Corpus Christi 2024

The transcription discusses the significance of the Feast of Corpus Christi and the importance of cultivating a sense of awe and wonder towards the Eucharist. It explores the concept of Covenant and how Jesus' sacrifice fulfills the old Covenant and establishes a new one. The Eucharist is described as the most precious part of the Catholic faith, as it is Jesus Himself. The importance of receiving the Eucharist worthily and being in a state of grace is emphasized, as well as the practice of Eucharistic adoration. The psalmist's gratitude and the need for thanksgiving are also discussed. this great feast day, this great solemnity of Corpus Christi, we're invited to reflect on, to be amazed about this wonderful sacrament that Jesus gives himself to us totally and completely, body, blood, soul, and divinity at every single Mass. And like anything that we do repeatedly, it's easy to get used to it. And so one of the challenges then for us as Catholics, who receive the Eucharist so frequently, daily if we want it, is to try to cultivate that attitude of amazement, of Eucharistic amazement of what happens at every single Mass. All three of our readings have the word Covenant in it, they all speak of God's Covenant. So we hear in the first reading, God establishing his Covenant with the Israelites through Moses, and then in the letter to the Hebrews, the author is explaining how Jesus has fulfilled that old Covenant and brought the new Covenant, which the old Covenant was foreshadowing to that fulfillment. And in our Gospel we have Jesus instituting this Covenant at the Last Supper, where as he's saying the words of consecration over the cup, over the wine, he says, this is my blood of the Covenant, which will be shed for many. And a simple way, but a beautiful way of thinking about Covenant is that it's an exchange of persons. So it's not just a contractual or legal agreement. That can be part of a Covenant, but fundamentally a Covenant is an exchange of life, an exchange of persons. And that's exactly what happens in the Eucharist. Jesus exchanges his life with our life, wants us to enter into his own divine life. The Eucharist is the most precious part of our faith, it's the greatest sacrament we have, because it is Jesus Christ himself. All the other sacraments help us to grow closer to Jesus, help us to strengthen and give us sanctifying grace, and the Eucharist certainly does that too, but the Eucharist is unique in that it is Jesus himself. The Catechism puts it this way, it says that the principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. So that's the main fruit, is union with the Lord. And that is why we also often call it a foretaste of heaven, because in heaven, that's what we'll be doing for all of eternity, being loved and loving in return, receiving God's love from him and returning that love to him in exchange for all of eternity, which will be something that we can't even begin to imagine how good and amazing that will be. St. Alphonsus Liguori, reflecting on God's love for us in the Eucharist, said this, he said, Oh, that we could realize the love that burns in the heart of Jesus for us. He has loved us immensely, more than we can love ourselves, he has loved us almost to excess. What greater excess could there be than that a God should die for his creatures? He has loved us to the very end. It is this very same love which has prompted him to remain with us in the Blessed Sacrament, as on a throne of love. He remains there motionless, under the appearance of a little bread in a suborium, without any external signs of his divine majesty, and with apparently no other purpose than to demonstrate his love for us all. Jesus, St. Alphonsus is saying, wants to be so close to us that he hides himself, he hides his divinity under the appearance of bread and wine, because if we were to experience God in all of his glory and majesty, we would die, we would be annihilated by the goodness and the power of God. I was reading another Catholic author recently, and he used this image of saying, well, if you imagine if you could somehow eat the sun, obviously we can't because we'd be destroyed before we even got close, but if you could eat the sun, you would then contain within yourself the source of light and warmth in our solar system. Well, God is the creator of the sun, so he's saying that part of the miracle then of the Eucharist is not just that Jesus becomes, changes bread and wine into his own body, blood, soul, and divinity, that's the greatest miracle that occurs, but a secondary miracle we could say is that we're still alive after we receive the Eucharist. If God didn't save us, so to speak, each time we received the Eucharist, we would be annihilated, we would die because of God's goodness, power, and awesomeness. And so it's beautiful to think about, right, that we should have that sense of awe and wonder that God loves us in this way, that he hides himself, he wants to be with us so that he gives himself in a mode that we can receive, right, we can receive and still be alive and function afterwards. So God pours out everything that he has to offer to us in the Eucharist. There's nothing more that God can give to us than his own Son, Jesus. And in our psalm, we hear the psalmist being overwhelmed by the goodness of the Lord. He says, how shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? He's saying, God, you've done all these amazing things for me, and this is obviously before Jesus' time, so this is before the Eucharist, so if the psalmist can say that, how much more us, right, God has blessed us overabundantly with the sacraments, with our faith, with all the other material blessings we have in our life. So we should be overwhelmed by God's goodness towards us. How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? The psalmist is saying, well, I really can't, right, because he's God and I'm just a human being, how can I ever in any measure repay what God has done for me? Then he has an answer, he says, the cup of salvation I will take up and I will call upon the name of the Lord. The Church has always seen in this a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, right, the cup of salvation, the cup of the blood of Christ, that to return proper thanksgiving to the Lord is itself God's own gift, is by participating worthily and well in the Eucharist. There's no better way to thank God for his goodness towards us than to participate fully in the Eucharist, to surrender our lives fully to him. The word Eucharist comes from a Greek word meaning thanksgiving, that when we come to Mass, it should be part of our attitude of thanking the Lord for all of his goodness towards us. So how are some ways in which I can grow in my Eucharistic amazement, my appreciation for this amazing gift that God has given to us? Well, first and foremost, we want to make sure that we're receiving the Eucharist worthily and well. And so, worthily, certainly preparing our hearts and our minds when we come to Mass. When we come to Mass, having intentions, right, in our hearts and our minds, there's always the Mass intention that the priest offers, whatever that Mass intention happens to be, but all of us, we can bring different intentions, our family, our friends, anything going on at work, someone that's ill or sick, our deceased loved ones, friends and family members, we should bring all of that to the Lord at the Mass and lay those intentions on the altar. We also want to make sure that we are in a state of grace, and if we're conscious of serious sin, of mortal sin, then we need to go to confession first before receiving the Eucharist. And if I'm conscious of mortal sin, I should certainly still come to Mass, I can always make a spiritual communion, so Lord, be with me spiritually, even though I can't receive you physically, and then go to confession at the next available opportunity. Because although Jesus wants us to receive him in the Eucharist, he wants us to receive him worthily, because if we don't, if we're conscious of mortal sin, it's actually worse for us. We heard in the sequence, a beautiful sequence for Corpus Christi before the Gospel, it's a very beautiful teaching on the Eucharist, in one of those stanzas, one of those verses, we heard this. Bad and good the feasts are sharing, of what diverse dooms preparing, endless death or endless life. Like to these, to those, damnation. See how like participation is with unlike issues, right? And so what those verses are saying is that the Eucharist is offered to everybody. Jesus doesn't change his presence in the Eucharist depending on the worthiness or the goodness of the person that approaches, that's on us, right? We are called, the Church assumes that we are examining our hearts and our minds, our lives to say, okay, am I in a state of grace? Am I honestly prepared to receive Jesus? Because if I'm not, actually receiving the Eucharist when I'm in a state of mortal sin is bad, right? It's worse for me. It can lead to damnation, right? As the verse says, that it's either eternal life that God gives to us if we're receiving it well, or it's endless death, or it's damnation if we receive the Eucharist unworthily and we are not repentant. So again, if we are aware of that, we always want to make sure to go to confession first. And just so you know, it's not just for lay people, it's obviously for priests as well. During Mass, there's a number of quiet prayers that the priest says privately to himself, between himself and God, and one of those prayers comes right before we receive Holy Communion. And so sometimes you might see Father Eric or myself, as we're standing at the altar, our lips are moving silently, and one of those prayers, we have two options that we pray right before we receive the Eucharist, and one of those options says this, May the receiving of your body and blood, Lord Jesus Christ, not bring me to judgment and condemnation, but through your loving mercy, be for me protection in mind and body, and a healing remedy. So as the priest is celebrating Mass, it's a reminder to him, a reminder to all priests, that our lives need to be in union with God and his commandments, that we don't want the Eucharist to be bringing judgment and condemnation upon ourselves. Another way that we can grow in our love for the Eucharist is through Eucharistic adoration. Adoration protects us, it keeps the fire of faith alive in us. Simply being in God's presence is a powerful way of growing closer to him. So if I'm able to, stop into the church, five minutes, ten minutes a day, if that's possible, just allow myself to be soaked in God's presence. Even if I find myself distracted, or my thoughts are racing at a thousand miles a minute, just being in the Lord's presence helps us to develop our spiritual sense of growing deeper into union with him. And also just asking for it, asking God for a deeper love for him in the Eucharist, exercising our desire. Our spiritual desire is a spiritual muscle. We have to exercise it if we want it to grow. If I don't exercise my physical muscles, they waste away if I don't use them. Same thing is true of our spiritual life. If I don't exercise my spiritual desire, my desire for the Lord can wane and can lessen. Pope St. Pius X once said that Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to heaven. He goes on to say there are others, innocence, but that is for little children, penance, but we are afraid of it, generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be delivered. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist. What he's saying is again, when we receive the Eucharist well, when we have a Eucharistic heart, when Jesus and the Eucharist is the most important thing in our lives, that is the, as he says, easiest, shortest way to heaven. And he says there are others, that's why I love this quote, because he's very real about it. There's others, but with penance, we're often afraid to take on penances, we can endure our trials of life with a generous and good heart, but most of us, I know for myself, we experience suffering, difficulties in life, usually the first thing is, God, why are you doing this to me? Take this away, I don't want to suffer. And so the Pope is saying, we can grow closer to Jesus through the Holy Eucharist. That is the short, easy, powerful way to grow closer to the life of heaven. So as we continue to celebrate this Holy Mass, let's thank Jesus for this amazing gift of the Eucharist, let's ask him for the grace to always receive him worthily and well, let's ask him for the grace of Eucharistic amazement, that he is so wildly and excessively in love with us, that he desires to be with us for all of eternity.