Saint Anthony Parish (Omaha, Nebraska)
Solemnity of Corpus Christi (May 29, 2005)
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith; it is the Most Blessed Sacrament—a summa or compendium of Catholic
doctrine and devotion.
Every morning before beginning the Divine Office I pray the following prayer before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament
composed by an anonymous Christian in the 13th century. It reads: “Hail, Thou author of our creation! Hail, Thou price of our
redemption! Hail, Thou who art our viaticum during our pilgrimage! Hail, O reward of our expectation.”
The mystery and miracle of transubstantiation has been confirmed in numerous Eucharistic miracles throughout the centuries.
Blessed Juliana of Cornillon, who lived in 13th century Belgium, had a vision in which she saw a full moon darkened in one spot and
heard a mysterious, heavenly voice state that a great celebration in honor of Our Eucharistic Lord was missing from the Liturgical
calendar. She then reported the vision to the Archdeacon of Liège, Jacques Panteléon, who was later surprisingly elected by eight
cardinals as Pope Urban IV. It was during his short reign that today’s feast was decreed and Saint Thomas Aquinas commissioned to
compose the Office for today’s Mass and Liturgy of the Hours, including such beautiful hymns as the Pange Lingua and Lauda Sion.
In order to receive Our Lord more worthily in Holy Communion we need to be enrolled in the school of Mary, the “Woman of the
Eucharist.” At her feet we will learn to become disciples of the Beatitudes, approaching this Sacred and Saving Banquet with purity of
mind and heart, body, soul and spirit. If anyone here is conscious of not being in a state of grace then you should not approach the
altar for Holy Communion, but rather make an act of spiritual communion, promising God that you will go to Confession as soon as
possible. To do otherwise would mean committing the sin of sacrilege! One of my favorite acts of spiritual communion is closely linked
to the tradition of Opus Dei founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá. It reads thus: “O Lord, I would like to receive you with that purity,
humility and devotion with which Your Most Holy Mother received you, with the spirit and fervor of the saints.”
The Solemnity of Corpus Christi should remind us, and in special way those who are preparing for their First Holy Communion,
about the importance of keeping the Third Commandment in spirit and in truth. Today, Pope Benedict XVI made his first official visit
outside of Rome and the Vatican. He went to Bari, the Southern Italian City on the Adriatic Coast whose Basilica houses the relics of
my namesake Saint Nicholas of Myra, in order to celebrate the closing Mass of the 24th Italian National Eucharistic Congress entitled:
“Without Sunday We Can’t Live.” My dear friends, we should not come to Mass merely out of routine, but rather with an enthusiastic
desire to encounter the Crucified and Risen Christ in Word and Sacrament, Who came that we might have life and have it to the full.
Like the two disciples of Emmaus we too are brought by the surprising and wondrous grace of the Holy Spirit to recognize the
promised Lord and Messiah in the Breaking of the Bread and to experience the fruits of our redemption as a fire burning within our
hearts as we continue to make our pilgrimage of faith along the road to salvation leading to the new and everlasting Jerusalem. During
our Eucharistic adoration and solemn procession this evening let make our own the prayer of the two disciples: “Mane nobiscum
Domine,” “Remain with us, O Lord.”
Before Our Lord truly, really and substantially present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity we repeat the enthusiastic words that Saint
Peter addressed to Our Lord on Mount Tabor, during the luminous mystery of the Transfiguration: “Truly, Lord, it is good that we are
here,” adding to those words Peter’s rock solid profession of faith spoken on the occasion of Jesus’ Discourse on the Bread of Life in
John, chapter 6: “Lord, to whom shall 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” (verses 68-69).
By obeying the Third Commandment we come to understand in greater depth how a right and proper celebration of Sunday as
the Dies Domini, the Day of the Lord, that is to say the Christian Sabbath, above all teaches us the truth that the Mystery of the Church
is from the Mystery of the Eucharist (Ecclesia de Eucharistia). It remains as a particular challenge for us in this Third Christian
Millennium to evangelize those Catholics who are divorced and remarried. We must gently but ardently remind them that although
they may not partake of Holy Communion, they still have the grave obligation to obey the Third Commandment by attending Mass
each Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation.
Likewise, as Walter Cardinal Kasper, the Vatican’s chief spokesman on Ecumenical affairs recently pointed out, inter-communion
between Catholics and Protestants must not be practiced because it violates the core meaning of Holy Communion as a source of the
Church’s unity and makes a mockery out of the “amen” we pronounce as a profession of faith in our Catholic Eucharistic doctrine. The
Cardinal’s admonitions bring to mind the ancient Eucharistic cries of Saint Augustine of Hippo: “O Sacramentum Pietatis, O Signum
Unitatis, O Vinculum Charitatis!” “O Sacrament of Piety, O Sign of Unity, O Bond of Charity.”
On Holy Thursday evening, our Solemn Transfer of the Holy Eucharist was tinged with sorrow as we prepared to enter into the
Passion of the Our Lord’s Redemptive Sacrifice. Today, our celebration, our solemn procession is one filled with that joy that continues
to flow from the empty tomb of Our Savior’s Resurrection. That Easter joy reminds us that our God is a God of the Living and not of the
Dead. He is not dead, but rather He is truly alive, definitely in our midst, beckoning us to follow Him into the eternal mansions that He
has prepared for each one of us.
During his discourse for the Mass that concluded the Conclave Pope Benedict XVI speaking in fluent Latin inside the Sistine
Chapel addressed the Sacred College of Cardinals thus on April 20, 2005:
In this year, however, the Solemnity of Corpus Domini (Body of the Lord) must be celebrated with particular attentiveness. The
Eucharist will afterwards be at the center of our attention, in August, during World Youth Day in Cologne, and, in October, at the
Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, that will develop the theme: “The Eucharist source and summit of the life and mission of
the Church.”
I ask everyone during the up-coming months to intensify their love and devotion to Jesus the Eucharist and to express in a
courageous and clear way their faith in the Real Presence of the Lord, above all by means of the Solemnity and correctness of the
Eucharistic celebrations.
I ask this in a special way of priests, about whom I am thinking at this moment with great affection. The ministerial priesthood was
born in the Cenacle, together with the Eucharist, as my venerable predecessor John Paul II had underscored many times. “Priestly
existence must have as a special characteristic a Eucharistic dimension,” so Pope John Paul II wrote in his latest Holy Thursday Letter.
For this purpose a daily, devout celebration of the Holy Mass, which is the center of the life and mission of every priest, makes a special
contribution.
In Matthew 11: 28-30, Jesus, the Great and Eternal High Priest speaks to each of our hearts, but especially to the heart of His
beloved priests, a message that ultimately relates to the mystery of His Real Presence in the Eucharist, wherein He is both hidden and
yet revealed. Jesus invites us: “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and
learn from Me; for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” At
the same time, the Eucharistic Savior in John 15:12, reminds us of the New Commandment He gave to the Apostles on Holy Thursday
in the Cenacle (Upper Room): “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Deep down, the entire world, every man, woman and child hungers and thirsts for the Living God. Through the Eucharistic
Sacrifice and Banquet the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the world’s only Redeemer, once again makes Himself small in our midst as He
did in Bethlehem, which from the Hebrew means “house of bread.” In effect the Mass signifies that the Bread of Angels becomes the
Bread of Men. Thus, Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches us: “Panis Angelicus fit panis hominum.”
Our Lord accompanies us in this Eucharistic gift and mystery as food for our journey to heaven, our sacred viaticum. Tonight, in
a particular way, we accompany Him in procession throughout our streets in order to proclaim boldly that Jesus Christ is indeed the
Way, the Truth and the Life. During his homily for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi this past Thursday, held at the Basilica of Saint John
Lateran, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the Eucharistic Procession as linked to the journeys of the
Risen Christ to Galilee, which for First Century Jews was considered the gateway to the Pagan world.
Tonight, our solemn procession should serve to advance the new evangelization, to proclaim to our parish neighborhood, to
young and old, rich and poor, healthy and sick alike the words of Saint Paul in Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ.” To fallen
away Catholics the silent Christ in the monstrance makes use of our feeble voices to echo His awe-inspiring teaching in John 15:5, “I
am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do
nothing.”
To all those who doubt God’s love and mercy and their saving, transforming effects in our lives we profess with Saint Paul: “I have
been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live in faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2: 20).
To all men, to so-called cafeteria Catholics, to non-Catholic Christians, to men of non-Christian Religions, to all men of good will,
to those who, despite being saved by the Paschal Mystery of Christ Jesus, are still struggling to appropriate that gift of salvation so as to
live lives of virtue rather than vice, to heretics, schismatics and apostates, to atheists and agnostics, let our solemn procession this
evening resound with the plea of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3: 1-3: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that
are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For
you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
In that wonderful synthesis of Eucharistic doctrine and devotion that is the prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas known as “O Sacrum
Convivium,” we pray: “O Sacred Banquet in which Christ is consumed, the memory of His Passion is renewed, the soul is filled with
grace and a pledge of future glory is given is to us.” This means that the Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and Banquet, has an
eschatological outlook. It looks forward to the end times to the Last Day, the eighth day of eternity, when all sacramental veils will be
removed and we shall behold God face to face, that same Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is why our late great
Holy Father, John Paul II, asked that a white veil be placed over his face in death. The Eucharistic Mystery, we solemnly
commemorate today, should fill our hearts with that peculiarly Christian hope that is anchored in Christ, Crucified and Risen Lord of
Glory, who seated at the right hand of the Father forever makes intercession for us as our Great and Eternal High Priest, our Pontifex
Maximus, the Great Bridge Builder, the Lamb who once slain now lives forever.
Consequently, my dear people, we should participate actively and actually in this and every Eucharistic Sacrifice. How shall we
do this? We shall dress properly, that is to say, modestly for Church – wearing our Sunday finest just as so many of our Protestant
Brethren do, just as you would ordinarily do in going to an important job interview or better yet to a Wedding Banquet.
We ought to refrain from idle chatter and gossip before, during and after Mass, and leave the Church only once the priest and
other ministers have departed after the Concluding Hymn because it is rude to speak when another is speaking and it is crude to leave
the table while others are still eating.
More fundamentally speaking, we should make frequent recourse to the Sacrament of Penance in order to prepare ourselves
better to enter into these sacred mysteries of our faith as any excellent athlete makes all the sorts of mental and physical sacrifices
before taking the field. Perhaps you can get into the good habit, if you aren’t already, of making a Morning Offering to the Sacred and
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, knowing that the Mystery of the Incarnation is prolonged in the
Mystery of the Eucharist.
At the moment of the Offertory and at the Words of Consecration we can offer up ourselves and consecrate our whole lives, so
that the Holy Spirit will transform and consecrate us as He transforms and consecrates our simple gifts of bread and wine. Furthermore,
we should demonstrate in word and deed a sincere respect for our bishops, priests and deacons who are the ordinary ministers of this
Sacrament of our Redemption. Also, pray for an increase in holy vocations to the Sacred Priesthood. Lend generous support to the
newly ordained, most especially to those who through the laying on of the bishop’s hands have become priests for ever according to
the order of Melchizedek.
In addition, we must not hesitate to purchase the most precious of sacred vessels, vestments and furnishings for our liturgical
celebrations for nothing is too extravagant for God. As you pay visits, brief or long, to Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, imitate the
example of Saints like John Vianney, Alphonsus Liguori and Peter Julian Eymard. When you genuflect, do so reverently and not
sloppily for you are in the Real Presence of the His Majesty as Saint Teresa of Avila often referred to Jesus. As you receive Holy
Communion gently cradle Our Lord on your tongues as He feeds you with His Very Self for as Pope Saint Leo the Great writes: “Our
participation in the Body and Blood of Christ tends toward nothing save that of transforming us into that which we consume.”
We should make holy hours before the Blessed Sacrament, especially we priests and religious, as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen,
Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II did each day. When you kneel before our Hidden God during the Eucharistic
Prayer, at the Words of Consecration and at the altar rail do so with humble devotion and adoration. If you stand to receive Holy
Communion, don’t forget to make the prescribed profound bow of the head.
Remember to obey the precept of the Church to receive Holy Communion at least once before the conclusion of the Easter
Season. Deepen your Eucharistic piety by receiving Holy Communion more frequently, if not daily when possible, and only when in a
state of grace. It is likewise important to cultivate the virtue of charity as that beautiful fruit of a worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist.
Following the exhortations of Saints Paul and John Chrysostom, we seek not to be hypocrites who eat and drink of the Body and Blood
of the Lord unworthily and who then bring further condemnation upon ourselves by ignoring the members of the Mystical Body of
Christ, our neighbors, especially the poor and those most in need of God’s mercy.
We should observe obediently the one hour Eucharistic fast before receiving Our Lord’s Body and Blood; pray Eucharistic
Rosaries and observe periods of silence as appropriate means of preparation and thanksgiving for the celebration of Holy Mass; engage
in such time-honored Eucharistic practices as Perpetual Adoration, 40 hours Devotion, Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction;
remain recollect during all-day Eucharistic Adoration; participate with joyful enthusiasm during Eucharistic Processions. Saint Thomas
Aquinas in his beautiful Eucharistic hymns reminds us that the Eucharistic Mystery fulfills and surpasses not only its Old Testament
prefigurements but also anything that our five senses can experience, anything that our feeble minds can comprehend. In praying the
Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” The Greek text of the Our Father in the New Testament makes
clear that we are not merely asking for the ordinary bread of our daily physical sustenance but for a type of super-substantial bread, the
Bread of Life, the Bread that comes down from heaven as the Manna of the New and Everlasting Covenant.
Today, therefore, let us acknowledge and cherish in special way the whole rich array, that lavish table of our inestimable Catholic
Eucharistic doctrine and devotion that God in His infinite goodness has spread before us even in the sight of our foes. Let us put these
saving truths into practice with faith and reason, gratitude and love, reassured by the hope that we are surrounded by such a great
cloud of witnesses, the communion of saints.
May their prayers before the Father’s throne of grace and mercy, most especially the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Ark of
the Covenant and first living tabernacle, accompany us throughout our life’s journey until at last we shall enter into final communion
with the Triune God and with all His angels and saints taking our own rightful place at the heavenly Wedding Banquet of the Lamb
prepared for us since the foundation of the world.
I would like to conclude this homily as I began it that is to say with a prayer to Our Eucharistic Savior. The following prayer
graced the lips of the 13th century mendicant friar, Saint Francis of Assisi, throughout his religious life and then again most tenderly as
he lay on his deathbed in 1226: “We adore Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all Thy churches throughout the whole world, and
we bless Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.”
