6th June, 2010 Corpus Christi - C
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This is such a beautiful feast day, the Body and Blood of Christ…. Or Corpus Christi, as it is also known…..
The Eucharist is so central to our church and to our faith…..
A priest I knew once described regular Eucharist as like the piers on a bridge…. With the bridge length our weekly lives…. We need that support to keep the whole thing standing… on our journey…. We need regular supports along the whole length of our journey or it all caves in….
It’s so fitting to be celebrating this feast the weekend after our first communion and confirmation students have been fully initiated into the life of the church… and the SIGN of their full initiation is that they receive communion… and by receiving communion are ONE with Jesus … united with God… and united with us all .. ‘in communion” of heart and mind and soul with God and eachother…..
I love to tell the First communion candidates that
“ There is only one thing better than first holy communion, and that is second holy communion, and there is only one thing better than second holy communion and that is third….. this sacrament does not make sense if this is the first and last time you ever come to communion… this is starting a pattern that calls you to participate in the community of the church regularly, to experience the fullness of your membership as a disciple of Jesus.”
God comes to us in a tangible… ‘touchable’ form and that is a gift of priceless value that we need to cherish by participating in regularly….
I remember when I was only about five or six…. In church at Canberra… even then, though I got a little confused about things…. I KNEW that Jesus came to us in the Mass.. and made his home in our hearts…. I may have mentioned before that I somewhat confusedly thought that Jesus was released into our hearts when they went to open the tabernacle… that Jesus was in there captive and at communion time they would go and unlock the tabernacle and Jesus would fly out and fill our hearts… Well.. I didn’t connect that the host given and the cup handed to people was Jesus coming into our hearts.. in a real way.. as real nourishment… it’s wonderful that God knows that we are physical beings who need tangible ways of connecting to God who is bigger than we can see or touch….
The other thing I remember as a little child was the words of the priest… “the lord be with you… and also with you…. Lift up your hearts…” and I, as a five year old would strain to lift up my chest as high as I could… I wanted to lift up my heart to the lord SOOO high……
Even as adults… we want to lift up our hearts and lives to the Lord… we have so much to be grateful for… inlcuding our parents and grandparents and other influential family members and friends who by their lives and their example have done what saint Paul has done in the second reading… We hand on what we in turn have had handed on to us … the message of Jesus.. the gift of Holy Communion…. And membership as God’s sons and daughters….. May the blessings of the sacrament fill our hearts and lives… so that what we profess with our lips will be proclaimed by the loving ways we live our lives….. We become what we eat… as we take in the Body and Blood of Christ, we become more and more the body of Christ …. A real sacrament and sign of God’s constant care and presence amongst us….always…
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REFERENCES:
· FR. PAUL W. KELLY
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