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From Archbishop Donoghue|
Mass for the Feast of the Body and Blood of the
Lord |
Dear Friends in Christ, All the Feasts of our Lord, from one end of the year to the other, exist for two reasons - first that in everything we do we may give glory to God, and second, that in every way provided by the Church, we may grow closer to God in love and obedience. And today’s feast, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ is no different. At a time in our past - and perhaps in our present - when the heresy that the Eucharist was but a sign of Christ’s Presence, and not the Presence itself, rose up and gained acceptance by many people, the Church created this Feast; the great thinker among the Saints, Thomas Aquinas, was especially commissioned by the Church to write the great prayers and hymns we associate with the feast - and it was called in Latin, and persists in being called to this day, the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. In a few words of his might sequence hymn for today, St. Thomas gives us the essential meaning of what today is about when he says: This the truth each Christian learns, Bread into his flesh he turns, To His precious blood the wine… [and] in either wondrous token, Christ entire we know to be. Now, we are accustomed enough to worshipping the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. All our lives - from infancy for some, from the moment of conversion for others - but for the duration of our faith lives at any rate, we train ourselves, as good Catholics and people desirous of salvation, to be obedient and accepting of the Church’s belief in the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. But I also think, that in a way, our Eucharistic belief - our devotion, tends to picture Christ as simply a spiritual being. After all, we can look at the host, but can we actually see there, the features of Christ - can we see His eyes, or hear words issuing from his mouth, or can we tangibly feel His hand reach out to impart a blessing or even a pat on the head? Much as we might imagine it so, these are not perceivable realities - they are hidden behind the spiritual reality that bids us to believe, in order to know. These aspects of the bodily Christ, are hidden in the Eucharist in what many come to know as the soul of Christ - and it is true for us, that although we may ponder it long and hard, we will never be able to comprehend the soul of Christ. For in His soul, Christ shared equal divinity with God the Father, a divinity only seen by those already in heaven. We see evidence of the soul of Christ in the mysterious and mighty powers that He possessed - the power he wielded over life and death for instance, and over the impersonal but terrible forces of nature - the wind, the sea, the very atomic particles from which all reality is constructed - Christ had within Him the divine nature that allowed the manipulation, the ordering, and the transformation of all the elements of Creation, spiritual and physical. These are powers infinitely beyond us, and we can only stand, as the saints would say, in fear and awe and trembling before such might, such omnipotence. Fortunate it is for us, that in His great love, God knows that this aspect of His being is far beyond our knowing - and in His love for us, God understands that if we are to be truly moved to salvation, to repentance, to conversion, then we must be moved through one who is like us - one who shares and knows, no matter how powerful He might really be, the utter powerlessness of what it is to be a human being - a fragile, sensitive, doubting, striving, and mortal, human being. And so, when the time was right, and when perfect obedience and humility appeared in the young virgin girl, Mary of Nazareth, then God gave Himself a body, and came to the earth through hers - a body like ours in every way - subject to the wrenching liberation of birth - subject to the weakness and to the hard labor of life - and finally, subject to the utter physical defeat which we know and call death. By doing this - by giving Himself a body in Christ, the Father shows us that it is not through power that we will come to salvation - Christ did not rise from the dead and ascend to the Father because He could walk on water, or bid the storm clouds above the sea to desist, or even because He could quicken in the dead body of His friend Lazarus, the spark of life already extinguished, already entombed - Christ did not rise because of the greatness of His own power. Rather, Christ was raised up by the greatness of the Father’s love - love for the sacrifice He had made - love for the weary life of trudging up and down the roads of Judea, to preach the truth - love for the patient way in which He taught the Apostles and the people the new commandment of love, and the new life of charity - and finally, love for His final acceptance of betrayal, humiliation, trial, and death. God the Father raised Christ up, because Christ loved us so much that he would turn away from powers, and suffer - suffer everything that our bodies must suffer. In this way only - by knowing humanity, in humanity’s flesh, could God make His love complete and perfect - perfect in the ultimate sacrifice of the Body of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior. This fact utterly inspired and captured the early Church of Christian believers - St. Paul taught the matter thus when he addressed the Corinthians: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. And the Church, in the practical instruction of her Catechism, has this to say: Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. (Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator.) For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. (GS 233) Dear Friends, certainly Christ, from the very beginning, understood our needs, and designed His entire program for the future of the Church on earth around this basic necessity - the necessity to know, to have, and as He commanded us, to “eat” His Body. His words are many and clear: “I myself am the living bread… the bread I will give is my flesh… my flesh is real food… (and) who feeds on me will have life because of me.” But even with words so forcefully spoken, there is much left beyond understanding, for though we contemplate the Eucharist - though we dwell forever in the love of God - we cannot know this side of the grave the fullness of what it all means, for the fullness is only revealed in the risen life, the life we yet await. So instead of understanding, let us cast our faith upon the Lord’s words, and on this great feast of His Body and Blood - Corpus Christi - and on every day that remains to us of earthly life, let us approach Him with sorrow for our sins and determination to lead holy lives in the future - and let us be content to believe - to believe - what the Gospel tells of those who sat down in the field, and who were fed by the hand of the Lord. For when the meal was served, indeed, “they all ate and were satisfied.” + |