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16 Aug 2009 - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The most holy Eucharist holds within itself the whole spiritual treasure of the church, namely Christ himself, our passover and our living bread. —Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) We speak of the real presence of Christ in us . . . . he is in us, through his flesh, and we are in him; and with him, what we are is in God. —Saint Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-367) Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy. —Mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) Those who eat and drink the Lord’s flesh and blood live in the Lord and the Lord lives in them. A marvelous and inexplicable union occurs by which God is in us, and we are in God. Does this not fill you with awe as you listen? —Saint Theophylact (c. 1050-1109)

Eucharist real presence joy communion

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15 Apr 2018 - Third Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

Maybe one of the biggest problems we have with religion is that the whole business is far too “spiritual.” When something important to us can’t even be held in our hands, we begin to doubt how crucial it is. Every day, we face the really central stuff: putting food on the table, getting money in the bank, making the baby stop crying or the spouse stop complaining or the parents stop nagging! Each day has its own demands and challenges that have to be met just to keep our lives functioning. We have to bathe. We have to eat. As inconvenient as it often is, we have to sleep. Because life is so demanding, religion often gets relegated to the “expendable” category. After all, “God’s still in his heaven” whether we pay much attention. Saying our prayers seems ethereal and often appears unproductive. Time in church can be dismissed as wasted—after all, how much laundry gets done in this hour, how many bills get paid, who stocks the groceries while we just sit here? If the choir this week is a little off-key or the homily isn’t jazzy enough, we may feel that religion has proven to be a disappointment again: an hour ventured, nothing gained. But what if religion were more than a spiritual enterprise? What if getting a jolt of the celestial perspective, with a moral application to boot, isn’t what it’s all about? If we could take religion in our hands and hold onto it, it might become as real to us as the thousand shards of living we pour ourselves on like a libation. Easter left them unimpressed For most of the citizens of first-century Jerusalem, Easter morning was a bit of a yawn. No one was there when the stone was rolled back, and few saw the burial linens that the disciples read as smoking guns of the Resurrection. Many weeks later at Pentecost, a few thousand who had come up for the feast saw the transfigured apostles, drunk with the Holy Spirit: Now that impressed them! Hearsay about the ghost of Jesus was one thing: Galileans acting like linguists on the streets of the capital was quite something else. When bona fide cowards find their courage and become heroes, that’s always newsworthy. Easter was an untouchable event, but Pentecost dawned in stereo, with lots to hear and see. But the truth is, nothing gets a crowd excited like a miracle. Jesus understood that a good miracle was like flashing the Divine Calling Card, as a preacher friend of mine says. When the deaf hear and the blind see and the lame walk, you can keep your gift of tongues to yourself. When good news gets this tangible, people may start to take it seriously. That’s why Peter and John struck pay dirt at the Beautiful Gate, when they called on the name of the Lord Jesus to strengthen the legs of a man who had never taken one step. When that man leaped up and danced around, people saw faith in action. The timing was perfect for a proclamation. They had the crowd’s attention. Got food? The empty tomb was an attention-getter for those who expected to see Jesus in it and were astonished to see that he had gotten out of it. But when he returned and appeared in their midst, that was good enough even for the Thomases who needed to put their fingers in the nail marks. Presence is always more convincing than absence, especially when the message is love. But was this Jesus the real one, the original one, or some chimera arising from hope and desire? He showed them his wounds, always a reality check for humans like us. But then Jesus asked for something to eat. How normal! And how profound. Jesus, the gospels show us, had the advantage of a preferred relationship with God, fostered in prayer but affirmed with distinct proclamations of being the Beloved Son. But he knew that the rest of us needed a little assistance to keep the world of faith from floating away from us. So he set for us a repeatable banquet of bread and wine, something to get our hands on and to consume in utmost real-time. Nothing is so real to us or so affirming of our humanity as food. Nothing could affirm that Jesus was alive and back in town as sitting down to dinner, just like old times. Related scripture links Thomas needs to touch: John 20:24-29 What we have seen and touched: 1 John 1:1-3 The power of witness in Samaria: John 4:39-42 The Christian call to testify: Acts 10:39-43 Catechism links Proclamation: CCC 13; 74; 429 Joy: CCC 301; 736; 1829; 1832 Peace: CCC 736; 1829; 1832; 2305; 2317

Authors Alice Camille

miracles empty tomb real presence

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15 Apr 2018 - Third Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

When the kids were little, if they fell down and hurt themselves, they would usually run to my wife or me to show us their “boo-boo.” And we would swoop them up in hugs and kisses and tend to their bruised egos as well as their skinned knees. For a child to show his or her wound is an act of trust in a moment of vulnerability. It’s also a chance for the parent to respond with concern, love, and care. It’s a moment that captures the humanity of both the wounded and the one who cares. Jesus showed his wounds to the uncertain disciples who had been confused since they first heard about the empty tomb. In showing his vulnerability, he reversed the usual roles. He was taking care of them, tending to their doubts and to their wounded hearts so full of fear that they had lost him. In showing his wounds, Jesus made that which had seemed incomprehensible somehow understandable. As long as he remained only a spirit, they would have no way to understand that he had risen from the dead. He used these physical ways to manifest his presence. Another way he made his real presence known was by eating with them. Our God has wounds and our God eats with us. It seems as though Jesus the Christ would fit naturally into any family I know.

Authors Tom McGrath

wounds real presence

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Quotes

19 Aug 2018 - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The most holy Eucharist holds within itself the whole spiritual treasure of the church, namely Christ himself, our passover and our living bread. —Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) We speak of the real presence of Christ in us . . . . he is in us, through his flesh, and we are in him; and with him, what we are is in God. —Saint Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-367) Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy. —Mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) Those who eat and drink the Lord’s flesh and blood live in the Lord and the Lord lives in them. A marvelous and inexplicable union occurs by which God is in us, and we are in God. Does this not fill you with awe as you listen? —Saint Theophylact (c. 1050-1109)

living bread real presence

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Exploring the word

23 Jun 2019 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle C

Where did the feast originally known as Corpus Christi come from? Many believers will be hard pressed to explain the difference between Maundy Thursday and the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, and for good reason. Both celebrate the events of the Last Supper and how Jesus sealed his relationship with his friends for all time in surrendering his life for them as food. Sources as early as the fourth century attest to the commemoration of the Last Supper during Passion Week. Corpus Christi, however, did not become a universal feast of the church until 1264. The best explanation for the official recognition of the second feast is that the first one became overloaded. By the seventh century, Holy Thursday was also the day when penitents were publicly reconciled to the church, and by the eighth century it became the day for blessing the holy oils (later separated out as the Chrism Mass). But as the word “Maundy” suggests (from the Latin phrase mandatum novum or “new command”), Holy Thursday has been most familiarly associated with the ritual of the washing of the feet since the 13th century. The original emphasis on the origin of our Eucharist was crowded into a forest of symbol and ritual. In a week already dominated by the sadness of Christ’s Passion, some felt that a more joyful celebration of the institution of the sacrament might be better observed when it could properly assume the spotlight. The dark spot on the moon The early church fathers exhorted believers to fix their gaze on the host regularly. Each day the faithful had the opportunity to look upon the same body that was given up for their sake, and it would be a grave mistake to forego that opportunity. Christians became preoccupied with the vow to see the host on the day they were to die—and because most of us don’t know what day that is, it required daily visits to the church where the permanent presence of the Eucharist resided in the tabernacle. Contemplation of the host became more widespread than receiving Communion. The exposition of the Blessed Sacrament was popularized on certain feast days, and by the 16th century, “Forty Hours” of adoration were practiced. It was in this devotional climate in the 13th century that Juliana of Mont Cornillon (a.k.a. Juliana of Liège) became the proponent of a special feast day for the Body and Blood of Christ. Juliana, born in what is now Belgium, received a vision of a bright moon marred by one dark spot. She perceived it as an image of the church in the absence of one great solemnity. Through her efforts and in the face of much contradiction and personal suffering, Juliana won adherents to her cause, most notably a local cleric who would become Pope Urban IV and would elevate the feast to universal recognition. Thomas Aquinas himself wrote the text for the liturgy, which has been much admired by Catholics and Protestants alike for capturing the beauty of our Eucharist. The Body and the Blood The story of the loaves and fishes we hear today reminds us of the abundance we are offered when it is the Lord who sets the table. Our feast day is celebrated in the name of the Body and Blood of Christ to clarify what the solemnity always intended to commemorate: the total gift of Christ that is available to the church. We eat this bread and drink this cup, but that is not all. We are the Body and Blood of Christ as well. We who receive the sacrament of the church become, as one theologian put it, the sacrament for the world at large. When we embrace the Christian vocation to be sacrament—the medium of God’s presence, grace, and compassion among us—then this solemnity reaches the fullness of its meaning. So long as we honor only the sacred elements on the table, we render the vitality of this event to an inert expression of piety. Jesus gives out food to the multitude, to detractors as well as disciples, believing and doubtful alike, ready or not. Until we are prepared to bring ourselves as food to society at large and do not adjudicate between the deserving and the undeserving as Dorothy Day warned we are tempted to do, then the miracle of loaves and fishes putters to a stop in this generation, the basket finally and fatally empty. The story is told of the Curé of Ars, who came upon a humbly dressed old man sitting before the Tabernacle greatly intent upon it. “What are you doing here, hour after hour?” the cleric asked the fellow. The old man replied with great simplicity: “I look at him. He looks at me.” This rapt attention to the Real Presence has a surprising dynamic component. Contemplation is not merely looking at God but the awareness that God has an eye on us as well and is fully intent on us, as lovers are when they gaze in wordless adoration at one another. This kind of contemplation is likewise conversation, sharing and revealing the self to another at a passionately deep level. What passes between lovers in the time of adoration brings them one step closer to union. Once united, the two become identified as one and are inseparable in profound ways. So we become inseparable from the identity of Christ in our reception and contemplation of the sacrament. Applying the word Claiming the identity Contemporary worship has moved away from pockets of silence and opportunities for contemplation. We might see this as an invitation to encourage other specifically contemplative hours both communal and private for the edification of our communities. But it is important that contemplation go hand in hand with the practice of receiving the sacrament and that identifying ourselves within the Body of Christ remains the goal of both practices. Any sacrament that stops at the door of the church lacks the component of generosity Jesus demonstrated to the multitude. If our lives do not become food for the world as a result, we turn the grace of the sacrament into a selfish act. Related scripture links The new command: John 13:15, 34 Institution of the Eucharist: Mark 14:22-25; Matt. 26:26-29; Luke 22:14-20 Identity in Christ: John 17:20-26; Rom. 12:4-5, 14:7-8; 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Col. 1:24-29

Authors Alice Camille

Juliana of Liège miracle of the loaves and fishes real presence Contemplation Eucharist

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14 Apr 2024 - Third Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

When my kids were little, if they fell down and hurt themselves, they would usually run to my wife or me to show us their “boo-boo.” And we would swoop them up in hugs and kisses and tend to their bruised egos as well as their skinned knees. For a child to show his or her wound is an act of trust in a moment of vulnerability. It’s also a chance for the parent to respond with concern, love, and care. It’s a moment that captures the humanity of both the wounded and the one who cares. Jesus showed his wounds to the uncertain disciples who had been confused since they first heard about the empty tomb. In showing his vulnerability, he reversed the usual roles. He was taking care of them, tending to their doubts and to their wounded hearts so full of fear that they had lost him. In showing his wounds, Jesus made that which had seemed incomprehensible somehow understandable. As long as he remained only a spirit, they would have no way to understand that he had risen from the dead. He used these physical ways to manifest his presence. Another way he made his Real Presence known was by eating with them. Our God has wounds and our God eats with us. It seems as though Jesus the Christ would fit naturally into any family I know.

Authors Tom McGrath

vulnerability wounds of jesus real presence

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