A few years ago, we hosted a special celebration here on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi - the Body and Blood of the Lord. Once the Mass was complete, there was a procession including various groups, all of whom have special devotion to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist itself, carried in a monstrance was paraded through the streets, before arriving at it's destination where there was a final prayer of praise. The entire afternoon was wrapped up with a bar-b-que and food for the masses who had gathered.
That was then, and this is now. Today, we have not planned a parade, but we are still invited to deepen our appreciation of the gift of love offered by our God. Together with the entire Church, we celebrate this Solemnity, giving thanks for the gift of Christ's love which calls us to love one another.
As always, the podcast version is available, as is the text version of my reflection (below).
The communions in between
It was a month ago that little boys and girls approached in procession to receive their first Holy Communion. For each of them, there have already been big events in their lives: birthdays, Santa Claus, ice cream, but whether they realized it or not, the day they received Communion for the first time was bigger than all the rest. They approached the altar expectantly, some nervously, and with their families gathered around, their eyes focused on the round host. With practiced hands, they received it on the palm and passed it reverently to their lips. God was with them in that moment in a way he had never been present to them before.
A few weeks ago, I was called to visit with an elderly woman at one of the retirement homes here in the city. As I approached her bedside, she asked whether I had indeed brought Holy Communion for her, and I thought then of the big events that she had known in her long life: her wedding, the birth of her children, the first time she heard a grandchild call her nonna. Now, what she must have known would be one of her last communions, she had reached the climax of her old age. She closed her eyes reverently, as she had done so many times before, uttering a silent prayer and then inclined her white head ever so slightly, opening her lips to receive her Saviour with all the fervour her wasted body would allow. God was with her then, as she would soon be with him for all eternity.
The first Holy Communion is always a fervent one. So is the last. We bring to the first the freshness of youth; we bring to the last the clarity that age brings to light. What about the communions in between? The other opportunities we’re given to approach the altar? The missed opportunities, whether through indifference or even sin? Does Communion truly matter in life, or is it a religious luxury for soap-scrubbed kids and pious old folk? The truth is that it does matter a great deal. There are four reasons why:
First, in the Eucharist, God nourishes us. He gives us food for our souls. In today’s gospel passage, we find Jesus telling us, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you … for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. What soil does for a plant, what milk does for a baby, what solid food does for an adult, the Eucharist does for the soul. By receiving regularly and with fervour, we thrive spiritually on the body and blood of Christ.
Second, in the Eucharist, God makes us one with himself. We know from everyday experience that people can be very close to one another. We say of two friends who are always seen together that they are like that, and we close two fingers to illustrate the intimacy of the relationship. The most intimate relationship we know is that of a husband and wife, where two people live with each other all their lives, but the intimacy born of Communion is closest of all. Jesus himself explains it when he says whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in them. This is not a question of living with one another but of living in one another, sharing the same life. This union begins in baptism and reaches a peak each time we receive the Eucharist.
Thirdly, in the Eucharist, Jesus makes us one with one another. Don’t think of this sacrament purely as a personal love affair between God and yourself. It is that certainly, but there’s more to it than that. It’s a love affair that embraces the whole community. More than my communion with Christ, the Eucharist is our communion with each other in Christ. Saint Paul puts it this way: Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. The Eucharist is not just a personal sacrament, it’s a social sacrament too, a circle that includes you, me, Christ and all our neighbours. As communicants, we are not just stones scattered in a field, we are stones held together by the mortar of Christ’s love, all part of the same wall, all keeping each other in place, all being kept in place by others.
Finally, regular reception of Christ’s body is an assurance of resurrection. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. Resurrection might seem remote to us now, so remote that our minds cannot focus on it at all. As remote as it may seem, the Resurrection is the one event on which we base our hope. Our faith teaches us that death is not the supreme reality, that we are not born to wither like a dried up leaf in the autumn, or to rot in the dampness of the earth. People of faith cannot believe that the good things of life: the joys of childbirth, the freshness of youth, the handclasp of friendship, the tremulous stirrings of love – we cannot believe that that all these things are false or pretentious, eventually fading away with morality. We were not born for death, we were born for resurrection, and our Saviour assures us that if we are faithful to the Eucharist, e too will rise on the last day. This is a mighty thought, a happy thought, a hopeful thought. Take it away with you and may it bring you closer in the Eucharist to Jesus, our Risen Lord.
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