Corpus Christi
Basilica of the Assumption
June 2, 2024
An Embarrassment of Riches
On this Feast of Corpus Christi, the homilist is faced with an embarrassment of riches – for there is no way even the most skillful homilist could do justice to the great mystery of faith, the gift of inestimable value, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist.
Since I am not the most skillful of homilists, let me content myself, and hopefully yourselves, as I offer just a few reflections about the centrality and beauty of the Eucharistic Lord, in your life and in mine, beginning with this.
The Eucharist Contains the Entire Spiritual Wealth of the Church
The II Vatican Council taught that, in the mystery of the Eucharist, the entire spiritual wealth of the Church is contained, for in the Eucharist there is encapsulated, as it were, the great treasure of Christ’s gift of self on the Cross for the forgiveness of sin his intimate presence in the soul of each person who receives him worthily, and his abiding presence in the heart of the Church until the very end of time. Yes, the Eucharist is the very source of the Church’s life, for as the Fathers of the Church often said, “the Eucharist makes the Church”, and the Eucharist remains, as the II Vatican Council also taught, the source and summit of the Church’s life – the source of the Church’s strength and vitality for mission and the summit towards which all the Church’s activity flows.
All this I have believed ever since I can remember. And how often I have preached on the truth that the Eucharist contains the entire spiritual wealth of the Church. Yet, it was my mother, in the last years of her life, who brought home this truth to me like no one else. Like a loving son, I would rack my brain trying to find the right gifts to give her, confined as she was to a single room in a nursing home. I came up with inventive ideas – an old-time radio that played music from the 40’s and 50’s, a variety of blankets, throws, and robes, and other things besides. Mom always received my gifts gratefully but I could tell that she had tired of material gifts . . . she had moved on. But when I brought her the Eucharist or said Mass at her bedside, her face would light up, she would smile, and participate as best she could. This was the gift she valued. This was her treasure. This is where her heart was. And this is where our heart should be, mine and yours, not only on the feast of Corpus Christi but every day of the year!
The Deepest Hunger
And as we listened to the Gospel, we may have asked ourselves: Why it was that the Lord changed bread and wine into his Body and Blood? Why was he at pains to perpetuate the sacrifice he offered on the Cross? Why it is that he wanted you and me to have living contact with the victory that he won for us by his Cross and Resurrection?
That answer is simply this: he loves us and he gave his life for us. And not only does the Lord love us, he knows us. He knows what we know deep down, that just beneath the surface of our lives, amid our many strivings and our many wants and needs, our deepest hunger is for his Presence and his love. For we were made in God’s image, we were made for love, and not just any love but the infinite love of God revealed and unleashed in the saving Death and Resurrection of Christ.
Pope St. John Paul II wrote that, in the Eucharist, we “digest” the secret of the Resurrection. We who are mortal, yet have in us the seed of immorality, long for the eternal, a life that we taste in the Eucharist, as we receive into the depth of our being Jesus, the Bread of Life. St. John Vianney once said to his overflowing congregation at Ars, “Come to communion…it is true you are not worthy of it, but you need it!” A true pastor and a tireless confessor, he knew the human heart – our need for forgiveness but also our need to share in that abyss of charity that is the heart of Christ whom we receive in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
A Sign of Unity and a Bond of Charity
And then there is this: living as we do in a world that is bitterly polarized, a culture that is often angry and isolating, we need the Eucharist more than ever. How the words of the early Christian martyrs of North Africa should resonate: “Sine dominico, non possumus!”…“Without Sunday Eucharist, we cannot live!” O, that more Catholics would rediscover their need for the Eucharist!
For what is the Eucharist but the sign of charity and the bond of unity. The Eucharist is the effective sign of God’s charity for us but also the source of our strength to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Eucharist is the bond of unity, as it were, knitting us together, forging us into one as the Body of Christ. For despite our weakness and shortsightedness, the Church is meant to be a sacrament of charity and a force for unity in our badly divided and often angry world. How important it is that, in receiving the Eucharist, we make every effort to preserve the unity that has the Spirit as its origin and peace as its binding force – saying together, with one mind and heart, like the Israelites of old, “We will do all that the Lord has asked of us!”
Eucharistic Revival
The Church in the United States is in the midst of a Eucharistic revival, and we are preparing for a national Eucharistic Congress in mid-July in Indianapolis, Indiana, the first such event since 1941. Leading up to that grace-filled event are regional eucharistic pilgrimages, and the east coast pilgrimage will pass through the heart of our Archdiocese, beginning at the Seton Shrine in Emmitsburg, proceeding to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, with a special Mass celebrated here at the Basilica of the Assumption, culminating in a festival in Patterson Park.
Just as we seize the graces of this beautiful feast of Corpus Christi, let us also seize the day as the Eucharist is solemnly processed through Emmitsburg and through the City of Baltimore. Let us turn all our attention to this great source of our spiritual wealth, this food which satisfies our deepest hunger, this medicine of immorality that binds us together in love. O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine!