Homily for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi
June 19, 2022
Luke 9: 11-17
1 Cor 11: 23-26
St. Joseph Church, New Rochelle, N.Y.
“The 12 approached him and said, ‘We’re in a deserted place here.’ He said to them, ‘Give them some food yourselves’” (Luke 9: 12-13).
Jesus
has spent a day teaching and healing—2 ways in which he reveals the kingdom of
God, 2 ways in which he delivers salvation “to the crowds” (9:11). Now the day’s ending, it’s getting dark, and
the apostles tell Jesus to send the crowds off to fend for themselves. It’s an image of his followers’ situation
after his ascension. The crowds of his
disciples would be “in a deserted place,” a world without their teacher and
master, abandoned, left on their own.
Except
that’s not how Jesus left them, how he’s left us. He told the apostles to organize the
crowds: “Have them sit down in groups of
about 50” (9:14)—and then to give them food.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus left to his disciples (which we celebrated
2 weeks ago on Pentecost), the disciples organized themselves to continue
Jesus’ mission of announcing the kingdom of God. That’s how the Church was born; that’s what
the Church does; that’s why the Church is organized and isn’t just a loose
collection of people, a crowd of individuals.
And
the Church feeds the followers of Christ—feeds us with Jesus Christ himself
under the appearance of bread and wine—bread foreshadowed by Jesus’
multiplication of the loaves in that deserted place. He blessed that bread, broke those loaves,
“and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowds” (9:16), so much that
there was a superabundance. At every
celebration of the Eucharist, the priest acts in the person of Christ—note that
he always pronounces, “This is my body … this is my blood,” not
“This is his body … this is his blood,” because it’s Christ who is speaking,
Christ who is acting, Christ who is blessing, breaking, and giving the bread
and wine that have become not bread and wine but his very Body and Blood.
In our
deserted place, this world that sometimes seems to barren and hopeless, in
which sometimes we feel lost and overwhelmed, Jesus, thru his Church, still
feeds us. He’s never left us alone in
the dark, never abandoned us. We have a
superabundance of his presence in the Holy Eucharist, the feast of his Body and
Blood.
That’s
how it’s been since the 1st days of the Church.
Our 2d reading was from one of St. Paul’s letters to the Christian
community at Corinth in Greece. He wrote
that letter in the mid-50s A.D.—only 25 years after Christ’s death and resurrection,
25 years after the Last Supper, “the nite he was handed over,” the nite on
which Jesus “took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said,
‘This is my body that is for you. Do
this in remembrance of me”; and likewise with a cup of wine (11:23-25). Paul continues, teaching us that every time
we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he
comes (11:26). He will come again because
he is alive, and when we remember his Body and Blood, he is present
among us, he is with us, as much as he was with the 12 at the Last Supper, as
much as he was with 2 other disciples at Emmaus when he blessed, broke, and
gave them bread as they sat down for supper (Luke 24:30).
This
bread and this wine become his actual Body and Blood, no longer bread and wine
but only appearing so. A friend of
20-century Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor once described the Eucharist to her
as a “pretty good symbol.” O’Connor responded, “If it’s just a symbol, to
hell with it.” It would be useless for
our salvation. It’s not a symbol
on our altar, not a commemoration like many Americans will be celebrating today
if they read the Emancipation Proclamation, celebrating the freedom announced
to slaves in Texas on Juneteenth (June 19, 1865).
No,
the Eucharist doesn’t represent Jesus Christ, merely making us think of
him but otherwise not touching our lives.
It is Jesus Christ, and thru it he touches us with healing, with
grace, with his saving life, death, and resurrection. That’s why Sunday Mass is essential to us as
his disciples.
That’s
why St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians continues (in the verses after what we
read here), “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord
unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat
the bread and drink the cup. For anyone
who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on
himself” (11:27-29). It is Jesus Christ
whom we approach at Communion, Jesus Christ whom we consume. If we don’t recognize that, or if we come
forward without repenting our sins, then we are despising Jesus Christ, and we
eat his Body blasphemously. That’s why
some bishops have given solemn warnings to politicians who advocate for the
slaughter of unborn human beings, which is as grave a sin as one can commit. Unborn lives matter! Those bishops, therefore, are challenging the
sacrilegious communions of pro-abortion politicians—and anyone who’s
pro-abortion—and calling for them to repent.
If we
are repentant sinners, tho—and we’re all sinners, it’s just a question of our
turning to Jesus in sorrow—then he invites us to come to him. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter
under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed” (Communion
Rite). He comes to us in person with salvation,
with grace, with the promise of eternal life.
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