Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the real presence of Christ with us in the Eucharist. This celebration is also known by its Latin title, Corpus Christi. The Second Vatican Council very famously called the Eucharist “the source and summit of Christian life.” Our Christian spirituality is to flow from the Eucharist as its source, the same way light streams from the sun as the source of the light. Moreover, our Christian spirituality has the Eucharist as the high point toward which all of our actions should ultimately be directed. Thus, our Christian spirituality should flow in two directions, with the Eucharist as the point from which our daily life starts, and with the Eucharist leading us back home to our eternal life with God after our sojourn in the world comes to an end.
Our US Bishops have called us to three year Eucharistic renewal in which we are to grow in our understanding of the Eucharist and in our devotion to it. This Eucharistic renewal started two year’s ago on this same feast day in 2022. You can imagine, that for me as a priest celebrating Mass many times each week, the Eucharist is very much at the center of my life. In my years serving as a priest, I have grown a lot in my understanding and appreciation of the Eucharist, in ways that are difficult to put into words. I remember that in December 2019, I was working as vicar general in the chancery. Some parishioners from St Michael parish in Paulding, located in rural Jasper country past Bay Springs and about a half hour from the city of Laurel, contacted me, telling me that since their cluster of parishes did not have a full time pastor, they had not had a Mass in their parish for almost two years. The people continued the celebrate in their church through word and communion services led by the parishioners themselves. They were wondering if I could find a way to have a priest celebrate Christmas Mass for them. So for a couple of years, interrupted partially by the pandemic, I traveled once or twice a month on a Saturday morning to that parish in Paulding and to the neighboring parish in Newton, to ensure that they would at least have Mass periodically. It really touched my heart the way that the people yearned for the Eucharist, similar to the way all of us Catholics yearned for the Eucharist during the pandemic when in-person Mass was not an option.
Back in October 2021, I was invited to apply to a two-year program at University of Notre Dame in conjunction with the Eucharistic renewal, in which Catholic leaders from all over the country would develop projects centered around the Eucharist. I put off thinking about that invitation, and did not apply until the very last day, thinking that I had nothing to lose for applying. At the time, we were not even back in the prisons with our Catholic ministry after the pandemic. But when I got accepted to the program and started working on developing a project, I knew that the Holy Spirit was leading me to center the project on the prison inmates and the Eucharist. To be honest, a prison probably is not the first place we Catholics associate with the Eucharist. The violence and brokenness of the prison environment can seem a long way from the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But, as I started training the inmates to see themselves as Eucharistic missionaries, bringing the Body and Blood of Christ to the reality of prison, as I visited inmates in solitary confinement who could not even come to the Mass I was celebrating in the prison, as I brought a tabernacle to the prison and explained to them what a tabernacle was, Jesus entered into the prison reality in a profound way. As I write this homily, I realize that this same week, I celebrated Mass for more approximately 225 men and women in the prison. I see how their lives are touched by the presence of Christ and for the love and compassion that the Eucharist and our Catholic ministry symbolizes for them. Through this prison ministry experience centered around the Eucharist, I understand in a more profound way that the Eucharist needs to be rooted in the love of Christ.
The most important understanding that has come out of my love of the Eucharist is that it should guide our words and our actions to share our faith with others and to enkindle a missionary fire within our hearts. It is important to note that the Mass does not end with our reception of the Eucharist. The Mass concludes with the commission we receive as we are dismissed into the world, as the priest states, “Go forth, the Mass is ended, live, the Gospel,” or “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” We who are filled with the body of Christ, galvanized as a community according to the purposes of God, must go forth from Mass to bring the values of our faith into the world. At the end of Mass, the priest sends the community of the faithful out as seeds of new life. It is our mission to nurture a world that is hungry for meaning and direction. It is only when we see things in this way, of really living the Eucharist in the world, will we understand the purpose of the Eucharistic meal that we receive at Mass.
I really want to devote a lot of time here in our parish this upcoming year talking about the Eucharist and finding ways to live out the message of the Eucharistic revival as individuals and a community. Stay tuned for more.
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