Corpus Christi, C - June 13, 2004

    We are all familiar with the words, “The day before he suffered he took bread in his sacred hands and looking up to heaven, to you, his almighty Father, he gave you thanks and praise. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: ‘Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you.’” Those well-known words -- so dear to the heart of every Christian -- were first spoken by Jesus, of course, on the day before He was crucified, Holy Thursday. And the Church has always given that day special prominence as the commemoration of the Last Supper, the Eucharistic Feast. In its liturgical setting, however -- as the day before Good Friday -- it would not be appropriate for the real out-pouring of devotion and veneration that is due the Body of Christ, since Holy Week is too sorrowful of a time for that. So we have Corpus Christi or The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ after Easter, a day to rejoice in a special way for the great gift of the Eucharist.
    And a gift it is, the greatest of gifts. For as the Church has always taught and believed, this Sacrament is God’s most excellent way of giving Himself to us under the signs of bread and wine. We know that during Mass when the priest prays the great prayer of the Church and repeats the words of Christ Himself -- This is my body; this is the cup of my blood. -- the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood, a reality hidden under the outward appearance of bread and wine. Many find this difficult. But when you think about it: how else would we symbolize and enact the nourishment of eternal life except by the nourishment of food and drink? How else would we take in God except under such signs?
    And not only that. But this Sacrament -- as do all the sacraments -- fits in with the general pattern of many other communications from God that come to us in so many ways: God’s love born in the heart of a child through the love of mother and father, God’s greatness and glory hinted at in the grandeur of creation, God’s holiness visibly lived out in the lives of Saints, and so forth. But with the Eucharist we delve much deeper into the mystery of God. Here God does not communicate to us merely something about Himself; rather, He gives Himself. And the mystery is not only how He does this under the outward signs of bread and wine, but also why, why He would want to.
    Why, why would He want to? Here is where we come to the heart of the Eucharist. And the Apostle Luke gives us shows us, in today’s Gospel, a deep insight into this question: the healing and the feeding of the thousands of people who had gathered to hear Jesus speak. It is for us, when we meditate on such things as this, that we are confronted with something foreign to our human experience: perfect love. Love, that is, that with no need of receiving anything, no need even of finding fulfillment in the act of loving, but just perfect, full, completely joyful, love. Then, we can begin to make sense out those famous words, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son....” For God so loved His creation, humanity in particular, that He gave... gave what? Himself. Jesus Christ is that gift of God Himself, the eternal Son of the eternal Father coming into our world to redeem it from sin, to draw it back to Himself. Because He needed to? Because God felt constrained to? No, because He wanted to, freely, voluntarily -- because He is Love.
    Love gives. And the perfect love of the Father gives perfectly and fully. That’s how the Church understands the tremendous event called the Annunciation, when God spoke to the young girl Mary and asked if she would cooperate in this great expression of God’s self-giving. That’s how we understand Bethlehem and the whole life of Jesus, His death and resurrection -- as God’s gift of Himself. And the Eucharist is the continuation of that. It is as if God speaks to His Church and asks her whether she will cooperate in this continual self-giving of the divine. At Holy Communion it is as if God speaks to each of us individually and says, Will you cooperate now with the God of all glory? Will you receive this sign of His love? Will you let this gift have its way with you?
So God gives Himself. He comes in many “disguises.” Through the astounding beauty and immensity of creation itself, through the voice of the prophet, through the wisdom of the sages, through the human heart’s longing for happiness, through the lives of holy men and women. And finally, one day uneventful in the eyes of the world, God gives, really gives, Himself through the birth of a child in Bethlehem. God appears among His people as a Man to do what love always does -- to pour out Himself for us. And now, at this Holy Mass -- at every Mass -- that most personal, most real, self-giving -- is re-presented to the faithful.
    Why, though, the whispers of God’s presence, the half-light, divinity veiled under the flesh of Jesus, the body and blood of Christ hidden under the signs of bread and wine? Perhaps because the glory would be too much for us now. The people of Israel had a more direct encounter with God on Mount Sinai that caused them to tremble with fear and beg that God stop speaking to them lest they die. The disciples were confused and struck with terror at the sight of the Transfiguration, when divinity showed through the humanity of Christ. The saints, drawing very near to this God who is Love, have had to draw back because they could not bear the weight of the glory.
    No, we are not yet ready to see God. We must learn to walk before we can run. But in order to learn to run, in order to be made ready to see God, we need God even now. And so He comes to us under signs of His presence, speaking to us in the voice of conscience, through the words of the Holy Scriptures, in the stories of the lives of those who drew very close to Him in this life. And now, in the Eucharist, in this remembering of the death and resurrection of Christ, under the signs of bread and wine. But here God shares more than rumors of His glory. He gives His glory to us, a glory too much for eyes of flesh to behold; and so He shares with us in the way we can receive Him. That’s the Eucharist. Greatest of gifts, greatest of signs, because the Giver is really here, with us. The Giver is fully in the Gift.