Sunday, June 22, 2014

Feast of Body and Blood of Christ




Body & Blood of Christ
June 22, 2014 Body and Blood of Christ - A Cycle - John 6:51-58

Two soldier friends served together in Iraq. One was a dull fellow. The other was sharp. Yet, there was a chemistry that made them inseparable. The slow one was wounded. His friend gave his blood. When the wounded fellow learned whose blood had saved his life, he said to his companion, "I feel like a new man." 

Something similar should take place each time we receive the Eucharist. We drag ourselves into the Liturgy looking for a spiritual transfusion, a pick-me-up, a refueling. We need an adrenaline rocket that will jump start us and get us through the next six days. 
Does any mother's child here still wonder why the Church urges us to receive the Eucharist daily? It tells us, "Meet Jesus in the AM Eucharist and walk with Him throughout the day." Like the soldier who began this homily, we should feel like a new person. Receive the Eucharist well and the chances are good that you take on yourself characteristics of Jesus. That is going first class. 

A clever 3rd century Egyptian, Clement of Alexandria, compares the union of ourselves with Jesus in the Eucharist to two pieces of wax being fused together. If we were not blood relations with Him before Communion, we should be after it. 

He and we should become family. If we really give the process a second effort, we can just about put Him down in our wallet IDs as next of kin. "In case of accident, call Jesus. He is immediate family." Talk about thoroughbred bloodlines! 
The Eucharist is the Gospel made Sacrament; Christ is both baker and bread. Not by any accident does He use the oldest known and most nourishing food to give us Himself. (Unknown) 

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ goes back to 1261 which was a good year for us. Why? Thomas Aquinas was a professor at the University of Paris. Pope Urban IV had a sharp eye for superstars. He asked the master Dominican theologian to write a Mass for the feast. Some good things happily do not disappear into dusty library shelves. We are still using that Mass formula 700 years after its birth. This was one professor of theology who was able to pen lyrical prose. 

Fra Thomas of Aquin saluted the Eucharist as "tantum sacramentum," which translates comfortably into "so awesome a sacrament." This professor addresses Jesus with these lush words, "In this sacrament, you are both shepherd and pasture." Another man, who knew Paris well, was the 20th century Nobel prize laureate Francois Mauriac. He wrote, "The Eucharist is what is most real in the world." Just think of it God in a bit of bread comes to bring morning into the darkness of our bellies. (Hilda Prescott) 

Do notice how clever the Church is. It situates today's feast immediately after the celebration of last Sunday's Feast of the Trinity and the Pentecost the week before that. No matter how you approach these feasts, the Pentecost and the Trinity both honor an invisible God. Not so the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ! The Nazarene is eminently seeable and embraceable. He is warmth personified. 

To paraphrase Ignatius of Antioch, in the Eucharist we not only put our arms around Jesus but more importantly He squeezes us. He takes our breath away. You cannot get any closer than that. A boy was critically ill. Only his nine year old brother had his blood type. He volunteered. As he watched the blood leaving his body, he asked the doctor, "How soon before I die?" He was reassured he would live. No one gave that assurance to Christ when He gave His rare blood type to us. Yet, He gave it willingly. 

The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. (William James) A woman showed her biography to friends. It had only three pages. The first page was black. That she said represented her sins. The second page was red and it signified the blood Christ shed for her sins. The third was white. This last page was herself after being cleansed by the Eucharist. (William Barclay) 

Each of us has the first two pages of that biography. The third only is added when we receive Jesus as our personal Saviour. Today at this Liturgy is as good a time as any to add that third page. Think about it. Introduce others to the Eucharist. The world thirsts for grace in ways it does not recognize. (Philip Yancey) Little wonder that in a recent year, 150,000 Americans were baptized as Catholics or received into the full communion of the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil alone. Increase that number. 

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