THIS IS MY BODY,
THIS IS MY BLOOD. AMEN!
The title of my homily is, “This Is My Body, This Is My
Blood. Amen.”
Today is the feast of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
- with the old title sometimes placed with it: "Corpus Christi."
The obvious reality to be considered and preached about today
is the great act of faith we Catholics make at each Mass: the bread and
the wine become the Body and Blood of Christ; and that we can receive this Body and Blood and become one in communion with Christ - and with each other. Obviously, this happens in a deep Mystery of Faith way - at Mass - and then as leave Mass and walk and work
together in this journey of life. [1]
How this is possible is impossible to explain. We take it on
faith. We sense it at times. People who drop out of our Church - sometimes try
another faith or church experience. They might find better or different music,
sermons, community, outreach, as well as well as what they sense is a better expression of Christianity at times - but sometimes
they come back because they miss communion at a Catholic Mass.
The catechisms and the theologians use different images and
words to talk about how the bread and the wine become the Body and
Blood of Christ - but down deep - it’s a call for a great act of ongoing faith.
If someone has doubts, instead of pushing someone to read the catechism - I would
stress reading the 6th Chapter of John’s gospel - because catechisms
and words come and go - but the Gospel of John - will be one of the 4 key
pillars of our Catholic Faith for the future as they have been for the past
1900 plus years. [2]
Today after the 12:30 Mass there will be the Corpus Christi Procession
at St. Mary’s. Priest and parishioners in procession will march out of church
after Mass and proceed down Duke of Gloucester Street a bit - go in through the
ugly tan brown wooden gates there - past the blue garbage bins - into the garden - and
then proceed around the Carroll house past the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and back into the church. What will people
in cars think and wonder when they notice the
pilgrims and then see the priest in heavy robes carrying the big golden
monstrance with Christ the Bread of life inside the glass center?
And here in this parish we have lots of Masses and we have
24/7 adoration - and hopefully Christ nourishes all his people with his Body
and Blood. So that’s one reality to think about today - on this feast of The
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ - Corpus Christi.
Where are we with Christ in our lives: center or periphery -
or are we an empty monstrance or tabernacle or chalice of blessing at times?
TWO OTHER BODIES
The title of my homily is, “This Is My Body, This Is My
Blood. Amen.”
We say “Amen” to Christ the Bread of Life and the Chalice of
Blood when we come up to receive communion at Mass.
Yesterday as I was preparing this homily it hit me to look
at two other bodies and blood - my body and blood and everybody else's body and blood.
FIRST: MY BODY
Can I say “Amen!” to my body?
This is my body for better for worse, for richer for poorer,
in sickness and in health, till death do we part. Amen.
People who sit in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel or here in
church or in St. Mary’s or in any Catholic Church, reflect upon the
presence of the Body of Christ in the tabernacle or monstrance on the altar or
in their own person after communion.
It struck me: can I say “Amen” to my body?
Newspapers - magazines - and news reports are featuring more
and more the problem of obesity in the United
States - now in China - and all around the world.
Food! Glorious food. Food and drink are part of our lives.
Obviously.
What’s our take on food and drink?
What's my take on the human body?
What's our take on cosmetics, clothes, exercising, diets, diets, diets,
mirrors, eating disorders, tummy tucks, the battle of the bulge, 6 packs, love
handles, teenage male athletes taking steroids to look more muscular, teenage
girls taking less and less and less and we have problems like bulimia and
anorexia? It's on and on and on. It's stuff of articles in those magazines on
the coffee or end tables in doctors’ waiting rooms. I read recently that the Diet Industry is a 40
billion dollar per year business. I don’t remember if that was just the United States or the world.
Can I say “Amen!” to my body. [Pointing to my body in the pulpit] "Body of Andrew. Amen." This is me.
Right now I have a tooth ache. It's a nasty - throbbing in my right jaw. It's from a root canal job from last
Wednesday. It triggered for me the question: "In pain, whom do we think
about?" Answer: "Self. Self. Self."
I have Diabetes #2. Thank God I didn’t get this till 8 years
ago - because I loved Storm Brothers Ice Cream - as well as cakes and pies. Bummer. I
only have to take 2 glucophage pills every day and watch my diet and exercise. To monitor my blood, every morning I jab the fingers on my left hand with a tiny needle. It gives me a little dab of blood. I put a strip into a meter - and then put the tip of that into my blood. It tells me what the blood sugar count is. At times I wish it didn’t
indicate what it does, but I have to say, “This is my blood!”
So the first Body and Blood to reflect upon is my body and
my blood. Can we say, “Amen” to ourselves?
ONE QUICK STORY
The best story I heard about body image and all this is from a wonderful speaker from Florida, Pat Livingston.
In a talk I attended, she said she was once at a pool party in Florida.
She was just sitting
there with a group of friends having a wonderful time.
Across on the other side
of the pool was a big, enormous lady laying on a big towel. She was laughing and laughing. She was having
the time of her life. Pat said it looked like she had a good supply of hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and what have you on paper or plastic plates next to her.
She was in a bikini and a lot of her was hanging out - but she was laughing and
obviously happy.
Next came this thin, thin, thin, lady walking by. She was wearing
a robe over her perfect body.
Pat said if you had a measuring instrument, you
could not find an ounce of fat on her perfect figure.
She walked by Pat and her
friends - and one said after she was out of ear range, “Watch this.”
The lady had walked to the other end where the ladder going down into the pool was. She got on
the ladder and as she was descending into the pool, off came the robe inch by
inch. She had a full bathing suit on.
She swam up and down the pool a bunch of
times - and then ascended up the ladder out of the pool - slowly putting on her
cover as she went up the steps. Her face
was quiet and serious the whole time.
Then afterwards Pat said as she thought about all this, she realized she rather be the big girl. Pat isn’t.
EVERYBODY ELSE
Next can we say, “Amen!” to everybody else?
We have not walked in everybody’s else’s flip flops or 500
dollar shoes or bathing suit - and as I like to add, “We haven’t walked in each
others sins and moccasins”. That tidbit
is at the heart of my thinking as priest. I think it’s central to Jesus’
message, “Stop judging!” “Stop throwing rocks!”
We've all heard preachers when they get into this topic, quoting the famous line Gregory Peck as Atticus
Finch tells Scout, in Harper Lee’s book, To
Kill to Mocking Bird. The quote: “You never really understand a person until you
consider things from his [or her] point of view…until you climb in his [or her] skin and walk
around in it.”
Unfortunately, we don't. I know I don't. I just was making fun of the thin lady at the pool. Instead we mock and kill birds of a different feather.
Can we say “Amen” to everybody else?
This means people with different color skin
than us - people with flabby upper arms or wrinkled or wrinkledless face, or
people with missing teeth or an accent we don’t get - whether in the pulpit or
on the phone.
Do we think the doctor or the brain surgeon with the 18
letter last name is not as good as the doctor who has a so called, “American” last
name”?
When was the last time you went to Toronto
or Vancouver or you were in the subway in New York City or London
- and you looked around at the population. This is a technicolor world. This is
everybody.
When was the last time you went to Rome and you were in St. Peter’s Square for the Pope’s audience and
you looked around and spotted the bodies of sisters and brothers in the
Catholic Church. We’re every size, shape, age, color and slant of life. We’re
losing some Church going Catholics folks in this country and we’re growing in
Africa and Asia.
I am proud to be Catholic - especially when we practice the
welcome in its meaning. As you know
“Kata” - the first part of the word "Catholic" - is a prefix which means “with.” We know the word “holos” means "whole". We are a world wide religion. I don’t hear it too often, but there were
days when folks said that it was, “Latin” that united us. It’s our common
language. I’m not going to go there. It can still be divisive. The language
that unites us is love. It’s welcoming.
It’s a handshake and a sign of peace. It’s a smile - all of which can be
understood in every language by everybody everywhere.
People ask us priests here at St. Mary’s, we’re in the Redemptorist
Congregation, if we’re getting any vocations. We say, “Not that many in this
country - but in Vietnam and
South America and Africa and India
and Korea,
we’re growing."
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, "This Is My Body. This Is My Blood. Amen."
In this sermon I said, at every Mass we can go down the aisles here and receive the Body of
Christ and the Chalice of the Blood of Christ. Our response is, “Amen." [3]
In this sermon I then added that during Mass there is one other body we can say “Amen” to:
ourselves.
And lastly, I said, then there are all those around us - whom we can give the sign
of peace to - and pray with - and look in each other’s eye and say, “Amen” to.
Then we can leave this church and be one with everybody during the week - and make this a better world - because we are the Body and Blood of Christ in this world. Amen. [4]
OOOOOOO
NOTES
[1] Mysterium Fidei, the Mystery of Faith encyclical on the Eucharist by Pope Paul VI, September 1965.
[2] I would push my own book on the Mass, if .... It's 303 pages long. I sent it to three publishers - but each rejected it. If you are a publisher and if you are interested in reading a great book on the Mass, please contact me. Smile. Still waiting............
[3] It is the practice here in St. Mary's Parish to offer in communion both the bread and the cup - at all weekday Masses - and all Sunday Masses here at St. John Neumann. We don't do that on Sunday at St. Mary's because of lack of aisle space.
[4] Read St. Paul's great learning from his conversion moment on the Road to Damascus. [Check Acts 9:1-22; Acts 22:3-16; Acts 26:2-18.] In his letter to the Corinthians he talks about the Lord's Supper and the division he experienced in the meals together. [Cf. 1 Corinthians 11: 17-22.] However, when he talked about the Body of Christ, it wasn't a referring to the Bread of the Eucharist. When he talked about the Body of Christ, it was the community as a body - the Body of Christ - the 3rd Point in this long homily. [Cf. 1 Corinthians 12-31.] Mother Teresa put these 2 together very strongly in her spirituality. If you don't experience Christ in the Eucharist, you won't experience Christ in the body of the poor person you are visiting or feeding. If you don't experience Christ in the presence of the poor and the little dying baby, you won't experience Christ in the Eucharist.
