Corpus Christi

Homily for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ 

Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a

Ps 147

1 Cor 10:16-17

Jn 6:51-58

Jesuits are oftentimes described as contemplatives in action.  Unlike our Carthusian brothers who live in the total silence of monastic cloister contemplating the word of God, praying for the world, and rarely leaving the charterhouse, we move around.  A lot.  Were you to have asked my mom how many phone numbers and addresses I had in my first ten years as a Jesuit--it is now twenty-three--she would have thrown her hands up and muttered something along the lines of . . .  well, we won't go down that road. At first she carefully erased the old address and phone number before putting the new ones in her book.  After she died, however, I found a bunch of reused sticky notes with recipes on them and my address along the edge. In pencil.

Jesuit Father Jerome Nadal noted that the Jesuit’s cloister is the highway.  Our work, oftentimes very mobile work, drives our prayer and our prayer, oftentimes entered into while on the move, drives our work.  Overall, action seems to trump contemplation most of the time.  It is a feast such as this, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, or Corpus Christi, that reminds all of us of the contemplative side of our lives. This feast pulls us into the contemplative  because it is an abstract feast that does not recall a specific event. Our liturgical calendar is crammed with feasts—Christmas, Easter, The Ascension, The Annunciation—that recall specific events in the history of salvation and in the history of the world. 

  

Christmas, Easter and the other solemnities are events with a narrative flow, a story, that can be told and retold.  We can place ourselves in the action and participate in that history.  We can close our eyes and, with only a little imagination, see the events unfold on an inner movie screen.  Indeed, this composition of scene and entering into the action is the linchpin of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. On this Feast, however, we have to sit back in silence.  There is no script.  There is no “story line.” There is no cast of characters. We are forced to be less active and to enter more deeply into contemplative.  

We contemplate the gift of Christ present; truly and substantially present, in the Eucharist.  It is overwhelming to consider that Christ is present in the transubstantiated bread and wine we receive at communion. It is daunting to consider that  Christ is present in the Eucharist that we adore on the altar.  

For some, for too many, the real presence is a stumbling block.  They can understand symbol.  They can understand sign.  They can understand metaphor and simile.  But, they can’t understand real.  They refuse to wrap their minds around true presence.

The centrality of the Bread of Life is apparent in all three readings, the psalm, and the antiphon.  We heard in the first reading, "He . . . let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, . . . in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord."  The manna with which God fed the Israelites, prefigured and preceded the Bread of Life.  Perhaps even today, we can only appreciate the Eucharist and the privilege of receiving it,  when our spirits are hungry and yearning for that communion.

Paul asks two important questions in his letter to the Corinthians. They can be condensed into one answer: The cup we drink and the bread we share is a participation in the Body and Blood of Christ that reminds us of the communal nature of our faith.  A reminder that is necessary daily. 

I briefly thought that simply reading the gospel a second time would be a more eloquent homily than anything I could write. The most important statement in this gospel reminds us of this feast:  "For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink."  True not symbolic.

The Body and Blood of Christ is an unending source of nourishment, sustenance, and comfort.  From the bit of bread blessed, broken, and shared at the Last Supper, Jesus has nourished billions upon billions with the bread of life and the blood of salvation.  Today is not a feast for which we cook a special dinner. It is not a feast that needs a pageant. The only thing we need do on this feast is to sit in silence so as to contemplate this great gift, the bread of eternal life, the Body and Blood of our Lord the source of nourishment for the journey.

And to end that contemplation with Deo Gratias;

Thanks be to God. 

_________________________________________

Thirteen years ago Corpus Christi was on 10 June,   It was also the day of my first Mass at Campion Center in Weston, MA.  To say that I am calmer today than I was 13 years ago is an understatement.  Every year on Corpus Christi I can celebrate that I've gone through the lectionary yet again.  It is a good feeling. 

June 9, 2007 was "Corpus Christi Eve" and the day on which Andy Downing,SJ, Matt Monnig, SJ, and I were ordained at St. Ignatius Church on the edge of the BC campus.  Sean Cardinal O'Malley was the ordaining prelate.  The prostration during the Litany of the Saints is one of the most moving parts of the ordination, particularly for friends and family.  

The sacred vessels prepared for Mass at a men's monastic community.  The host and wine are awaiting the miracle of transubstantiation.

The chalice and paten were prepared for an Eastern Rite liturgy where the bread is leavened and then soaked in wine. 

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD