Panis Angelicus_Homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi

 Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a

Ps 147 

1 Cor 10:16-17

Jn 6:51-58

 

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi, is always a happy personal anniversary.  I celebrated my first Mass on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 2007, twenty-four hours after being ordained.  The feast signals 

another cycle through the missal and lectionary. Thus, today marks either the completion of the sixteenth time through the books or the beginning of the seventeenth exploration of the same books of prayer, ritual, and readings. 

 

The Church’s calendar is filled with feasts: The Annunciation, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost to name a few.  These feasts recall specific events in the history of salvation the history of the world, and specific moments in own personal histories.  They underlie the rhythm for our lives.  

 

Most of the feasts have a narrative flow.  There is a story in the readings that is retold annually.  Every year we hear the narrative of Jesus’ birth,  the long readings of the passion, and the reports of the descent of the Holy Spirit.  We can insert ourselves into the action on the page,  we can place ourselves at the manger in Bethlehem imagining the sights, the sounds, the aromas, and our own response to the event.  We can be present at Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth, fall asleep with the apostles in Gethsemane, or share in the shock of the newly empty tomb.  

 

Today’s feast is different. We have to sit back in silence.  There is no narrative or script.  The readings elaborate on the feast   by inviting us into quiet contemplation of the greatest of gifts, that of the Body and Blood of Christ truly and substantially present in the Eucharist.  It is overwhelming to consider 

that presence in the elements consecrated on the altar and received at communion.  It is deeply consoling to kneel in front of that same presence

in the tabernacle at all times whenever we wish. Alas, for some Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist is a stumbling block.  They can understand symbols.  They can understand metaphors. Some can even understand allusion. But still cannot understand real.  

 

Each of today’s readings adds something to our understanding of the meaning of this feast. 

 

In Deuteronomy Moses recalls what God had done for the Israelites in the desert.  

Once more he reminds them how God cared for them: bringing forth water from the rock and feeding them with manna, the bread from heaven, that prefigured the Bread of Life come down from heaven.  Moses reminds those he is leading,

“Not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.”  

 

This pushes us towards the Gospel.  

 

In his commentary on John’s Gospel, the late Jesuit Father Stanly Marrow wrote on the passage we just heard: 

 

 “. . . there is only one way of proclaiming the salvation in Jesus Christ, and that is by means of the Word.  The sacraments are another mode of proclamation by means of this same word.”  Recall that the first verse of Johns gospel proclaims: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

 

We need the Living Word.  We need the Living Word that is present  in the Eucharist and scripture,  We need the living word of  tradition and of prayer.

We need the Living Word if we are to know eternal life.   

 

Later in his commentary Fr. Marrow points out a crucial fact:  

“The promise of living forever in no way exempts any of us from dying.”

 

Today’s gospel began with Jesus telling the crowd: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven: Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  At the end He reiterated.  “This is the bread that came down from heaven.  Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

 

In no way is Jesus promising that our lives will be free from pain and suffering.  Jesus is not promising nor did He ever promise,that we and those whom we love won’t die.  Without dying none of us could hope to rise again at the last day. Eternal life is only possible through the Living Word; through Jesus the Son of God.  

 

The translation of the last verse of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians is awkward.  Loaf is not only unnecessary, it wrecks the flow of the sentence. .  

Another translation reads: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

 

“We who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread.” 

 

We are one when we are gathered here to listen to the Word of God, when we receive that Living Word at communion. and when we leave here to go about our daily lives.  We remain one after death.  

 

Today we recall the great gift of The Body and Blood of Christ.  

Real.  Substantial.  Truly present in our midst.  With that in mind we can only sit in awe and say with the psalmist: 

 

Praise the Lord Jerusalem. 

Alleluia.  

Amen.  

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A few shots from Sevenhill, South Australia, one thousand acres of heaven on earth. 

I was not the only photographer in the group.  John The was very good. 

Sevenhill is a winery with a farm attached.  One of the farm denizens. 

Many of the mornings was wonderfully misty.

Looking up from a road way below the subject. 

Fr. Jack SJ, MD