June 2, 2024 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL
Exodus 24: 3-8 + Psalm 116 + Hebrews 9: 11-15 + Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26
A few weeks ago, I was browsing the Sunday Bulletin of another parish and an announcement caught my eye and disturbed me a bit. There was a picture of a monstrance with the words: “Come and spend some time with Jesus.” Now, I’m sure that the person who typed that invitation meant well, but that person has revealed a big problem for us as a Church. This Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is exactly what it says. It is not the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus. When you come forward to receive Holy Communion, you hear the words: “The Body and Blood of Christ.” You do hear someone say; “The Body of Jesus.” If you do, walk away. Something has gone very wrong.
A week or so later, I was online checking something from another parish website, and on the right side of the screen there was that side-bar listing various other sites. I glanced at them, and there was a site announcing that a monstrance was being live-streamed. What in the world is this all about, I am beginning to wonder? You cannot stream the Body and Blood of Christ. Why would anyone sit in front of a computer screen and stare at a monstrance sitting in front of a camera five hundred or some miles away? Something has gone wrong.
I believe that this Feast that is celebrated every year two weekends after Pentecost is badly needed to help us refocus the center of our faith. The sacred, consecrated bread, is not a thing. It is a person. It is someone. It may seem to some like a minor point, but it is not Jesus. It is the Christ living now, not the Jesus of the historical past, but the risen one, the Son of God. There is a difference, and we may not ignore it or brush it aside. To do so minimizes the Death, Burial, and Resurrection. It is far more than Jesus. This is Christ who is now risen in glory, and we need to say that. It is an act of faith in the Rison One. We need to clean up our language. As long as we keep thinking that the Body and Blood of Christ is a “thing”, we are going to fail to realize what has been given to us. It is not a thing. It is communion in the very life of God. This is a profound relationship through which we too are consecrated, made holy and precious in the sight of God.
As it was with the Holy Trinity last week, so it is with this feast. It is a feast of love. Complicated theological expressions sometimes obscure what the Holy Eucharist is as an expression of God’s love for us. It is the ultimate act of self-giving that asks nothing in return, nothing! As Jesus returned to the Father, the Word made flesh remains gathering us together, uniting us in communion, and week by week drawing us deeper into divine life for all eternity.
The Body and Blood of Christ is more about the future than the past. It is about what we are becoming. It is about relationships. Even when we sit quietly in front of a Consecrated host during a holy hour or adoration, we sit together. In drawing us into the presence of Christ, God draws us together as a church, as God’s people, to become holy and blameless in his sight. God does not give us something. God gives us divine life just as he gave divine life to his Son, Jesus raised from dead and united with him forever. So, it shall be for us when we say, “Amen.”