Today, we celebrate the second great solemnity on the Sundays right after the end of the Easter season. Last Sunday, we celebrate the Most Holy Trinity, an eternal mystery of our faith that is perhaps a bit difficult to explain in a homily. Today, even though the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is also a mystery at the heart of our faith, perhaps it is more accessible to preach about this solemnity.
In the Eucharist, we receive Jesus into our lives in a special way as we are spiritually nourished on our pilgrimage journey through life. The Eucharist is called to be the source and summit of our Christian identity. St Mother Teresa of Calcutta has some of the amazing quotes about the meaning that the Body and Blood of Christ had in her life and in the life of the sisters in the religious congregation that she founded, the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa saw their ability to serve the poorest of the poor in their ministry as being rooted in the Eucharist. She writes: "These desires to satiate the longings of Our Lord for souls of the poor — for pure victims of his love — goes on increasing with every Mass and Holy Communion.” She also saw the Eucharist as the way she and her sisters forged a mystical union with Christ, as she writes in the first constitution for her future congregation back in 1947: “The Sisters should use every means to learn and increase that tender love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.” Mother Teresa saw the Eucharist as the source of their strength and their missionary identity, as she writes: "If we have our Lord in the midst of us, with daily Mass and Holy Communion, I fear nothing for the Sisters nor myself; he will look after us. But without him I cannot be — I am helpless."
In my time as a missionary in places like Canada and Ecuador, I relied on the Eucharist for my spiritual nourishment and as the center of my identity as a missionary. I always looked forward to going to Mass each day and to receiving the Eucharist; I longed for it each day, especially when I was struggling. It touches my heart just to think about it. Last week marked not only the 13th anniversary of my priesthood, but it marked 25 years since I arrived in Ecuador as a missionary. When I think back to all the Masses I attended there in midst of the challenges of serving in a remote jungle environment, without the Eucharist, without the Body and Blood of Christ in my life, I would not have made it. And those are not idle words - that is the truth that I can see, looking back.
I can look at the bread that we have in the form of the hosts as we put them on the credence table before the beginning of Mass. I can look at the cruet of wine. And that is what they are before the Mass begins: just bread and wine. But then they become for us in the Mass the Body and Blood of Christ. Not just a symbol of Christ and not just a representation of him, but they really become his Body and Blood. If we look at the writings of the Early Church Fathers and Mothers, this was the belief that they had in the Early Church. Cyril of Jerusalem, the Bishop of Jerusalem in the 4th century, writes this: "For as the bread and wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the Holy and Adorable Trinity, were simple bread and wine, while after the invocation the bread becomes the Body of Christ and the wine becomes the Blood of Christ”. Notice the word “becomes” in his quote - he believes that it becomes the true Body and Blood of Christ. Early Church Father Origen of Alexandria from the 3rd century had this to say: “We give thanks to the Creator of all, and, along with thanksgiving and prayer for the blessings we have received, we also eat the bread presented to us; and this bread becomes by prayer a sacred body, which sanctifies those who sincerely partake of it."
The Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples in the Last Supper as described in the Gospel of Mark is an important Jewish festival that Jesus transformed into the Eucharist that we celebrate around the Lord’s table each Sunday. In today’s solemnity, not only do we celebrate and recognize the real presence of Christ that we receive in the Eucharist, but we also celebrate the way that we the community of Christ’s disciples in the Church form the Body of Christ as well. So, when I was there in the jungles of Ecuador as a missionary for three years, not only did the Eucharist I receive at Mass bring me strength and nourishment, energizing me to continue my work as a missionary, being a part of the Body of Christ in the Church was also an essential part of my strength and identity. Whenever I went to the surrounding villages the jungle to work, I was never Lincoln, just some person who came from the United States to do good works and to help. I was Brother Lincoln, the missionary, who worked with the Church and with the religious congregation the Comboni Missionaries. That identity meant everything to me - it defined everything I did. And it was important to the people to see me having that bond and unity in the Church with them - I was indeed their brother in Christ. I felt a part of the Body of Christ with not only the missionaries, the priests and the sisters, but with all the people I served in Ecuador too.
Hopefully, with all the challenges we have had during the pandemic, we are more appreciative of the Body of Christ that is the Church. Last week, on the national public radio station, I heard them announce that in a recent Gallop survey, only 47% of respondents stated that they belonged to a religion, the first time this has gone below 50% in the 80 years that this question has been asked. As recent as 1999, 70% of the respondents answered affirmatively. It is a challenge all religions are facing. If we as disciples of Christ are the Body of Christ here on earth, how to respond to the reality of the modern world? How do we proclaim Christ’s Good News to the world? The answer is that we are going to have to persevere as the Body of Christ in the challenges that face us, to find innovative and creative ways to grow in our faith and to evangelize the world.
To be the Body of Christ, our parish needs your help. We are blessed with a really wonderful staff here at St Jude and with a lot of very wonderful volunteers who work very hard here at our parish. However, we now have more Masses here at St Jude to meet the needs of our parishioners and we have a return to Mass in the church building after having had Masses outside for so long, so we are in great need for more volunteers to help at our liturgies in different ways. Great, great need. Also, with summer starting and with our religious education programs starting back up at the end of the summer, we have need for volunteers in our religious education program as well.
All this shows that there are great needs and challenges all around right now: in our parish, in our Church, in our world. But, as the Body of Christ, Christ and the Holy Spirit will be there to guide us and help us.
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