Readings for Sunday, June 19th

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Corpus Christi

If you haven’t read or heard today’s Mass readings for this Solemnity of Corpus Christi, The Body and Blood of Christ, please read them first, and then return below for my thoughts.

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I begin by wishing all our fathers a very Happy Day! It’s a day to thank you for all you’ve done in raising your families - all you continue to do because we know that your efforts to be a good father continue long after your sons and daughters have left the home - and for the great service you provide our society by being good fathers. Thanks, men, for all of that.

And I’ll say again what I’ve said before. I hope the family waits on you “hand and foot” today. I know that after Mass at least one mom out there is going to tell me, “What, are you kidding? We wait on him hand and foot every day.” Well, Dad, may it happen again.

Father’s Day and Corpus Christi both coincide this weekend with the ordination of seven new priests for our Diocese. Seven new Fathers, the largest number in years, were ordained yesterday. Please pray they’ll be good priests. Today, all seven will celebrate their first Masses in various parishes as I did forty-five years ago today, over in Holden.

And on a day like this I think it important to tell you that I love being a priest, love being that different kind of father. The priesthood is a great gift of God’s grace, a real privilege. You celebrate the sacraments and enter into the lives of thousands of people in every parish you serve.  There are those supremely happy occasions like baptisms and weddings and parish events - offering peace of mind through confessions - and the hope of recovery through the anointing of the sick.

And there are certainly the more challenging moments - assisting families in those times of hardship or death - working with people through some tough spots in their lives.

Every day is different but it’s all very good. But the best part, the most important part, is offering Mass - participating, as you do, in the miracle that occurs on the altar every day as bread and wine become Christ’s Body and Blood to be shared. The Mass spiritually forms me every day, as it does all those who come. And, of course, the priesthood and the Eucharist are interconnected. Jesus gave both these Sacraments - priesthood and Eucharist - at the same time, on the same night, the Last Supper. In doing that, he joined them forever.

Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ, is our special focus today.

We’ve been celebrating this feast since the year 1246. 776 years. Here we offer our gratitude to God for that unique and wondrous event that the Mass is. It’s where Jesus becomes personally present to us in a powerful way under the signs of bread and wine.

Today’s Gospel recalls a miracle on a hillside. There are 5,000 people and so little food. But they’re fed by Jesus. God’s power, in Jesus, makes this happen. It’s both mysterious and spectacular. We hear that story today to reinforce the conviction that what happens in the Mass, right here, is also a miracle…where we’re fed.

The miracle is the transformation of bread and wine into something that it wasn’t before - into the Body and Blood of Christ - so that hopefully the transformation of each of us also takes place by receiving this food - so we’ll act more like Christ, in fact become Christ.

Here, a basic and ordinary human food, that lies at home on our kitchen table, is changed into Christ Himself who died on the cross and who loves us for eternity. “This is my body; this is my blood.” Jesus told us that Himself and I believe every word of Jesus.

The Eucharist unites us to God, of course. But more than that.  It also joins us to each other. 

In a few minutes, when I go to the altar, I’ll say a prayer. “Grant your Church, O Lord, the gifts of unity and peace whose signs are to be seen in mystery in the offerings we here present.” This means that we, the people are to become what the offering of bread and wine are - a single body made up of all the individual lives here today and millions of others throughout the world. We’re called to be one and live in peace.

By receiving Holy Communion, we become one with Christ but also one with each other. When the priest or minister says to you at Communion, “The Body of Christ,” we respond “Amen.” That means “I believe.”

But it doesn’t just mean I believe that the host we’re handed is the Body of Christ. When we say “Amen” it means we believe everyone here is the Body of Christ. We’re all one body. We’re saying “Yes” to the community.

All our lives are to be mingled, so that…

Husband and wife are now one in Christ

Father and mother and child one in Christ

Priest, religious and lay people all joined in Christ

Every ethnic group, rich and poor,
male and female all now one in Christ

There are many reasons for coming to church. But paramount is that you and I come to receive something - something beyond us - something beyond our power to give - something from Christ himself. And that’s such a gift.

I’m glad you’re here. For Christ asked us to come when he said, “Do this is memory of me.”