The hurricane season has begun. Our motto might be: Semper Paratus (always be ready).
You may have heard the old chestnut about an atheist who walking in the woods suddenly saw a grizzly bear charging towards him. The man ran as fast as he could, but he tripped. The bear was right on top of him. The atheist cried out: “Oh my God!”
The bear froze. A bright light shone from the sky and a voice said: “You denied my existence for so many years. What do you expect of me?” The atheist stammered: “I'd be hypocritical to ask you to treat me as a believer, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a believer?”
“Very well,” said the voice. And suddenly the bear brought both paws together, bowed his head and said: “Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive... Amen.” The moral of the story: be careful what you ask for!
Today we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Eucharist: a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving”: thanks to God for the gift of salvation, divine life within and with God forever.
I would like to reflect with you upon the significance of this feast.
There have been many impressive meals in the course of human history. At the first supper, so the Book of Genesis says, the entre was forbidden fruit. That meal was a catastrophe.
Then there’s the Passover meal, the Seder service, which Jews continue to celebrate every year in remembrance of their deliverance from their oppressors.
And at state banquets leaders toast one another over rich food.
The meal table is often the center of family life. People gather and celebrate important transitions: birthdays, graduations, marriages.
And in our global Catholic family, the altar or table of the Lord is the center of our faith community. Think about that.
We gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus Christ, so that we can re-experience our salvation, the gift of God's life in us, and nurture that life in our own journey toward our heavenly dwelling place.
Now consider what the word of God has to say to us today.
The word takes us back to the exodus or liberation of the Hebrews from the Egyptians. In the wilderness Moses experiences God in the imagery of thunder and lightning and mediates a covenant in a so-called “blood” ritual symbolizing that God and his people share the same divine life. Blood symbolizes life and we carry within ourselves God’s life.
We may ask: how faithful are we in our relationship with God and one another?
The Letter to the Hebrews contrasts the animal sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem to the bodily sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Jesus through his bloody death and glorious resurrection opened up to us life beyond this earthly life. Do we live faithfully as sons and daughters of God?
In the Gospel, we find ourselves at the last supper or Passover of Jesus. This developed into the Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist which we know today as the mass. Herein, we worship and praise God for who he is and what he has done for us.
To better understand the Eucharist, we have to focus on three phrases.
Jesus said: This is my body…this is my blood. The bread and wine become sacramentally the Living Christ, his real presence among us until He comes in glory at the end-time.
Jesus also said: Do this in remembrance of me. The same victim who died once for us outside Jerusalem centuries ago returns sacramentally to us in this meal each day, at altar tables around the world. That's why we celebrate the mass: to re-experience our salvation.
And Jesus said: Take and eat…take and drink. Jesus invites us to become one with Him in communion.
The purpose of this mass is to form us into a vibrant faith community. Paul wrote: because the bread is one, we, though many, are one body. The sacramental body and blood of Jesus Christ empowers us to reach out compassionately to others.
Yes, we are called to go forth, from church into community, to wash the feet of our brothers and sisters, so to speak.
To paraphrase an old hymn:
Christ has no hands but our hands to do His work today;
He has no feet but ours to lead human beings to Him who is our way, our truth and our life;
no voice but ours to tell us why He died (so that God might abide in us and we in God);
and no help but ours to lead human beings to their true purpose: life in and with God forever. Amen.
