Below is my homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Enjoy!
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Homily:
Corpus Christi – Cycle C
Last Sunday, the Church gave us the Solemnity of the Holy
Trinity, where we were invited to consider the mystery of who God is in himself. Many of you are probably still digesting my
homily from last week (and, perhaps, you still have some in-digestion along with it).
This Sunday, however, the Church offers us the Solemnity of the Most
Holy Body and Blood of Christ: something, I would say, that is a little more…
please pardon the pun… digestible.
In this feast—also known as Corpus Christi—the Church
invites us to consider the mystery of who God is for us. In this feast, we
celebrate that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, left for us a memorial of his
Sacrifice on the Cross: a memorial that allows us to participate in that same
sacrifice—and the salvation that it won for us—by re-presenting it to the
Father in the form of the bread and wine, offered from our hands and then
transformed by the words of the priest into the Body and Blood of Christ, and
then by partaking in those gifts when we receive from the altar what God has
blessed and made abundant for us.
We also celebrate, of course, that the Body and Blood of
Christ represents for us the enduring, physical
presence of Jesus among us: that in churches and chapels around the world men
and women can come and be in the physical presence of God, to commune with him
in silent adoration and to be strengthened in faith. This is a rich mystery for us to consider;
one we should contemplate regularly. For
our purposes here today, however, I’d like to offer three things that this
feast should inspire in us in our daily lives.
First, this feast should inspire in us awe and wonder. The disciples in the Gospel today were amazed
that the five loaves and two fish that Jesus blessed were miraculously
multiplied and that they not only satisfied the five thousand men (not to
mention any women and children who were there) but that there was left over
enough to fill twelve wicker baskets.
Jesus performs another miraculous transformation for us when, through
the hands and words of the priest who stands in his place, and through the
power of the Holy Spirit, the meager gifts of bread and wine have their very substance
changed and become Jesus’ Body and Blood, his real presence, right before our
eyes. That this presence endures—and
that we can not only receive him into our bodies, but also remain in his
presence long after the Mass has ended—is something that should amaze us as
well. For this is only possible by God’s
grace and through his great love and care for us. That God would consider us, his creatures,
so… loveable that he would deign to
share this with us is truly an awesome mystery.
Thus, the second thing that this feast should inspire in us
is thanksgiving. Just like in our first
reading when the priest Melchizedek made an offering of thanksgiving that God had
allowed Abram to conquer all of his enemies, so we, too, come here to offer
thanks that God, through the sacrifice of his Son, has conquered our greatest
enemy: sin and death. Yet we go even
further and we give him thanks that he has left us the Body and Blood of his
Son to be a memorial for us of this great gift of victory; a gift which is ever
present and available to us to strengthen us and to inspire our daily
lives. This is a true gift: one that we
should be humbled by daily. And the only
appropriate response to this gift is to give thanks, which we do most perfectly
when we celebrate the Holy Eucharist.
True, authentic thanksgiving, however, always leads us to
respond in kind, that is, to pay it
forward. Just as Abram responded to
the thanksgiving offering of Melchizedek by offering ten percent of everything
he had, so we, too, are called to respond by making a generous offering of
ourselves, pouring out our lives in service of God, Our Father, who so
generously fills us with his gifts. Yet,
how often do we fail, like the disciples did in the Gospel, and convince
ourselves that our meager gifts, our talents, aren’t enough to make a
difference? How often do we say, “I’m
not really that good at anything” or “I don’t have much to give, so why
bother?” when what we should be saying is “Here, Lord, it isn’t much, but it’s
what I have.” We forget, don’t we, to
give what little we have to Jesus. We
think that we have to prove something to him and so we assume that our little
bit won’t go too far. But when we give it
to Jesus, what happens? He multiplies
it, of course! So much so that it spills
over to become more than is needed.
My brothers and sisters let us not lament our small gifts,
but rather our small faith! Better yet,
let us bring our small faith to Jesus, even if we have doubts, and place it in
his hands. Because when we do so, like
he did with the loaves and the fish, he will bless it and multiply it so much
that it fills baskets with what is left over: even after countless others have
been nourished by it.
This, my friends, is our invitation today on this feast of
Corpus Christi: an invitation to be amazed that the God who created the
universe would come to us, his creatures, under the appearance of simple bread
and wine—gifts that we can consume; an invitation to give thanks for this
awe-inspiring gift; and an invitation to respond, offering our meager gifts to
Jesus so that he can multiply them for the good of many. The Good Lord never ceases to invite us. Let us, then, respond with the same “yes” as
Mary did, a “yes” filled with awe and wonder, so that we, like her, may produce
a great harvest through the grace of God working in us—the grace that we
receive when we receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ from this altar.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – June 1st & 2nd, 2013
The Solemnity of the Most
Holy Body and Blood of Christ
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