“A year ago we were not able to gather on this Sunday. We were kind of closed down and deprived of the Eucharist and yet this is such a beautiful day to celebrate the body and blood of the Lord to celebrate that wonderful gift of the Eucharist and I have been so deeply touched by so many people as they have returned to Mass over the past many months, have said to me, ‘Father I really missed communion. I really missed the Eucharist. I really missed having that time as a community in prayer. I really missed receiving Jesus.’ It’s been a beautiful testimony in some ways because when we’re deprived of something maybe we appreciate it more. Maybe we can tend to take for granted the tremendous gift we have in the Eucharist and maybe that time of deprivation will lead us to a time of deeper appreciation for this wonderful gift that Christ gives us that he gave to the disciples at the last supper and said, ‘Do this in memory of me.’ that Jesus shares with us his very self, his body given over on the cross, his blood poured out for our salvation. He shares his sacrifice, but he comes to bring us love and transformation.
I love celebrating first communions and a few weeks ago we had our first communions here and I love to do it because of the children and they’re so enthused and they’re so happy and they’re so anticipating and so I ask them, ‘Why does Jesus want to come to you in Holy Communion?’ And of course they know the answer, it’s the answer all of us would give, ‘Because he loves me!’ It’s as simple as that. Some people have trouble n accepting God’s love in such a humble, simple way. God doesn’t act in our lives in the dramatic, in the unusual so much as in the ordinary. He died upon the cross like a common thief for our salvation. When he took on his humanity he wasn’t remarkable. He looked like a typical Jew of his time and he walked in the same ways and ate and drank, but ended up suffering and dying and so when Christ continues in his presence here he doesn’t do it in a dramatic way. He does it under the simple things of what would appear as mere bread and wine, sources of physical food, but to become our physical food to be the grace that nourishes us into eternal life. Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist because he loves us. That’s the tremendous mystery that we celebrate of how much God loves me personally, how much God loves you personally. Jesus could not get more personal with us than to come in his very self to share his own body and blood, his very person to be united with us. That’s how much he loves us. This feast of Corpus Christi is an invitation for us to reflect upon the tremendous love that Christ has, the personal presence that he shares with us and to realize that we are never alone, Christ is always with us, but particularly with his real presence in Holy Communion. Before we receive the Eucharist every time we have this little prayer, ‘Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed. None of us is worthy to receive Jesus in Holy Communion, but it’s not a question of worthiness. God is the one who makes up for our unworthiness, but we do need to be properly disposed and I think this can be a challenge for us. To be properly disposed for the Eucharist which means to be properly prepared that first of all truly to believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It’s not as if we’re eating his fingers. That’s cannibalism and that’s not what he is, but rather through his risen life he came and showed himself in many different ways to the disciples even before the Ascension and one of the most important was in the breaking of the bread which was the first term for the Mass, to really believe deep in my heart, yes this is the body and the blood of Christ. This is Jesus who comes to me and without that belief we should not avail ourselves of the Eucharist, but with that belief we can truly open our hearts fully to Christ. To be well disposed for the Eucharist means to be joined in prayer. It means not to go through just the ritual motions, but to take time to be personally open, to allow Christ to touch me personally, to come into my heart, to come into my life. Obviously it means that we are in a state of grace that if we are aware of serious sins that we will go to reconciliation before approaching Christ in the Eucharist so that we can receive his healing forgiveness there before we receive his grace and strengthening eternal life in the Eucharist. To be well disposed even to take that very simple- when I was a boy and many of you are my age you’ll remember we had to fast from midnight until after we received communion. If you went to 11:00 Mass that was quite a long haul. It was quite a preparation, but there was something good about that because it made you stop and think about what we were getting ready for. Now it’s just 1 hour, but to take that time to yearn a little bit for physical, but to remind us that it’s a real yearning for the spiritual that that is what Christ really wants to share with us and to take that time. We don’t just go through a ritual in accepting Christ and then going back and not thinking, but rather it’s a time for intimacy with Christ as we share our life and for married couples, that time after communion can be a special moment of spiritual intimacy for you recognizing that Christ is there to unite your hearts more fully not only with his, but with each other. What a tremendous blessing we have in the Eucharist that we share. What a tremendous gift Christ has shared with us.
I know for myself, one of the times that I really came to appreciation of the Eucharist is when I read a book called, With Christ in Russia, and it was written by a Jesuit priest who was in a prison camp when he was in Russia back in the Gulag days and he had to disguise himself celebrating the Eucharist. Whenever he could get a little wine and he was able to get some bread he would sit out and he would smoke a cigarette and he would have the wine in the palm of his hand and the bread on his fingers and that’s how he celebrated the Eucharist and I remember as a young boy how deeply that touched me that he was willing to sacrifice to risk so much to receive Jesus and recently I read the book about Cardinal Thuân in Vietnam who was in prison and in solitary confinement for 13 years, but some of the faithful were able to get him wine as medicine and he used to be able to celebrate the Eucharist, but again what a great risk that was because if he was caught he could have been executed. People sacrifice for the Eucharist. What a tremendous blessing the Eucharist is. How privileged we are to come together as a community to join our lives with the sacrifice of Christ to be joined with Christ and through Christ with each other in faith and in love. There’s many beautiful hymns about the Eucharist, but one of the most beautiful to me is written by St. Thomas Aquinas, ‘O Sacrum Convivium’ and the first lines of it:
O sacred banquet in which Christ is received The memory of his passion is renewed The mind is filled with grace and a pledge of future glory is given to each of us
That is a beautiful summary of the Eucharist. It is a sacred banquet in which we receive Christ himself. We recall, we bring about on the altar his body and his blood, his sacrifice. The mind is filled with grace and yes, we have that pledge of future glory for the one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have life everlasting. What a tremendous promise. What a fantastic gift.”