My dear Brothers and Sisters all of us together form the church. Who is the center of the church? Jesus. How is Jesus most present to us? In the Blessed Sacrament!
Today’s feast is the feast of the very center and heart of our church, the center and heart of our faith, the center and heart of the lives of each of us, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
In the year 1263 a priest from Prague was on route to Rome making a pilgrimage asking God for help to strengthen his faith since he was having doubts about his vocation. Along the way he stopped in a town 70 miles north of Rome. While celebrating Mass there, as he raised the host during the consecration, the bread turned into flesh and began to bleed. The drops of blood fell onto the small white cloth on the altar, called the corporal. The following year, 1264, The Church instituted the feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus; today’s feast Corpus Christi.
There are 22 well known Eucharistic miracles around the world. But we believe that Jesus is really with us in the Eucharist not because of these miracles but because Jesus himself told us that. He told us that he would come to us in every Mass under the form of bread and wine.
The Eucharist is a celebration of the love of Jesus for us, his blood shed for us in love and his body scourged, crowned with thorns and crucified for us. The wine poured and the bread broken is the love of Jesus for us, body and blood given for us. Because the Eucharist is the love of Jesus for us we always approach Jesus in the Eucharist with great respect and asking pardon for our sins. That’s why it is so necessary at the start of every Mass to ask Jesus for mercy because we are so unworthy of his love and again before receiving Jesus we express our unworthiness: ‘Lord I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and I shall be healed.’ Think of how precious a moment in our Mass it is when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion. When we receive Jesus, Jesus is in us and we are with Jesus. It is like what Genesis says about the marriage of man and woman, no longer two but one. It is the same when we receive Jesus. We are no longer two but one. ‘He who eats my flesh abides in me and I in him’ .
As a symbol of our love for Jesus we will carry him in procession after the Mass. It is also a symbol of Jesus’ love for us. As Jesus passes you in the Blessed Sacrament adore him and thank him for all that he has done for us unworthy sinners. Also as Jesus passes you in the Blessed Sacrament ask him for whatever healing you need. Try to put words on the deepest healing of your life that you need and ask Jesus to heal you. Jesus in the monstrance will pass you by in couple of minutes. Adore him, love him and ask him for help. He is waiting for you. Remember the words of the consecration of every Mass recalling Jesus giving himself for us, ‘This is my Body which is given for you…. This is the cup of my blood… Which shall be shed for you…’
May Jesus in the Eucharist always be the very center and heart of our church, the center and heart of our faith, the center and heart of our parish, and the center and heart of the lives of each of us.