Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Lectionary: 167

He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your fathers,
in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.

"Do not forget the LORD, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
that place of slavery...

Throughout the entire world the Church has known the affliction of hunger during the coronavirus epidemic. Millions of Catholics have missed their attendance at Mass. One woman told me she missed missing Mass! A nurse, she rarely attends because of the hospital's demands, but she feels the loss sorely nonetheless. 

The epidemic lets us experience our hunger for the Lord. And as we suffer anxiety because the enemy is silent, unseen, and all the more dangerous, we learn of increasing violence in homes and neighborhoods and cities. When millions of people are on edge we discover our civility does not run very deep. 

During this crisis our Church urges us, 

"Do not forget the LORD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. "

Not long after I was ordained in 1975, I attended a workshop addressed to bishops, priests, and deacons about Eucharistic Devotion. This simple liturgy is not just the "Benediction," when the presider raises the monstrance and blesses the congregation with the Sign of the Cross. That gesture, despite its solemnity, should not be the main event. 

Rather, we should spend time in the Real Presence of the Lord, time that we don't ordinarily afford ourselves during the Mass. What should impress us about the rite is neither the singing nor the gestures, neither the prayers nor the preaching; but the extended silence. We sit together as a Church, as the Body of Christ, contemplating the Precious Body of the Lord. We gaze upon the Beauty of the Lord, as Psalm 27 directs us:

One thing I ask of the LORD;
this I seek:
To dwell in the LORD’s house
all the days of my life,
To gaze on the LORD’s beauty,
to visit his temple.
For God will hide me in his shelter
in time of trouble,
He will conceal me in the cover of his tent;
and set me high upon a rock.
Even now my head is held high
above my enemies on every side!
I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and chant praise to the LORD.

During that long-ago afternoon with the Bishop and his presbyterate I was also impressed by the reminder that the Mass and our Eucharistic Devotion are directed to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. The prepositions to, through and in are important. Because every moment of Jesus' life was dedicated to his Father, whom he called Abba, our worship is also to God the Father of Jesus. The Savior never called attention to himself unless he was also directing our attention away from himself and to the Father -- in the Holy Spirit. 

We would have forgotten the joy of Christmas, the expectation of Palm Sunday, the sadness of Good Friday, and the ecstacy of Easter long ago except for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Despite our sins and innumerable infideilities, the Paraclete gathers us time and time again into the Church, to be offered as a gift by the Father to the Son, and by the Son to the Father. Just as He is our oblation to the Father, so are we his oblation to the same Father. 

We know that because we have eaten his flesh and drank his blood. 

If the pandemic reminds us of our hunger, it is a most stern and blessed teacher, like the forty-second psalm:

As the deer longs for streams of water,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, the living God.
When can I enter and see the face of God?
My tears have been my bread day and night,
as they ask me every day, “Where is your God?”

Those times I recall
as I pour out my soul,
When I would cross over to the shrine of the Mighty One,
to the house of God,
Amid loud cries of thanksgiving,
with the multitude keeping festival.
Why are you downcast, my soul;
why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.