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CORPUS CHRISTI (Year B)
“Corpus Christi”: the Body of Christ. “Amen” is what we respond to the minister of the Eucharist
who distributes the Sacrament to us. “Amen” comes from the Hebrew term for truth: in truth, I believe this is
the Body of Christ. Hence, it is not a mere symbol, nor, as some have argued more subtly, only the “true Body of Christ”
if the one receiving it believes it to be so, while the one not believing it to be so would merely be seeing or receiving
a symbol. Nor is it the Body of Christ only for as long as the Mass lasts, while after the “ite missa est” it
reverts to being bread, and the Blood of Christ, should any remain, would revert to being wine. No, our “Amen”
is the response of faith to Christ’s own words: “This is my Body … this is my Blood”.
The Amen, so to speak, brings us up to Christ’s level of commitment, of meaning, of sincerity in what He says and does.
The signs of bread and wine are just that: mere signs, although we call them sacramental because they bring about the grace
they signify (something you will all recall from your catechism?!). But the reality underlying them is the glorified Lord
Jesus: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Were the Cathedral to fall upon us at this moment and kill us all, that Body and Blood
would remain so long as the external signs or species remained. Such is the loving commitment of Jesus to us; such His desire
to be with us; such His desire that we would be with Him.
But our Amen reaches much deeper because the Sacrament of the Eucharist invites us much deeper.
Our own human body is the first thing we experience, in its fascinating aspects and in its
less fascinating aspects. Through the body our conscious mind begins to develop by means of the relationships of those who
care, and even of those who fail to care, for us. The mind and the faculties of the soul, at least initially, need the senses
to develop. The body challenges the soul, struggles with it for domination. The awkward clumsiness of adolescence is a time
of great potential for the body to be formed by the values of the soul, especially spiritual values. The vigor of youth enables
the mind and heart to develop with intensifying rhythm; or, it can be wasted by allowing the body and its needs and caprices
to lay low the flame of the soul. The onset of age, sickness and mortality bespeak the decay of the body but also, for many,
they bespeak the refinement of the soul in love, suffering and wisdom. Every body carries with it the memories of the past,
not just of the surgical incisions, but the long hours in the sun, or at work, the long years of depression or anxiety, the
long years of sickness, weeping and suffering, or indeed of rejoicing and genuine love.
Letter-writing, e-mails, telephone calls (no matter how many cellular phones you may have)
are all good ways of “being in touch”, but without being able to touch. It is physical presence
more than anything which makes us feel the love of the other: the desire to see the faces that are gone, to touch the hands
that once caressed, to embrace the body of one whose love was communicated by their very way of walking. In particular, there
is the human face, fascinating in its ability to communicate - and to hide. An ethnic group, a race, a people become identifiable
as such because they live or lived in the same place. Physical proximity is the raw material for social oneness, although
at times it can lead to strife.
“Corpus Christi”. The Body of Christ. This is the sacrament of the physical proximity of Jesus to us. It is
the sacrament of Christ’s fidelity to the incarnation of His divine Person; it is the memorial of the extremity of love
with which He loved us. We may stretch our eyes through telescopes or other instruments as far as the outer galaxies to see
if we can catch a glimpse of Him at the right hand of the Father. But He has chosen a better way: a way that permits Him to
be with the Father and yet to be with us. That way is the Eucharist: God still among us, always among us until the end of
the age. And in that sacramental Body which we contemplate momentarily in our hand, or on our tongue, or more at length behind
the tabernacle door or exposed in the monstrance, we are not just looking at a symbol. For the Eucharist is like a window
into heaven itself, but a window that becomes clearer the more we allow the Body of the Lord to become our own body; the more
we allow our own bodies to become His. We commune with Him in Communion so as to be transformed into Him as He is being transformed
into us. This is the grace of the Eucharist: communion, becoming more fully one Body with the Lord and with one another. That
is why the Eucharist creates the Church and the Church, in witnessing to the Body of the Lord, draws mankind towards
Him. This is what Vatican II meant when it spoke of the Church as the “sacrament of unity of the entire human race”
(“Lumen Gentium”, 1).
So there is much to adore in the Body of the Lord. As you allow your eyes to become fixed
upon that round, little, white host, think of the vast universe of eternity that lies behind it; think of the vast universe
of this world which, sooner or later, will be, as it were, drawn into that host, for judgment unto life or unto death. Think
of the Body of Him who was truly born of the Virgin Mary; think of all He went through as a child, a boy, a teenager, an adolescent,
a youth, a man. Like us in every way, except sin. Think of the hands that blessed the children and healed the sick; of the
voice that calmed the storm and called Lazarus from the tomb; of the eyes that pierced with love the heart of the rich young
man, that saw Nathanael and Matthew from a distance before calling them to leave everything and follow Him; think of those
legs and feet that walked mile after mile to preach and announce the good news of salvation: “God is with you, for I
am with you!” Think of his smile, his singing voice, his angry and majestic voice, his tearful cries, his gentle whispering.
Think, finally of His passion and of the marks it made on His Body, those same marks that are now glorified, that we now receive
in the sacrament of the Eucharist and that one day we shall behold with our own eyes if we live and die in His love.
But as you heart is drawn into His through contemplation of the Eucharist, draw to your own
heart the millions of people suffering in millions of ways for whom the Body of the Lord will be their eternal healing and
salvation. Remember those who curse Him, reject Him, despise Him, and allow your own heart to feel something of His pain so
that your lives may, God knows how, attract some of them to bless, accept and adore Him.
Pope John Paul calls the Eucharist the “heart of the world”. Who among
us does not want to say “Amen” to that, to be in, to beat with, that Heart? Let our resounding “Amen”
lead us to seek time to love and adore Him in the Eucharist, exposed or not, to find healing, peace and a sense of inner unity
and come to understand deeply how the Heart of Jesus beats with eternal, crazy love for this passing, crazy world in which
we are but pilgrims. “Corpus Christi. Amen.”
Msgr. Peter Magee
St. Matthew’s Cathedral
Sunday, June 22nd
2003, 10.00 am
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