Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year B
Acts 3.13-15, 17-19 Psalm 4 1 John 2.1-5a Luke 24.35-48
It’s such a simple thing, what we do each time we gather around this table. We take some bread and some wine – not a lot, just enough for a small piece of food and a sip of drink for everyone here. The priest says a prayer, recalling the words and actions of Jesus on the night before he died. Then we eat. Again, not enough to sustain us, only a taste – but enough of a taste to fulfill all our spiritual hungers. So simple – and yet there’s so much more. As we continue our exploration of the Mass, today we ask: What happens at the moment of consecration? What do we as Catholics mean when we say that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ? And why do we call this the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist?
Our goal as Christians is to spend our lives becoming more and more Christ-like. We develop the faith that God has given us especially through the way we love, loving both God and our fellow human beings. But, most of the time, we’re not very good at loving. We’re not very good at being like Christ. The more we think of ourselves – which is part of our human nature – the harder it is to be Christ-like. That’s why we need the sacraments. God wants us to be like him, and so he gives us the grace of the sacraments to help us along the way. The Eucharist is the heart of the sacraments and is our most regular encounter with Christ. It is our weekly nourishment in the spiritual life – just as we need food and drink to sustain our bodies, to help us live and grow and be healthy, we also need a spiritual food to help us live and grow and be healthy spiritually. Christ loves us so much that he gives himself to us each time we gather for the Eucharist. On the night before he died, Jesus left himself to us in a unique way – even though his human, earthly life was almost over, through a miracle that only God could do, Jesus gave his Body and Blood to the disciples so that he would always be with them. By eating his Body and drinking his Blood, we receive spiritual nourishment from Christ himself; Christ dwells in us. When we receive the Eucharist, we are given whatever it is we need to become Christ-like in our daily lives.
The great gift of the Eucharist is that it is not merely a symbol – the bread and wine that we see, touch, and taste, are no longer bread and wine – they are the very Body and Blood of Christ. How can this happen? And why does it need to happen, why can’t it just be a symbol? For the answers, we have to go back to Christ himself. At the Last Supper, it is very clear in Scripture that Jesus does not say, “This bread is my body,” but “This is my body” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III q. 78, a. 5). He does not say, “This wine is my blood,” but “This is my blood.” To the senses, nothing changes after the prayer of consecration – the bread and wine still look, smell, and taste like ordinary bread and wine. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, we believe that God is able to change the substance, the inner quality, of what appears to be bread and wine. Think of a person, who grows from infancy to childhood to adulthood. The exterior qualities – how the person looks, their voice, the color of their hair – changes; but inside, it is the same person. The exact opposite thing happens with the Eucharist. The appearances, the exterior qualities, the things we can perceive with our senses, stay the same; but the deeper reality changes into the real presence of Christ.
It doesn’t make sense to our rational minds. But to deny that it is possible would be to limit the power of God. Jesus wanted to remain with us always – not just as a memory or a story, but as a real presence. He wanted to give us what we need to be like him. And who could help us be like Christ more than Christ himself? A symbol can help us remember someone or something. But only the real presence of Christ can help us become better Christians. And each time we gather for the Eucharist, we are given the greatest gift in the world: the ability to recognize Christ himself in the breaking of the bread, and not just to see or hear Christ, but to become one with him as we eat his Body and drink his Blood.
2 comments:
Two parts of this homily really spoke to me this morning. First of all, we will have a hard time becoming Christ-like if the focus is on ourselves. Second, when Christ gave us the Eucharist, he did not say "this bread is my body or this wine is my body, but this is my Body and this is my Blood". It just doesn't get much clearer than this. I am so grateful for my Roman Catholic faith and the Eucharist that sustains it.
Am I the same person I was? Sitting here in the shade in the wind, I sure feel like the boy I was, when I was just sitting on the ground and reading under a tree not far from this spot. Great way to look at it Father!
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