A Eucharistic Center of Gravity?

+ J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for Corpus Christi, Year C

As we move back into Ordinary Time, having completed the great journey of Lent and Easter with Pentecost, the Church places before us 4 solemn and beautiful feasts to highlight some of the most basic mysteries of our faith. On the first Sunday after Pentecost, The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, which we celebrated last week, and then today, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, popularly known as Corpus Christi. Then this coming Friday we celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus and on Saturday the Immaculate Heart of Mary. You can see a trajectory here from the most intimate mystery of God, the Trinity, to the place that we encounter Him most intimately, the Eucharist, to the profound humanity of Jesus’ burning love for us, as well as Mary’s pure love. Our Christian faith teaches us of God who searches for and calls us!

During the course of the liturgical cycle, we encounter the Mystery of the Eucharist in many different ways… in every Mass, on Sunday in a particular way, as every Sunday is a little Easter… and then very intensely on Holy Thursday, as we remember Jesus instituting the Eucharist and the Priesthood at the Last Supper. The Eucharist is at the very heart of who we are and who God calls us to be. One short paragraph from the Catechism, #1324, summarizes the clear teaching of the Second Vatican Council:

The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch."

In the Eucharist we find the source of all life and grace, and the goal and summit of our earthly journey to which we are to bring all that we are. Jesus placed the Eucharist at the very center, the place where we receive Him, and following Jesus, the Church has always placed the Eucharist at the very center of her life.

Here we encounter the challenge, the invitation, to us today… Do we place the Eucharist at the center of our lives? Often we desire strength, and in the Eucharist it is offered to us. We long to be in intimate relationship with God, and in the Eucharist we find Him. We need healing and medicine for our brokenness, and in the Eucharist we find healing. We long to be united in our family, our community, our parish, and our world, and in the Eucharist we are made one. We endlessly seek happiness, joy, and peace, all too often in mere created things, and yet the deepest joy possible is offered to us in the Eucharist.

Here we are at this moment, those of us who have chosen to come to Mass today, and we perhaps most of all need to be awakened and made aware once again… we for whom the Eucharist can become routine, a mere practice or habit or duty… We need to be awakened to the infinite mystery and joy of that which we are about to receive… He whom we are about to receive!

Since May 20th I’ve been down in Nicaragua and El Salvador, visiting the village where my sister Libby served in the Peace Corps, and then the village where I served in the Peace Corps. As I have done almost every summer since I was ordained, I baptized, heard confessions, and celebrated Mass. My sister Libby lived in a much more remote area… her village of Sisle is part of the Parish of Our Lady of the Angels based in Jinotega, Nicaragua, and that parish with it’s pastor and two associates serves some 30 different chapels scattered around the countryside… it makes my job here seem pretty manageable! The biggest chapel where Libby lived gets Mass nearly every month, but the smaller chapels may only have it a couple times each year. When I come, Libby schedules Masses for me in each place, and this year Mass was at 10 am. That meant that around 10 am Libby and I walked several miles to the chapel, and then I started hearing confessions. The first two days it was four hours of confessions, and on the third day it was two and a half hours… and then we celebrated Mass! People there are very poor, materially, and the face the same temptations and weakness that we do. And yet, it seems to me that many of them recognize the deep hunger of their hearts for God more readily than we do! How many of us would wait four hours to go to confession, or for Mass to begin? If the Eucharist is indeed what we believe it to be, why wouldn’t we? Is Jesus worth our time? What gets in the way for us in the midst of wealth and comfort and routine?

How, then, are we to deepen our love for this deepest mystery of our faith? Let me propose to you just one

practice that I think leads us into deeper love with the Eucharist and with Jesus Christ. In Eucharistic Adoration, we prolong and extend, we dwell in that moment of communion, in silence and in prayer. Jesus is present everywhere at all times, sustaining all things in being, but His presence is particularly concrete, and real, and tangible, in the consecrated host… As He Himself said, “This is my Body, this is my Blood!” My own journey of faith has been profoundly intensified in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and a very large part of the impact on our young people who go each summer the Steubenville North Conference comes in Adoration there. Each week in our communities, there is opportunity for Eucharistic adoration… both the simpler form, simply stopping at Church to pray before the Tabernacle, and the more solemn form, with Jesus’ Body exposed in the monstrance. After the 6:15 pm Mass at Immaculate Conception each Monday, and after the 6:15 pm Mass at St. Sebastian each Tuesday, the Eucharist is exposed on the altar, and I spend some time waiting for you in the confessional! On each First Friday we have adoration all day long, praying especially for vocations to the priesthood, closing with Benediction. This has already been a great blessing for me, and yet VERY VERY few people come… sometimes just one or two, while Jesus waits for us on the altar! In silence He shines upon us, warming our chilled hearts and salving our aching wounds. Do you desire peace? Do you desire healing and a deeper knowledge of yourself? Do you long to pour out your troubles and joys and gratitude to the Lord? There is perhaps no more powerful way than to enter into His Eucharistic Presence in silent adoration.

At the end of Mass, I will expose the Blessed Sacrament on the altar in the Monstrance, and we will all adore together silently for just 5 minutes. At the end of that time I will bless you with the monstrance. Please do not leave until final blessing, please open your heart to linger for just a few moments in the Lord’s presence!