29 May 2016
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and
Blood of Christ
God has blessed us with two very great gifts: our faith and
our ability to think. And, ideally, they
go hand-in-hand. Faith enlightens our
thinking; and thinking helps us to understand our faith. In fact, that’s what theology is: it’s “faith
seeking understanding.” But it’s a
particular kind of understanding; faith helps us understand the meaning of things and events. It doesn’t help us understand the science behind those things and events.
For instance, when Jesus changed water into wine at the
Wedding at Cana, our faith helps us to see the meaning behind what he did. But we don’t know how that change happened.
Or, today, we hear about Jesus feeding five thousand people with only
two fish and five loaves of bread. Our
faith doesn’t really tell us how that
was possible; in fact, our brain tells us it isn’t possible. But our
faith gives us some understanding, at least: Jesus feeding the five thousand was
a lesson about putting more trust in God’s power than in human thinking.
God has blessed us with two very great gifts: our faith and
our ability to think. And they work
together. But, sometimes, we just have
to believe—even if it doesn’t seem believable.
Sometimes we just have to have faith,
even if means we have to look foolish to others. And that’s what we run into every time we
come together for Mass. We come face to
face with . . . the Body and Blood of Christ.
Now, we can accept that Jesus is spiritually present in the
priest, in the congregation, and in the words of Scripture. For some reason, that’s just more easily
accepted. But it’s much harder to accept
(in our brains) that Jesus’ Body and Blood are actually, physically present in
the Eucharist. And it’s different than
when he turned water into wine, because, there, people could see and taste that it was wine.
Their senses confirmed that a real change had happened.
But that’s not what we’re dealing with here in the
Eucharist. Our senses of sight, taste,
touch—they all fail us. They’re of no
help whatsoever is being able to say with certainty: This is the Body and Blood
of Christ. And not only that, our
ability to think and to reason also fails us (somewhat). When the bread and wine become the actual
Body and Blood of Christ, we come face to face with . . . the impossible.
The Eucharist is illogical;
it doesn’t make sense—it goes against the laws of logic. It also defies the laws of nature. According to everything we know in our
brains, the Body and Blood of Christ shouldn’t be here. But here they are.
After the consecration, the priest stands up and he says: The
Mystery of Faith. And he’s referring to
the Body and Blood of Christ there on the altar. The sheer fact that it’s there—that the seemingly impossible
is staring us in the face, is the Mystery which can be accepted only in faith. The real presence of the Body and Blood of
Christ is “the Mystery of Faith.”
When the Apostles saw that two fish and five loaves were
enough to feed five thousand people, what else could they say but, “We don’t
understand it. How was that possible?” And when we hear that the bread and wine are changed
really and substantially into the Body and Blood of Christ, what else can we
say but, “We don’t understand it. How is
that possible?” And with that question,
we’re left with a decision: To believe or not to believe—to believe it’s the
Body and Blood of Christ, or simply bread and wine. And hidden within that decision, there’s the
question: What does it even matter if
we believe or not? What does it matter?
Well, it matters because it is a test of our faith; it is
a test to see in what we put our trust.
Now, it depends on what surveys we look at, but somewhere between 60-70%
of all Catholics don’t believe that the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of
Christ. They believe it’s either nothing
or it’s just bread and wine. And, so, whenever we
come up to receive Communion and we say, “Amen,” we’re saying “Amen” to
something which, for a
majority of Catholics, is
nonsensical.
We’re
not that different from the Apostles who were asked to have
faith that two
fish and five loaves would
be enough. And, like them, we’re hit with a test of faith every time Jesus takes the bread and says: “Take this all of you and eat of it, for this is my
Body.” And every time he takes the chalice and
says: “Take this all of you and drink
from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood.”
It’s illogical and unbelievable what we’re asked to believe.
It doesn’t make sense.
And,
yet, Jesus still says: “Do you believe me?
Do you have faith that my words are true?” What does it matter if we believe?
Well, it’s a test of faith; it’s a
test of where we put our trust . . . in the Power of God, or in the power
of our mind to understand?
In short: Who is your God? Is it
God, or is it yourself? To say “Amen” to
the Body and Blood of Christ is to profess
faith that God alone is God.
But it isn’t just a test of our faith. Our Catholic belief in the Real Presence of
Christ in the Eucharist gives us our basic identity. And, with that, the Eucharist becomes the
“source and the summit,” the “Alpha and the Omega,” the “beginning and the end”
of all that we are.
In
the 4th Century, Saint Augustine wrote that to receive the Body and
Blood of Christ is “to receive that which we are.” And Pope
Saint Leo the Great said the same in the 5th Century. He said, “The sharing in the Body and Blood
of Christ has no other effect than to accomplish our transformation into that
which we receive.” And it’s a belief
that’s been repeated throughout the centuries up to the
present day. In short, “we are what we eat.”
And
this is important to consider because we aren’t made
to be a loaf of bread, or a cup of wine—either partially or entirely. We’re intended by our Maker to really be the Body and Blood of Christ; in the
world, in our
relationships, and forever in the bosom of
the Holy Trinity. The Church is the Body of Christ because the bread becomes the real Body
of Christ. And the Church is the
lifeblood of the world because the
wine becomes the real Blood of Christ.
Again, from Saint Augustine, to receive the Body and Blood of
Christ is “to receive that which we are.”
Even though our brains can’t exactly understand how the Eucharist works, our brains are able to understand why Jesus
changes bread and wine into his Body and Blood.
It’s so that our flesh-and-blood life will be bound up with his Flesh-and-Blood life. It’s so that we can become like God—today and always.
What does it matter if we believe that the Eucharist is the
real Body and Blood of Christ? Well, it
matters . . . if we want to touch
God, and if we want to be touched by God—intimately and bodily. It matters . . . if we really want to be
the face and the hands and the voice of God to others. It matters because, through the Body and
Blood of Christ, we become “blood brothers,” “blood sisters.” It matters because through the Body and Blood
of Christ the Church is formed and sustained and nourished. But it takes faith even to believe that.
Receiving Communion is the highlight of our time in
Mass. Even though we receive what looks
and tastes like an ordinary wafer and ordinary wine, and even though we might
not feel any different after having received Communion, it still takes faith to
believe that we are changed. Something is
different: we received Communion. We’ve been received into more intimate and bodily communion with God, and through that, with our neighbors.
And that’s what our life is all about: it’s about Communion—communion with the Trinity and
with all of creation—not only in spirit, but in the body as well. And so, what does it matter if we believe
that the Eucharist is the real Body and Blood Christ? Because the Body and Blood is the “doorway”
to real communion with others,
ourselves and our God. Of course, that’s
not something to be understood; instead, it’s simply . . . the Mystery of Faith.
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