The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
Today is the solemnity of Corpus Christi, the body of Christ, a day devoted to the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ.
To tell the story of why we have this day, we could begin with Holy Thursday, and the inauguration of the Eucharist, or perhaps Good Friday, when Jesus sacrificed everything for us.
But today I propose to begin with Christmas, or maybe even the Annunciation. Today’s commemoration of the Real Presence in the Eucharist has parallels with both feasts of the Incarnation.
The Incarnation means that the universe has an author, a creator, who loves us so much, who so desires a relationship with us, that he reveals himself by becoming one of us. He takes humble, human, baby flesh, first in Mary’s womb and then in the manger. There’s no inevitability that an invisible God should become human like that; we know that the idea is ridiculous to many. But in time, Jesus will ask us, “who do you say that I am,” and Christians are people who profess that this incarnated Jesus and the Creator of the universe are the same. The Incarnation means Jesus is the one person with two natures, that he is both human and divine at the same time.
Today when we profess faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, our trust is founded in a similar way.
To believe in the Real Presence is to trust that this same God who became incarnate in Mary’s womb, who was swaddled in the manger, also becomes personally present again in the bread and wine. He is here today. He sees us. Just like the shepherds at the manger, we too can greet him in adoration, prayer, and worship. But we can do more than the shepherds or the wise men. In a Marian posture of receptivity, today we take Jesus into our selves, intimately into our bodies, and let his presence change us from within.
Today’s Gospel, John 6, is also foundational for Catholic trust in the Real Presence. Today we hear an excerpt from a passage that we call the “bread of life” discourse, where Jesus describes himself at length and in various ways as the bread from heaven.
At the beginning of this chapter, before today’s reading begins, John says that Jesus was popular. A large crowd followed him around Galilee, and the chapter opens with the feeding of the five thousand. But, by the time today’s reading ends, the disciples are grumbling: “this teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” The chapter ends “because of this many turned back and no longer went about with him,” and the next chapter opens with Jesus changing his plans because so many people wanted to kill him.
In other words, today’s reading flips the needle for Jesus, from popularity to danger. The idea that we could encounter God by eating a small piece of bread and drinking consecrated wine - that the physical appearance might be one thing, but the spiritual reality might be another – from the beginning, this invitation has scandalized many and required all of us to decide who we think Jesus really is, and by what authority he speaks.
But for those who can look at what happens on the altar and profess “my Lord and my God,” the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist means everything.
Four years ago, when Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was burning, Fr. Jean-Marc Fournier, chaplain to the Paris fire department, went back into the fire several times to rescue consecrated hosts from the tabernacle.
Three months ago, when my parish grade school was on fire, and we weren’t yet sure whether the wall would fall onto our sanctuary, Sr. Christine Konopelski and a Philadelphia fireman did the same thing. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was standing a good distance away in the sacristy, and Sr. Christine and the fireman came barreling past and reposed the rescued Blessed Sacrament in the rectory chapel.
In light of this dedication, all the Catholic customs surrounding the Eucharist, and the things we do to prepare ourselves to receive the Eucharist, start to make sense.
If you’re on social media – Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter – I recommend taking a look at Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s posts from this past week. He’s done a series of one or two minute talks preparing for today. He touches on the way we dress at Mass, why we are silent in the presence of the tabernacle, when to bow or kneel or genuflect, and his whole tone is warm and pastoral. He’s not fussy or rigid, but he’s trying to propose that these gestures of reverence are not only due to the Eucharist, but also that they are good for us, for they help us prepare to receive the Eucharist with open, ready hearts. It’s worth a look.
Another aspect of preparing ourselves to perceive and receive the Real Presence is connected with confession. In 1976, Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, visited Philadelphia for a Eucharistic congress. 1.5 million people attended, including Mother Teresa and the future John Paul II, who preached in Veterans Stadium. Day talked about the physical aspect of the Church, and how the bread and wine attracted her; all of her activism towards the poor was fueled by daily Mass attendance. But in her talk that day – August 6th - she also noticed that it was the 31st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. She pleaded with everyone to consider what it means to have Eucharist on such a day. Long before any of our current controversies about receiving the Eucharist, this champion of social justice insisted here in Philadelphia that “penance comes before Eucharist. Otherwise we partake of the Sacrament unworthily.”
This is why, whenever we’re conscious of serious sin in our lives, it’s important to go to confession before we receive the Eucharist. It’s not because we’re fussy or have scruples, much less because we’re political. It’s because, if we want the grace of the Eucharist to grow and burn in our hearts, we need to approach the Eucharist from a place of reverence and humility.
In a few minutes, as part of the prayers of the Mass, we will say together “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.” When we say that, we’re quoting the Roman centurion from Matthew’s Gospel, when the centurion asked Jesus to heal his paralyzed servant. To receive the Eucharist worthily – to ask for the grace to heal our paralyzed hearts - means acknowledging that we receive it as gift, not by right, and that we’re longing to conform our lives to Christ, that we are dependent on the Lord’s mercy.
The Mass is full of so many biblical moments, when we embody different scenes from the life of Christ. When we walk down the communion aisle, maybe today we are like the shepherds approaching the manger, approaching with humble expectation. But when the minister holds up the Eucharist before our eyes, and offers us the body of Christ, that is perhaps a Marian moment, an Annunciation of sorts. The Lord is asking to be with us so gently, so intimately. We reply “amen,” which is an ancient Hebrew word that means “truly” or “so be it.” “Amen” is a synonym for Mary’s “fiat” in that moment. As we invite Jesus to find a home in us, “amen” is a one word way of praying “may it be done to me according to thy will."
