Words, Actions, and the Eucharist

Homily for the Solemnity of the
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
2 June 2013

        Brothers and sisters, we know how important actions are in our lives. We also know that an action, while in-and-of-itself is neutral, becomes “good” or “bad” when our intention behind it is made known. Actions can be described in words such as “common”, “everyday”, “wonderful”, “awesome”, “crazy”, “dumb”, “horrific”, etc. And we know that it is said that our actions often speak louder than our words.

That last part is important to remember, for our Gospel today has Jesus performing four specific actions which seem commonplace in the realm of everyday life, but become so much more important and relevant to our lives when we look at them through the eyes of our soul, the eyes of faith.

Jesus performs four actions in today’s Gospel that we, as His Church, have repeated for the last two thousand years: Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the crowds. A year later, in the Gospel account, we see Jesus sitting in the Upper Room with His Mother and His disciples on that first Holy Thursday, declaring that bread to be His Body, and the wine shared to be His Blood.

My brothers and sisters, on this great Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – traditionally known as Corpus Christi – we, too, are made one in the Body and Blood of Christ. We don’t simply take one Sunday out of the year to say to the Lord that we’re thankful for giving us some food when we come to worship. We gather to celebrate, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, that which is “the sum and summary of our faith” (CCC 1327). We also recognize the great teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Eucharist is the “source and summit of our faith.”

However, to celebrate the Eucharist here in Mass is to also celebrate the Eucharist in the everyday-ness of our lives. As a Eucharistic people, becoming what we receive – the Body of Christ – in this great Sacrament, we enter into the mystical reality that we, too, are taken, blessed, broken and given:

Taken: The Lord takes us, chooses us, brings us out of the world so that we may become His. He does this primarily through the Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. But the Lord continues to take us as His own through our constant turning to Him in prayer and sacrifice. We must be taken, like the bread, so as to be owned by God.

Blessed: The Lord continues to bless those who are His own. Through our time, talent and treasure, our God showers upon us grace after grace for those who are open to receiving these gifts. As many saints have reminded us time and again, the Lord never abandons those who are His own, and, in fact, gives them what they need to survive. He continues to bless us with our “daily bread”.

Broken: Just as the dough is kneaded by the baker to make the best loaf of bread, so are we broken by the Lord to conform our will to His. Yet, this only happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how our pride, selfishness and sinfulness keep us from fulfilling the mission and vocation that God is calling us to. To be broken by God is not a bad thing, for the Divine Baker must be able to knead the dough if His bread is going to be sent out to the world to feed His children.

Given: The Lord gives us back to the world so that the world may come to know Him, His love, and His divine providence for His creation. We are given back to the world to witness to the great “Amen” that we provide to the ultimate act of love – the breaking of the Body and the shedding of the Blood on the Cross. The world desires to know this Love, and we are the ones the Lord gives to the world so that Love may be given.

We, the Body of Christ, are taken, blessed, broken and given specifically so that we may become what receive: the Body of Christ. This, my friends, is why it is so important that our actions speak volumes, but also the words that we choose. This is why when we approach to receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, we say and declare with all of our heart: AMEN. One of the shortest words in our Christian language, yet, nevertheless, one of the most powerful.

We say “Amen” when we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. We don’t say “I believe”, “My Lord and my God”, “So be it” or “Thank you, Father”. We say “Amen” because it is the ascent of our free will to the faith that we have in Jesus Christ. We say “Amen” because “Amen” is so much more than what we have in English. There is, as the saying goes, something lost in translation.

But, my brothers and sisters, we must be careful, for saying “Amen” is more than just a reaction to the words, “The Body of Christ” or “The Blood of Christ”. To say “Amen” is to affirm by the ascent of your free will (and mine!) that you and I believe in EVERYTHING that the Catholic Church teaches and professes: from the articles of Faith, to her teaching in social doctrine, to her teaching in the realm of morality – including her teaching on the dignity of life from conception to natural death, and that marriage is strictly that sacrament designed for one man and one woman. To say “Amen” and not to affirm the totality of Faith is to stand and lie before the very Heart of God. (This is why non-Catholics cannot receive Communion in our Church, and why we, as Catholics, cannot receive Communion in the Protestant churches – because one cannot ascend one’s free will to that which he / she does not believe in, in its totality. Again, to do so is a lie.)

Yet this is why those four actions Jesus performed are so very important. He knew that to become more like Himself, to become the Eucharistic people that we have been called to be, He must take us, bless us, and break us over and over and over again so that, given to the world, we may be true witnesses of the Love which calls us back to Itself. But we have to want it, we have to will it – the choice to be taken, blessed, broken and given, the choice to voice the “Amen” with unyielding belief is ours, and ours alone. And if we truly believe – heart, mind and soul – that the Eucharist is sum and summary, the source and summit of our faith, we would come before the Lord in joyous thanksgiving for this great gift; we would be on our knees day and night celebrating the fact that the Lord, Himself, was taken from our midst in His Passion, blessed by the Father for those great acts of redemption, broken on the Cross for the sake of the world, and given to us through Word and Sacrament and the teachings of our Church, His Bride.

My brothers and sisters, we must become more aware of how our actions and words have consequences – and not just temporal consequences here on Earth, but eternal consequences in the life to come. The choice is ours in the here and now to constantly be taken, blessed, broken and given by the Lord. The choice is ours in the here and now to how heartily our “Amen” reflects the interior of our souls. The choice is ours as to how our everyday words and actions reflect that we are a living member of the Body of Christ: that same Body, which we will receive in a matter of moments, Who is the source and summit of who we are.

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Enjoy the journey . . .