost too wonderful to comprehend!  Yet that is what we gather to call to mind this weekend.

    In the Gospel reading today, we see just exactly how wonderful a miracle the Eucharist is.  A large crowd has gathered to hang on the words of Jesus, and to see what he might do next.  The disciples, however, become fearful because it is late in the day, and they know they have only a mere five loaves and two fish, and that’s never going to be enough to feed all those people.  They fear, I think, that the crowd may get ugly when they realize there is nothing to eat and it’s too late to go buy anything in the surrounding area.

    So they come to Jesus and tell him to cut the homily short and dismiss the crowds so they can run off and get some food.  But Jesus turns it all around on them.  “Give them some food yourselves,” he says.  And I can just imagine the disciples freaking out!  But Jesus knows where this is going and is fully aware of what he intends to do.  So ignoring their lack of faith, he has them bring the meager five loaves and two fish that they do have, and he makes of it a feast that is enough, and actually more than enough, to feed the hungry crowd.

    This is a great story and we’re very familiar with it, I’m sure.  But you know how this goes.  The commands of Jesus are never just for those who heard them the first time.  Instead he says the very same thing to us: “Give them some food yourselves.”  His intent is that we who have been fed superabundantly on his own Body and Blood, would go then and be Christ for others, feeding them in ways too wonderful to imagine.  But how would something like that even be possible?

    And that’s the reaction I think that some of us have when we are faced with the rather daunting prospect of sharing of our time, talent and treasure.  But that’s exactly what Jesus intends for us to do.  “Give them some food yourselves,” he says, and we are called upon to respond.

    Now some of us perhaps don’t share out of selfishness.  I hope that’s not true, but it does happen.  And we know very well what Scripture teaches about that: we have to get over ourselves and remember who gave us what we have in the first place, and be as generous to others as God has been to us.  We are taught that selfishness leads only to unhappiness in this life and eternal unrest in the life to come.  We know this.

    But I really think that of those who don’t really give of their time, talent and treasure, it’s because of a belief very similar to what the disciples had in the Gospel today.  I think some of us don’t give of ourselves because we feel like we only have very little to give, kind of like the five loaves and two fish, and how on earth is that even going to be at all helpful in the face of such great need?  Better that we send everyone on their way to fend for themselves as best they can.  But Jesus didn’t accept that from the disciples and he isn’t having any of that from us either.  “Give them some food yourselves.”

    Because not offering something – be in an hour or two of time a week or even a month, or a very small percentage of what we earn – because we don’t think it’s enough to do anything very much is tantamount to a lack of faith.  That’s what exasperated Jesus when he saw it in his disciples.  And he wants us to be better than that.  He wants us to see that whatever little bit we can give can become enough, and more than enough, to feed every need we can see, if we entrust it to his hands.

    Jesus isn’t asking us to put an end to hunger; he’s asking us to feed one hungry person.  He isn’t asking us to solve the problem of homelessness; he’s asking us to help the youth group build a house in the poverty stricken parts of Jamaica and Kentucky this summer.  He isn’t asking us to single-handedly balance the parish’s budget; he’s asking us to give whatever we can and trust that others will too so that the parish can accomplish its mission.  Everyone can give something: time, talent and/or treasure.  I tell the folks in the nursing home that they can give of themselves just by being patient with their neighbors and being present to their friends and family.  Everyone can give someone some food themselves.

    Today’s Gospel miracle isn’t just a nice story that we are meant to admire from the distance of a couple of thousand years.  We are meant to live it and experience it in the here and now by receiving the generous gift of God poured out most perfectly in his Body and Blood, by giving what we can give, and by trusting that God can make something truly great happen with what we have offered.  Give them some food yourselves.

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    During World War II, the officers of the Third Reich’s secret service forcefully recruited many 12- and 13-year-old boys into the Junior Gestapo. The harshly treated boys were given only inhumane jobs that they were to perform without rest or complaint.

    After the war ended, most had lost contact with their families and wandered aimlessly, without food or shelter. As part of an aid program to rebuild postwar Germany, many of these youths were housed in tent cities. There, doctors and nurses worked with them in an attempt to restore their physical, mental and emotional health.

    Many of the boys would awaken several times during the night screaming in terror. But one doctor had an idea for handling their fears. After serving the boys a hearty meal, he’d tuck them into bed with a piece of bread in their hands that they were told to save until morning. The boys began to sleep soundly after that because, after so many years of hunger and uncertainty as to their next meal, they finally had the assurance of food for the next day.

    On the last day of my dad’s life a little over three years ago, I gave him Holy Communion for what would be the last time. He was able to pray with us, and was so grateful to receive the Sacrament of Jesus’ own body and blood. We call that last Communion Viaticum which, in Latin, means “bread for the journey.” Like the former Junior Gestapo boys who slept soundly because they knew they had food for the next day, my dad was able to rest in Christ knowing that he would be able to eat at the heavenly banquet table.

    On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are called to take comfort in the many ways God feeds us. We know that when we pray “give us this day our daily bread,” we will receive all that we need and more, because our God loves us and cares for us. But to really trust in God’s care can sometimes be a bit of a scary moment.

    It was certainly scary for the disciples, who asked Jesus to “dismiss the crowds” so that they could go into the surrounding cities and get something to eat. They were afraid for the crowds because they had come to the desert, where there was nothing to eat or drink. They were afraid for the crowds because it would soon be dark and then it would be dangerous to travel into the surrounding cities to find refuge and sustenance. And, if they were to really admit it, they were afraid of the crowds, because all they had to offer them were five loaves of bread and two fish – hardly a meal for the Twelve, let alone five thousand.

    But Jesus isn’t having any of that. Fear is no match for God’s mercy and care and providence, so instead of dismissing the crowds, he tells the disciples to gather the people in groups of about fifty. Then he takes the disciples’ meager offering, with every intent of supplying whatever it lacked. He blesses their offerings, transforming them from an impoverished snack to a rich, nourishing meal. He breaks the bread, enabling all those present to partake of it, and finally he gives that meal to the crowd, filling their hungering bodies and souls with all that they need and then some. Caught in a deserted place with darkness encroaching and practically nothing to offer in the way of food, Jesus overcomes every obstacle and feeds the crowd with abundance. It’s no wonder they followed him to this out of the way place.

    The disciples had to be amazed at this turn of events, and perhaps it was an occasion for them of coming to know Jesus and his ministry in a deeper way. They were fed not just physically by this meal, but they were fed in faith as well. In this miraculous meal, they came to know that their Jesus could be depended on to keep them from danger and to transform the bleakest of moments into the most joyous of all festivals. But even as their faith moved to a deeper level, the challenge of that faith was cranked up a notch as well. “You give them something to eat,” Jesus said to them. Having been fed physically and spiritually by their Master, they were now charged with feeding others in the very same way.

    Christ has come to supply every need. In Jesus, nothing is lacking and no one suffers want. All the Lord asks of the five thousand is what he also asks of us each Sunday: to gather as a sacred assembly, to unite in offering worship with Jesus who is our High Priest, to receive Holy Communion, and to go forth to share the remaining abundance of our feast with others who have yet to be fed. After the crowd had eaten the meal, that was the time for them to go out into the surrounding villages and farms – not to find something to eat, but to share with everyone they met the abundance that they had been given. So it is for us. After we are fed in the Eucharist, we must then necessarily go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord by sharing our own abundance with every person we meet.

    You might do that by participating in a small faith community or a bible study, sharing the Scriptures and our own living faith with your brothers and sisters. Maybe you would do that by becoming an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, and dedicating yourselves to the ministry of distributing the precious gift of the Lord’s own Body and Blood each Sunday, or even volunteering to bring Holy Communion to the sick and homebound. But you could also do that by volunteering bringing food to the Glen Ellyn Food Pantry, or by volunteering to package meals at Feed My Starving Children. Sharing our abundance of spiritual blessing doesn’t have to be very elaborate. You might just bring a meal to a friend going through a hard time or visit a neighbor who is a shut-in. Jesus is the font of every blessing, and it is up to us to share that blessing with everyone in every way we can. We too must hear and answer those challenging words of Jesus: “You give them something to eat.”

    What we celebrate today is that our God is dependable and that we can rely on him for our needs. Just as he was dependable to feed the vast crowd in that horrible, out-of the-way place, so he too can reach out to us, no matter where we are on the journey, and feed us beyond our wildest imaginings. Just as the Junior Gestapo boys were able to rest easy as they clutched that bread for the next day, so we too can rest easy, depending on our God to give us all that we need to meet the challenges of tomorrow and beyond. The challenge to give others something to eat need not be frightening because we know that the source of the food is not our own limited offerings, but the great abundance of God himself. We need not fear any kind of hunger – our own or that of others – because it’s ultimately not about us or what we can offer, but what God can do in and through us.

    In our Eucharist today, the quiet time after Communion is our time to gather up the wicker baskets of our abundance, to reflect on what God has given us and done for us and done with us. We who receive the great meal of his own Body and Blood must be resolved to give from those wicker baskets in our day-to-day life, feeding all those people God has given us in our lives. We do all this in remembrance of Christ, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes again.

    May the Body and Blood of Christ bring us all to everlasting life.

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate with great joy one of the most wonderful feasts on our Church calendar, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Through this greatest of all gifts, we have been made one with our God who loves his people beyond all imagining. We experience this love in perhaps one of the most basic ways of our human existence, which is to say by being fed. Learning to satisfy our hunger is one of the first things we learn; we learn who we can depend on and develop close relationships with those people. Today’s feast brings it to a higher level, of course. The hunger we’re talking about is not mere physical hunger, but instead a deep inner yearning, a hunger for wholeness, for relatedness, for intimate union with our Creator and Redeemer.

    What we see in our God is one who has always desired deep union with his people. We have just recently finished the Lent and Easter seasons, in which the history of God’s work in salvation history has been beautifully recalled. Salvation began with the creation of the whole world, the saving of Noah and those on the ark, the covenant made with Abraham, the ministry of the prophets, and ultimately culminated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. God never lost interest in his creation; he didn’t set the world in motion and then back off to leave everything to its own devices. God has time and again intervened in human history, offering us an olive branch, seeking renewal of our relationship with him, and bringing us back no matter how far we have fallen.

    God has repeatedly sought to covenant with us. Eucharistic Prayer IV beautifully summarizes God’s desire: “You formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures. Even when he disobeyed you and lost your friendship you did not abandon him to the power of death, but helped all men to seek and find you. Again and again you offered a covenant to man, and through the prophets taught him to hope for salvation.”

    And unlike human covenants, which have to be ratified by both parties, and are useless unless both parties agree, the covenant offered by God is effective on its face. God initiates the covenant, unilaterally, out of love for us. Our hardness of heart, our sinfulness, our constant turning away from the covenant do not nullify that covenant. God’s grace transcends our weakness, God’s jealous love for us and constant pursuit of us is limitless.

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word shows us the history of the covenant. The first reading recalls the covenant God made with the Israelites through the ministry of Moses. The people agree to do everything the Lord commanded, and Moses seals the covenant by sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice and saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his.” The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews makes the point that if the blood of sacrificed animals can bring people back in relationship with God, how much more could the blood of Christ draw back all those who have strayed. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, as he himself said in the Gospel: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”

    And so we, the many, benefit from Christ’s blood of the covenant. The preface for the Eucharist Prayer today says, “As we eat his body which he gave for us, we grow in strength. As we drink his blood which he poured out for us, we are washed clean.” God’s desire for covenant with us cannot be stopped by sin or death or the grave.

    We disciples are called then to respond to the covenant. Having been recipients of the great grace of God’s love, we are called to live the covenant in our relationships with others. Which isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes people test our desire to covenant with them; sometimes they don’t even want to be in covenant with us. But the model for our relationships with others is the relationship God has with us. And so sometimes we have to unilaterally extend the covenant, even if the other isn’t willing, or doesn’t know, that we care for them. God wants to offer the covenant to everyone on earth, and he may well be using us to extend the covenant to those he puts in our path. As the alternate opening prayer for today says, “May we offer to our brothers and sisters a life poured out in loving service of that kingdom where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit…”

    We do this in so many ways. Here at St. Raphael, one of the important ways we do that is through our support of Hesed House and Loaves and Fishes. The Loaves and Fishes Community Pantry began in a closet here at St. Raphael in 1984. That year, eight families were helped. This year, as the year began, 1,800 families were helped, and that number has grown by about a hundred families a month due to this economy. Most recently, the pantry helped 2,800 families. I was privileged to offer the invocation at their 24 Hours Without Hunger event two weeks ago. The executive director expressed the organization’s deep regard for St. Raphael, noting that although so many Naperville churches currently support them, St. Raphael’s continues to be by far their largest congregational supporter.

    We absolutely should feel good about the ways we show our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. But we cannot rest on our laurels, as that number of families served continues to grow, we who are able must be strong in our support of them. One of the particular needs they have in the summer months is to provide extra food for children who, during the school year, receive a free lunch at school. They want to provide additional juice boxes and healthy snacks for kids this summer. Maybe we can all buy another box of snacks or juice boxes the next time we shop. Or even add slightly to our envelope for Loaves and Fishes on the second Sunday of the month. This is a great option because every dollar we give them can buy $10 worth of food through their sources. A small effort can be a great blessing to those in need this summer.

    God’s covenant with us is renewed every day, and celebrated every time we come to receive Holy Communion. When we receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are renewed in the covenant, strengthened in grace and holiness, and brought nearer to our God who longs for us. We who are so richly graced can do no less than extend the covenant to others, helping them too to know God’s love for them, feeding them physically and spiritually.

    The Psalmist asks today, “How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he has done for me?” And the answer is given: by taking up the chalice of salvation, drinking of God’s grace, renewing the covenant, and passing it on to others. May the Body and Blood of Christ bring us all to everlasting life!