Solemnity of Corpus Christi (Reverence for the Eucharist)

As Catholics, there’s no doubt that we are people of symbols. Consider the elements that engage our senses: the smells, the sounds, the visuals. These elements inform our consciousness in ways that words and doctrine cannot. But the Eucharist is not merely a symbol.

There was a famous author of the early 20th century, born in Seattle and educated at Forrest Ridge Academy of the Sacred Heart. Her name was Mary McCarthy. As a young woman, she abandoned her Catholic faith, declaring herself an atheist. It was some years later, living in New York and having gained notoriety, that she encountered at a dinner a budding young writer named Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor, a Catholic, was shy and spoke little in this meeting. Her host, Mary McCarthy, in an effort to draw her out, to get her talking, confessed that she too had once been Catholic, and that even still, regarded the Eucharist as a powerful symbol. O’Connor responded to her host, “Well, if it’s a symbol, I say ‘to hell with it’”.[1]

If you’re familiar with the powerful and raw writings of Flannery O’Connor, you know that as a writer, she was a master of symbolic language and imagery. But she also knew that the Eucharist is more than symbol. A symbol is something that calls to mind another reality, but a sacrament is an actual breakthrough of grace.

The Second Vatican Council, with all of the good teachings it declared, sought to remind us that there is an inherent dignity in all the baptized. They are a priestly people, and their role in the liturgy was to function with the ordained priest, by means of full, active and conscious participation. In this emphasis of telling us that we are the Body of Christ, an unintended consequence was that we lost sense of the Body of Christ that comes to us from the altar.

It’s been described as a newfound emphasis on the active manifestation of Christ’s body—and with it, a de-emphasis on the static Body of Christ. By that I mean the people, as the Body of Christ. It’s true, we are the Body of Christ, and we are to be the active leaven for our world, revealing the living Jesus by virtue of our service to those in need, with words and action.

If there’s a danger to leaning primarily or only in this direction, it is that we can fail to give due reverence to the sacrament itself. We would therefore tend to disregard the value of Adoration and in simply sitting with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. We would likely march forward without thought, without preparation, without properly ordered hearts, as though it’s a handout to which we’re entitled.

I think of figures like Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa, whom we celebrate for their active social justice responses, advocating for the poor and embracing the dying, also saw quiet time for reflection before the Eucharist as the daily sustenance to help them live out God’s call.

Yes, we are the Body of Christ, but we are also flawed and sinful. In contrast, the Body of Christ that comes from the altar, holds within it, the mystery of perfection.

In our archdiocese, most often, priestly ordinations occur on a Saturday morning in June. And most of the newly ordained priests celebrate their first Mass the very next day. It was by chance that the day that followed my ordination to priesthood was this solemnity—Corpus Christi. Perhaps there’s no more meaningful occasion for a priest to begin because what’s at the heart of this celebration is the very reason for my existence as a priest: to make Christ present in the Eucharist and to draw others into relationship with him by means of it.

I remember it well—my nervousness, worrying even after so much practice and preparation, that I wouldn’t remember how to celebrate the Mass correctly. I remember holding the host in my hands as I read the words of consecration, thinking to myself, “I’m not practicing any more. This is Jesus in my hands”, and immediately telling myself to stop thinking and to focus on the words in the Roman Missal, so as not to goof up in my distraction. I was blessed that my family and so many other people I love were present

Like so many other times in these past thirteen years, here I am, bearing this same privilege, with you all—my family, so many that I love. I’m deeply blessed and pray that it never gets lost on me. May the true presence of the Eucharist and the regard it deserves from us, never be lost on us.

[1] Flannery O’Connor and the Eucharist, Youtube.com