Fr Jack SJ MD: Five Times Through the Three-year Cycle of Readings: Homily for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Gen 14:18-20

1 Cor 11:23-26

Ps 110

Luke 9:11b-17

Jesuits are described as contemplatives in action. Unlike our Trappist brothers who live in monastic cloister and silence, contemplating the word of God, we move around a lot. Just ask my mom how many phone numbers and addresses I’ve had in my ten years as a Jesuit (it is now 25). She used to carefully erase the old one before putting the new one in her address book. Now she uses a recycled sticky note.

It has been said that the Jesuit cloister is the highway. Our oftentimes mobile work, drives our prayer life and our prayer life, oftentimes entered into while on the move, drives our work. Overall, action seems to trump contemplation most of the time.

But a feast such as the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ reminds us of the contemplative side of our lives. Not just Jesuit lives. But the lives of all believers. The Solemnity of Corpus Christi pulls us into the contemplative because It is an abstract feast that doesn’t recall a specific event.

The Church’s liturgical calendar is crammed with solemnities and feasts—Christmas, Easter, The Ascension, The Annunciation—that recall specific events in the history of salvation, feasts that recall specific moments in the history of the world. They are events with a narrative flow. There is a story that is told and retold. We can place ourselves in the action, we can participate in the narrative. We can close our eyes and, with only a little imagination, see the events unfold on an inner movie screen.

However, on this feast we have to sit in silence. There is no script. There is no “story line.” We are called to contemplate a dogma of faith.

We don’t contemplate an event in the life of Jesus but the gift of Christ truly and substantially present in the eucharist. It is overwhelming to consider Christ present in the bread and wine that we receive. It is overwhelming to recall Christ present in the eucharist that we adore on the altar. The Real Presence is a stumbling block for some. They can understand symbol. They can understand sign. They can understand metaphor. They simply can’t understand real.

The bread of life appears in the three readings and the psalm.

It is a happy moment to hear the name of Melchizedek less than twenty-four hours after being ordained. “You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.” Melchizedek is a mysterious figure. There is no history about him, there is no genealogy tracing his descent. All other references to Melchizedek derive from this single mention in Genesis.

The reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians includes the words of consecration, the words, the formula, the action, that bring us here daily. Elaborating on these words, trying to explain them in greater depth, would be either gilding the lily or taking more risks than a priest should at his first Mass.

The feeding of the multitude from little is a challenge. How did it happen? What were the physics, the chemistry, or the economics of such a miraculous event?

How is not the relevant question.

The import of this gospel narrative is that when we are hungry and when we thirst on the journey of our lives, Christ is present to us in the eucharist. Christ is there to restore and refresh us.

We just heard in the Gospel, “they all ate until they had enough.” The feeding the multitude from very little, reminds us—it was in fact a preview of what was to come—that from the small piece of bread that he broke the night before he died Jesus has nourished, and will continue to nourish, untold billions, generously and completely.

The Body and Blood of Christ is an unending source of nourishment, sustenance, and comfort. The only thing we can do on this feast is to sit in awe and contemplate this great gift. The only thing we need do is to receive the Body and Blood of Christ and then continue on the journey.

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The Sunday lectionary or the book of readings for Mass is laid out on a three year cycle designated as year A, B,, or C. In year A the predominant readings are from Matthew, B from Mark, and C from Luke. This year is Year C in the cycle. I celebrated my first Mass the day following ordination on this feast 15 years ago, 10 June 2007. It too was year C. Thus, in 15 years I’ve made five cycles of the lectionary, still discovering new things.

Was up in Vermont for several days. Got back last night around 8:00 PM pretty much exhausted. However, pushing to drive last night seemed a better idea than leaving on a 3 ½ hour trip at 6:00 AM, knowing that I have a Mass at 11:15.

Weather in VT was not great but did get a little shooting in. Very little.