Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ, a very important feast in the church and I am very happy to celebrate it with you. This feast creates a bridge so that no one needs to be alone when we have the Lord with us. It is wonderful that we can come out of ourselves and be with the Lord to receive his Body today. It is so easy today to live the faith from the sofa and you can choose to watch any number of Masses that are being streamed, but faith is to get out of ourselves. I’m really glad that today you were able to leave your house, your comfort, to hear a Word from God and above all to receive Our Lord, Jesus Christ in his Body and his Blood.
This Solemnity came out of the Reformation because Luther and others were saying the Host is not really the Body of Christ but is only a symbol of his body. The Church responded by giving more importance to the Body and Blood of Christ and this feast gave rise to processions in the street, and many other devotions that some of you might remember. But the Sacrament of the Eucharist is much more than making processions with the monstrance. While it is good for us to make processions, the Body of Christ is made from bread which is to be eaten so you can receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus says, I am the living bread that has come down from heaven and whoever eats this bread will live forever. If you don’t eat this bread, you can’t live forever, and you don’t have eternal life. So, this is very important because it is necessary to receive the Lord who has made himself food for us.
How wonderful is that! Imagine a God that lowers himself to become bread so that he can remain with us and physically enter us. It is practically a sexual relationship where the Lord enters you and becomes one with you. By receiving the Body and Blood of Christ you become more like him; he enters all the cells of your body so even physically you become one with Him.
For years it was a pity that the priest says: “Take all of you and drink” and he is the only one who drinks. The Blood of Christ then is absorbed into your blood and begins to circulate through your veins and arteries and then in goes through your heart and your brain and through your whole body. It’s impressive. I don’t know if we can understand the depth of this mystery which shows such a great love of God for us. Through this mystery you become the Body of Christ. This feast is to remind you that you are called to be the Body of Christ.
So, if your husband does not come to Mass, you can be the Body of Christ for him. Don’t miss this chance to receive Him for the sake of others, for your children or for friends who may not believe. How can God save them? It can be through you so don’t fail to receive. How can the world be saved from all the killing and violence we see today? By partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ.
I was impressed when I heard Pope Francis says that the Eucharist is the Bread of sinners. All of us are sinners and we are called to be like the monstrance that carries the Body of Christ to the others. The monstrance can be of gold or silver or something appropriate. The important thing is that it carries the Body of Christ. It is what is inside the monstrance that matters. You and I are called to be a monstrance and it does not matter who you are or what you do. What is important is that the Lord dwells in you. He wants to show the world that he is risen and is alive and that he has this power to overcome death. His presence in you is the real procession and is the true meaning of today’s feast. You have responded to his ‘take and eat my Body and drink my Blood’ so that you can share Christ and give him to the others. To love is to give yourself to the other. Love is breaking yourself for someone else. You break yourself for your spouse, you donate yourself to him/her. If you don’t do this, you are not loving him/her.
In the early Church pelicans were symbols of Christ, do you know why? The pelican, if there is a lack of food for their offspring, will peck at her chest and open it so that there is blood to feed her young. Their offspring are fed because of his great love that she has for them. This is an image of the love that our Lord has for us.
What a good news the Lord has for us today not only to give us his Body and Blood to contemplate but especially to be eaten so that we can become Christ. You feed yourselves with other ‘breads’ but they don’t satisfy you. Eat the living bread that has come down from heaven.