Gospel For Today: Corpus Christi

THE SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST (CORPUS CHRISTI) (B)

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Today we celebrate the solemnity of Corpus Christi, that great solemnity of the Eucharist, which the Second Vatican Council calls "the source and summit of the Christian life" (Lumen Gentium 11).  The popular hymn At That First Eucharist sings of it as the "great sacrament of unity," and the Catechism says, "The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion of the divine life and that unity of the People of God" (CCC 1325).

Yet for many people the Eucharist can seem like a source of division.  Consider this not uncommon scenario.  You have been talking with a friend about your faith.  He is not Catholic, but has been asking questions about Catholicism.  You have been sharing what you know, and what the faith means to you (especially your love of the Eucharist).  You are excited by his interest and want to encourage him, so you invite him to come to Mass with you next Sunday.  To your great joy, he accepts.  You go to Mass together, but before you enter the church you remember something you need to tell him.  "Oh, before I forget," you say, "During Communion, when everyone goes up to receive, you can't.  That's just for Catholics.  Non-Catholics can't receive Communion in our Church."

His face looks crestfallen.  He was excited about attending his first Mass, and now, despite all your efforts to be welcoming, he is met at the door by a message of rejection.  He gets offended, feeling he is not welcome at your table.  What can be done here?  How can we be welcoming and invitational to others (which is a necessary component of evangelization), while respecting the laws of the Church regarding reception of Holy Communion?

First of all, when bringing someone new to Mass with you, right before you sit down in the pew is probably not the best time to bring up the matter.  Talk with them well beforehand about what the Church teaches regarding who may and may not receive the Eucharist.  And make sure you know what that teaching actually is.  

The "Order of the Mass" booklets we have in the pews in our campus chapel contain this statement on the inside cover.  Most worship aids and pew missals used in other parishes will contain something very similar.

Reception of Holy Communion is open to Catholics in a state of grace (not conscious of any mortal sin), who have fasted for at least one hour prior to reception.  (Water and medicine do not break the fast.  The elderly and those who are sick as well as those who care for them, are not obliged to fast.)  Non-Christians, and those Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church, are welcome to worship with us, but should not present themselves for Communion.  We invite you to pray for Christian unity.

It is very important to understand that this is not a simple matter of "Catholics get to receive the Eucharist, non-Catholics don't."  If that were all it was, it would be exclusionary and divisive.  But this is not the case, and it is important that the newcomer you bring to Mass, and you yourself, understand this point clearly.

The invitation to the Eucharist is open to all.  But, as the Catechism reminds us, "To respond to this invitation we must prepare ourselves for so great and holy a moment" (CCC 1385).  The Catechism then goes on to quote from St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.  Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. (1 Cor 11:27-29).

Christ promises life to those who eat His flesh and drink His blood (Jn 6:53), but Paul warns that those who do so unworthily risk receiving spiritual death.  The Church therefore, out of care for the souls receiving the Eucharist, wants to ensure that those who do so are adequately prepared.

This means, first and foremost, being in a state of grace.  In other words, the one receiving is not conscious of any mortal sin.  If one has committed a mortal sin (which includes neglecting the Sunday Mass obligation), one needs to have recourse to the sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession), to repent and receive the Lord's forgiveness before receiving the Eucharist.  In this way you make your soul a welcoming home for the presence of the Lord.

Secondarily, you must also prepare your body.  This means observing the Church's fasting requirements.  Currently, one is only required to fast for one hour before receiving Holy Communion (past generations had stricter requirements).  

So, if a Protestant Christian believes in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, is not conscious of having committed any mortal sin, and fasts for one hour, can he or she receive the Eucharist in the Catholic Church?  The answer is still no.  

The reason is that the Eucharist is not just one aspect of the Catholic faith which non-Catholics can take or leave.  The Eucharist is the faith.  Again, we turn to the Catechism, which reminds us that the Eucharist completes Christian initiation (CCC 1322).  "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it.  For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ Himself, our Pasch" (CCC 1324).  

We call the Eucharist "Communion" because it is both the sign and means of our communion not only with Christ, but with the Church (which, not insignificantly, is also called the Body of Christ).  In other words, it is by reception of the Body of Christ (the Eucharist) that our union with the Body of Christ (the Church) is made complete.  

Those Christians who remain outside of the Catholic Church are, by definition, not in full union (communion) with the Catholic Church.  We wish them to be.  We strongly desire them to be.  And we hope, though our witness and our welcome, and the Holy Spirit working through us, that they may seek to be united with the Catholic Church.  If they do so, then receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist will be the completion of that unity.  But until that time, reception of the Eucharist by a non-Catholic is a dishonest act.  

I find marriage to be a helpful metaphor here.  As Catholics we believe that the sexual act between a husband and wife is a beautiful, holy, life-giving act.  It is a supremely good act, but one that belongs properly only within marriage.  By that act the husband and wife are saying, "I give myself completely to you."  This is why premarital sex is wrong, because you are saying with your bodies "I am united completely with you," while in fact you are not united in marriage.  It becomes a dishonest and sinful act.

Likewise non-Catholics who receive the Eucharist, as well as those Catholics not in a state of grace, are saying with their body, "I am in full union with the Church," when in fact they are not.  Reception of the greatest gift Christ intends to give to us therefore becomes an act of dishonesty and occasion of sin.  One begins to understand why St. Paul warned against this so strongly.

We don't just want non-Catholics to receive Communion in the Catholic Church.  We want them to be in communion with the Catholic Church, and receive all the graces that entails.  So the next time you bring a non-Catholic to Mass and have "the conversation" with them about the Eucharist, make this point.  We care for their spiritual good, and it is for that reason the Church cannot admit them to Communion.  But we desire to; moreover we want them to desire to.  And if they do so desire to receive the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, that path is open to them.  It is a path to unity with His Church, to the fullness of the faith, to the source and summit of the Christian life.

• For those interested, you can read what Canon Law has to say about reception of the Eucharist on the Vatican web site, here.

--

WCU Catholic Campus Ministry

Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister

www.WCUCatholic.org

  

(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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Gospel For Today - Corpus Christi

THE SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST (CORPUS CHRISTI)

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"Whoever eats my flash and drinks my blood

has eternal life,

and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is true food,

and my blood is true drink.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

remains in me and I in him" (Jn 6:54-56)

Who would believe such a thing?  It sounds absurd, and more than a little grotesque.  Everyone can nod in agreement when Jesus instructs us to "love thy neighbor" and "consider the lilies," but eating His flesh and drinking His blood?  This sounds more like a horror film than the gospel.  It is no wonder the Jews were quarreling about this.  It is no wonder so many of them stopped following Jesus at this point in the gospel narrative.  

​

After so many left Jesus that day, because they either could not comprehend or could not stomach His command to eat His flesh and drink His blood, our Lord looked upon the Apostles and asked if they, too, would leave Him.  Peter simply said, "To whom would we go?  You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God" (Jn 6:68-69).  I love Peter in this moment, because by his answer he admits his own lack of understanding; but his faith in Christ allowed him to trust that the understanding would one day come.  

"Faith seeking understanding" was the motto of the great St. Anselm and it certainly applies to our approach to the Eucharist.  For there is only one reason to believe the Catholic Church's teaching about the Eucharist, and that is trust in Jesus Christ.  For when Christ says, "My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink" we believe He meant it, and has the power to make it so.  When Christ said at His last supper, "This is my body," and "This is my blood," we believe He meant it, and has the power to make it so.  We do not understand how this happens, any more than Peter did.  But like Peter, we have come to know Jesus is God Incarnate.  And so we believe.  And we stand in awe at the God who not only would put on flesh and dwell among us, but would make that flesh into a form we could consume.  For this God is not content to dwell among us.  He desires to dwell within us.  What a gift our God gives in the Eucharist.  It is no wonder the word eucharist means "to give thanks."  What other response would be appropriate?

It is no surprise then that Catholics throughout the ages have had a great devotion to the Eucharist.  St. Paul said that, "The bread we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16).  St. Ignatius of Antioch called the Eucharist, "the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again" (Letter to the Smyrneans, c. 110 AD).   St. Justin Martyr, writing in the year 155 AD, says, "This food we call the Eucharist... we do not receive these as common bread and drink.  For Jesus Christ our Savior, made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation.  Likewise we have been taught that the food blessed by the prayer of His word -- and from which our own blood and flesh are nourished and changed -- is the flesh and blood of Jesus who was made flesh" (First Apology, c. 155 AD).

St. Augustine, in the fourth century, preached, "You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily.  That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ.  The chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ" (Sermons 227, 21).  

These holy Fathers of the Church had such faith in the Eucharist because they had faith in the Christ who said, "This is my body."  St. Juliana also had a great devotion to the Eucharist.  She lived during the first half of the thirteenth century and was superioress of the convent at Mont Cornilln in Belgium.  She longed for the Church to have a feast dedicated to the Body and Blood of Christ.   The Church has always commemorated the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, but as a part of Holy Week, anticipating as it does the death of Jesus on Good Friday, it is a season of sadness for the faithful.  St. Juliana desired a feast to celebrate joyfully the gift of the Eucharist.  She is said to have had a vision of the Church under a full moon.  In her vision, there was a single dark spot on the moon, signifying the absence of a solemnity to commemorate the Eucharist.  She mentioned the idea to several prominent figures in the Church, including Bishop Robert de Thorete of Liege and Pope Urban IV.

At that time bishops had the privilege of ordering feasts celebrated in their diocese of their own authority, and so Bishop Robert ordered such a celebration to be held.  Pope Urban IV admired the feast and on September 8, 1264, issued a papal bull called "Transiturus" that extended the celebration to the entire world.  St. Thomas Aquinas, known as the Angelic Doctor, was asked to compose the Mass and Office for the new solemnity.  His prayers written for this occasion are still to this day some of the most beautiful ever written.

The celebration of Corpus Christi quickly spread and many local customs grew up around this great feast. One that has stayed with us to today is the Corpus Christi procession.  Very early in the fourteenth century, not long after the feast was instituted, the custom developed of carrying the Eucharist in a procession through the town after the Corpus Christi day Mass.  Bishops and Popes encouraged this devotional practice, some even granting special indulgences to those who participated.  In the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent recommend Corpus Christi processions as way of publicly professing Catholic faith in the Real Presence of the Eucharist, which was being challenged by many Protestant sects, including the followers of Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin, who believed the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence to be "derogatory to the heavenly glory of Christ" (Institutes book IV, ch xvii, 10 sqq). 

Just as in John 6, there continue to be those scandalized by the Eucharist.  How can the infinite God of heaven become bread?  But one just as well may ask how that infinite and eternal God could become man?  Man or bread, both are finite and so equally distant from the infinite.  For God all things are possible.  The wonder is that God would love us to much that He would desire to so humble Himself for the sake of His creatures.  Thus are the Incarnation and the Eucharist intimately linked.  Both are essential to the Christian faith.  In our own age, the Second Vatican Council has called the Eucharist, "the source and summit of the Christian life" (Lumen Gentium 11).  Our Catechism teaches that "in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ Himself" (CCC 1324).  

The Eucharist is the starting point of our faith, humbly receiving Jesus.  And it is the greatest height our faith can reach, union with our Creator.  It is the beginning and the end for it is Jesus Christ, who is Alpha and Omega.  It can be a cause for division, as history has shown.  But it can also be, and should be for us, the cause of great unity.  For it is through the Eucharist that we are united with Christ.  And when you and I are united with Christ we are also united with one another in Christ.  "Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many,are one body, for we all partake in the one loaf" (1 Cor. 10:17).

I will leave you with the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, writing of the wonder of the Eucharist.

Desirous that we be made partakers of His divinity, the only-begotten Son of God has taken to Himself our nature so that having become man, He would be enabled to make men gods.  Whatever He assumed of our nature He wrought unto our salvation.  For on the altar of the Cross He immolated to the Father His own Body as victim for our reconciliation and shed His blood both for our ransom and for our regeneration.  Moreover, in order that a resemblance of so great benefits may always be with us, He has left us His Body as food and His Blood as drink under appearances of bread and wine.

O banquet most precious!  O banquet most admirable!  O banquet overflowing with every spiritual delicacy!  Can anything be more excellent than this repast, in which not the flesh of goats and heifers, as of old, but Christ the true God is given us for nourishment?  What more wondrous than this holy sacrament!  In it bread and wine are changed substantially, and under the appearance of a little bread and wine is had Christ Jesus, God and perfect Man.  In this sacrament sins are purged away, virtues are increased, the soul is satiated with an abundance of every spiritual gift.  No other sacrament is so beneficial.  Since it was instituted unto the salvation of all, it is offered by Holy Church for the living and the dead, that all may share in its treasures.  

--

WCU Catholic Campus Ministry

Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister

www.WCUCatholic.org

  

(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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Gospel For Today - 3rd Sunday of Easter

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER (A)

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Today's gospel reading from Luke 24:13-35 recounts the encounter with the Risen Christ that two disciples, Cleopas and Simon, had on their journey to the village of Emmaus.  Cleopas (or Clopas) was the brother of St. Joseph, and Simon was his son (and later the second bishop of Jerusalem after the Apostle John).  When they meet Jesus, they do not recognize our Lord at first, which indicates Jesus appears to them in a form that is not immediately recognizable.  But through a series of events they come to recognize that Christ is truly present with them.

We are told that this encounter takes place on "the first day of the week," which is Sunday. The two disciples are distraught over the death of Christ, and the mysterious fact that now His tomb seems to be empty.  In consolation, Jesus begins to speak to them about the Sacred Scripture, and all the things written therein which reveal the Christ.  Finally, when they reach Emmaus, they sit down at table for a meal.  There we are told that "He took break, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.  With that their eyes were opened and they recognized Him... He was made known to them in the breaking of bread."

This sequence of events should sound familiar to any Catholic.  On Sundays we come together as disciples of Christ.  We gather in a place where Christ is present with us, though not in a form that is immediately recognizable.  We read and are taught from the Scriptures.  And then our priest takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to us.  We receive this, not as bread (which it would appear to be to our senses), but as the very Body of Christ.  He has been made known to us in the breaking of the bread.

I speak, of course, of the Mass, which has been the central aspect of Christian life from the very beginning of the Church.  Even the Risen Christ celebrated the Mass with His followers, as we see in today's reading.  And the reason why the Mass is so essential to our lives as Christians is that it is in the Mass that we, like those travelling to Emmaus, encounter Jesus Christ.

So why don't people get excited about Mass attendance?  I think one reason is that they (we) speak of "attending" Mass, like we would attend a sporting event, a play, or a movie.  This suggests that we are going as spectators there to be entertained.  I expect that a spectator witnessing what happened on the road to Emmaus would not have seen anything all that interesting; three men walking together and talking, and then sharing a simple meal.  Nothing exiting about that.

It used to be that people did not speak of "attending" Mass, but rather of "assisting" at Mass.  I suggest we make an effort to bring this practice back.  By saying we assist at Mass, it suggests an active participation.  All of us there at Mass are assisting in the celebration of the liturgy through our prayers.  This prayerful participation is what makes us truly present, and so we become more aware of Christ present to us.  Rather than spectators watching the encounter of the disciples with Jesus, we become one of the disciples whose hearts are burning as we hear the words of Christ.

The Second Vatican Council calls the Eucharist "the source and summit of the Christian life" (Lumen Gentium 11).  This means that the Eucharist is both the beginning and the end of what we are about as Christians.  It plumbs the depths of theology and ascends to the greatest heights of holiness.  The Eucharist is the beginning and the end, -- like Christ, for it is Christ.  "By the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all... the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith" (CCC 1326-7).  

When we think of everything that we do, or desire to do, as Christians, it all flows from our participation in the Eucharist.  Our charitable deeds, helping those in need, our kindnesses and mercies; our prayers and petitions, our supplications; our evangelization and outreach; these are not things we do in addition to the Mass, but things we do because of what (and Who) we receive in the Mass.  The Mass is not something that developed as part of the life of the Church.  The life of the Church developed because of the Mass.

The very first Christians, we read in the New Testament, "devoted themselves to the apostles's teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42).  In the year 155 AD, St. Justin wrote to the pagan emperor of Rome, Antoninus, explaining what Christians do.

On the day called Sunday, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place.  The memoirs of the apostles [New Testament] and the writings of the prophets [Old Testament] are read, as much as time permits.  When the reader has finished, he who presides over these gathered [the priest] admonishes and challenges them to imitate these beautiful things [the homily]... 

...then someone brings bread and a cup of water and wine mixed together to him who presides over the brethren.  He takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and for a considerable time he gives thanks [in Greek: eucharistian] that we have been judged worthy of these gifts. 

[From earlier in the same letter.]  This food we call the Eucharist, and no one is allowed to partake but the one who believes that our doctrines are true, who has been washed with he bath for the remission of sins and rebirth [baptism], and who is living as Christ has commanded [in a state of grace; not guilty of mortal sin].  We do not receive these as common bread and drink.  For Jesus Christ our Savior, made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation.  Likewise we have been taught that the food blessed by the prayer of His word -- and from which our own blood and flesh are nourished and changed -- is the flesh and blood of Jesus who was made flesh.  [qtd. from CCC 1345 and The Mass of the Early Christians by Mike Aquilina]

This liturgy that St. Justin describes in the middle of the second century is the same liturgy described by St. Ignatius of Antioch in his letters around 107 AD; it is the same as that described in the Didache, a document sometimes called The Teachings of the Apostles, written in the late first century.  It is the same as described by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10-11.  It is the same as Christ demonstrates Himself in today's gospel.  And it is the same as the Mass we are blessed to be able to celebrate today, what the Catechism calls "the Mass of all ages."  

This is the good news.  Just like the disciples in today's gospel, we are still today able to walk with Christ.  He may not be immediately recognizable to us, but He is here nonetheless.  We can recognize Him in the breaking of the bread.  So don't walk, but run to Mass.  And may we always approach the great gift Christ has given us, of His own flesh and blood, with a thankful heart -- which is to say, a Eucharistic heart.

--

WCU Catholic Campus Ministry

Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister

www.WCUCatholic.org

  

(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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