Today we
celebrate the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. Many of us still refer
to this day under the old name for it – Corpus Christi. I remember when we celebrated this day last
year, when we began the Year of the Eucharist in our diocese. I love looking at the history of our faith,
so I wondered how the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ got started in
our Church. The idea for this
celebration started with a nun in Belgium, St Juliana of Liége, who lived way back
in the 13th century. Since
the time she was a teenager, she had a great devotion to the Eucharist and
longed for a feast day in its honor in our Church. What we celebrate today can be traced to this
nun, as her idea was passed down to Pope Urban IV, who declared Corpus Christi
to be a universal feast in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in 1264.
Back in the 13th
century, Sister Juliana saw a world where there was a lot of irreverent and
sacrilegious behavior toward the Blessed Sacrament. She hoped that the believers who were seeking
love, truth, and piety in their lives would be able to draw inspiration and
strength from the Most Holy Eucharist.
She saw a world where many people were drawn to heresies and were
becoming cold in their faith. That may
have described the 13th century, but it also describes the world
today as well. Thus, it is so relevant
to our day and time that we celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ in such a
special way today.
I recently
read a book about the saints by the author Anne Gordon. She said that she long ago realized in her
life of faith, that “unless we are clear about what we do and do not believe,…it is quite impossible to live with
any degree of depth, conviction, or purpose” in life. Our Church and we as Catholics are very clear
what we believe in the Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood,
and how this is the source and summit of our lives of faith and what we believe
as Catholics. We believe this, but is
this a reality in our daily lives?
During the
year of the Eucharist, we had different activities as a parish. We read a book on the Eucharist by Father Ron
Rolheiser entitled Our One Great Act of Fidelity in our adult religious
education class. In our Wednesday night
soup suppers during Lent, we discussed the roots of the Eucharist in the Jewish
Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples at their last supper
together. Jesus changed the Passover
meal into something new and radical for us, into the body and blood of Christ
each time we celebrate the Eucharist together.
When I
graduated from seminary, our rector was very clear to us in his conviction in
what we needed to do in order to be true to our priesthood and to survive any
crisis moments that we might have as priests.
First, he said that we had to be tied to the word of God, to read and
pray the word of God each day in the liturgy of the hours. Second, we need to have a strong love for the
mass and for the Eucharist, to the Body and Blood of Christ we receive through
the Eucharist. And third, we had to find
ways to truly live out our lives of faith and our priesthood each day. All believers are also called to live out
these ideas – to be tied to God’s Holy Word, to have a strong love for the
Eucharist, and to find the ways that God is calling us to live out our faith.
In a lot of
ways, we are at a crossroads in our Catholic faith in our country and here in
Yazoo City. We as a Church feel that our
religious liberty is threatened, and that we are called to action to express
our right to practice our faith. In a
few weeks, we will have our last mass at the St Francis building up on the hill
as we merge our two parishes together.
It is a sad day for all of us, but I think ultimately our Catholic
community here in Yazoo City will be all the stronger and all the more united
as we join together and worship in one building. In light of all of this, it is important for
us to see how God is calling us to live out our Eucharistic identity, both as
individuals and as a community of faith. The Eucharist is not just something we
receive in mass, but it should affect our outlook on life and how we live out
our faith both as individuals and as a community. As we receive the Holy Eucharist at mass
today, let its presence really penetrate our hearts and our lives.
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