What do you believe happens to the bread and wine at Mass? Do you believe the gifts we offer become the Body and Blood of Christ? My homily looks at these questions...

 

Above you'll find a video of my homily for this Sunday.  Here are the scriptures for today's mass and the text of my homily follows below. (If a video doesn't appear above, click here!)

 

On this feast, this solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, I'm gonna cut to the chase and ask you a few questions. Four, as a matter of fact.

Question one: What do you believe happens to the bread and wine on the altar? After you hear me speak the words of Jesus, “This is my body, this is my blood…” what do you believe happens to the bread and wine?

 

Two: Do you believe that the bread and wine we offer at the altar become the Body and Blood of Christ?

 

Three: When you receive communion, what do you believe you are receiving? Or more precisely, do you believe you are receiving some-ONE?

 

Four: When you come forward for communion, and the minister says, “The Body of Christ… the Blood of Christ” - what do you mean when you say, Amen?

Today's feast reminds us of what we Catholic Christians believe about the Eucharist: that the bread and wine we offer and pray over and receive, become the Body and Blood of Christ. So if you're thinking, “Well, yeah, that's what I believe…”  - you are in very good company.

 

For the first nine centuries, from the time of the apostles, through the 800s, all Christians, without exception, believed, wholeheartedly, that the bread and wine at mass do indeed become the Body and Blood of Jesus. Of course, in the first 9 centuries - everybody was Catholic! There was nobody else. All Christians were Catholics - all Catholics were Christians.

 

And then around the year 850 AD, there was a Benedictine monk in France, Ratramnus was his name. And Ratramnus said, “Yeahhh… I'm not so sure!”  Ratramnus did not believe that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. He believed that the bread and wine become a “figure,” a “representation,” a “symbol” of Christ's real presence. And we can understand why he thought that - can't we? He thought that - because he looked at the bread and wine before the words of consecration - and then after the words of consecration - and he didn't see any difference...  And so began, in the ninth century, a history of debate and disagreement about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

 

But you know what? In the 5th century, in the early 5th century, St. Augustine had addressed this very question. He asked, and I quote him here:

How is the bread his body?

And the chalice, or what is in the chalice,

   how is it his blood?

These elements, brothers and sisters,

   are called sacraments, because in them,

      one thing is seen, but another is understood.

What is seen has physical appearance.

But what is understood is the spiritual fruit.

These elements are called sacraments.

And what are sacraments? The older folks among us here this morning know the answer to the question. “What is a sacrament? A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.” We learned that in the Baltimore catechism.

 

At the Last Supper, Jesus offered bread and wine as an outward sign of how, on the very next day, he would offer himself, his body and blood, on the cross. In the bread and wine of the Eucharist then, there is an outward sign - what we see with our eyes. But with the eyes of faith - we see so much more. With the eyes of faith, we see what Jesus promised us: 

the nourishment of his life,
   broken once on the cross,
and broken now for us,
   even this morning,
      like bread,
   so that we might have a share
      in his body,
         in his life… 
and the refreshment of his life,
   shed as blood on the cross,
now poured out for us in a cup,
   that we might drink in
      the life he gave for us…

Remember, again, what Augustine preached: These elements, brothers and sisters are called sacraments - because in them, one thing is seen, but another is understood. What is seen has physical appearance, but what is understood is the spiritual fruit.

 

The change in the bread and wine on the altar can be seen only with eyes of faith… can be believed only through eyes of faith… can be accepted, received, and consumed only by people of faith…

 

Let me ask one more question of you…  “Have you ever found yourself changed by the love of someone who loves you? Or you can turn that around, too: “Have you ever seen how your love for someone else has changed that person's life?”

 

Your outward appearance, and the outward appearance of the one you love - remain the same. But at a depth you cannot describe - everything is changed, everything is different because of love.

 

That's how it is with a sacrament. That's how it is with the Eucharist.  That's how it is with the bread and wine we will offer this morning on this altar. A real change will take place at a depth we cannot perceive, a change that can only be known by eyes of faith, and faithful hearts - hearts who know what it is to love and to be loved. Only those with eyes of faith will perceive it. Only those who love Jesus and know that they are loved by Jesus, will know and see and believe and accept and receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the sacrament.

 

But wait! Augustine has even more to say! He wrote, “If, then, you wish to understand the body of Christ, listen to what St. Paul tells us. ‘You are the body of Christ. You are members of Christ's body.’ If, therefore, you are the body of Christ, your mystery has been placed on the Lord's table. In communion, you receive your mystery.”

 

We who have been baptized and are already one with Christ in baptism, we are already one in Christ. So when we offer the sacrifice of the Eucharist, we are offering the sacrifice, the mystery of our own lives. Because we are members of the body of Christ - we are the offering we place on the altar. And in turn, we receive the offering Christ made for us on the Cross. Augustine wrote, “When you receive communion, you reply Amen to that which you are - and by replying, you consent. For you hear the words, “The Body of Christ, and you reply, Amen.  Live them as a member of the body of Christ so that your Amen may be true.

 

Now... I'm wise enough, or at least smart enough, to know that everything I've just said may have sailed right over the heads of many - and out the front doors of this church. So let me add one more voice, a contemporary voice, to what I'm trying to share with you this morning. Let me share you with you the words of Dan Barrigan, a Jesuit priest, a poet, a prophet of peace in our own times. Here's what he wrote about the Eucharist. Listen carefully. He wrote, 

When I hear bread breaking,
  I see something else.
It seems almost as though God
  never meant us to do anything else.
So beautiful a sound!
The crust breaks up, like manna,
  and falls over everything.
And then we eat.
Bread gets inside humans.
It turns into what the experts call
  “the formal glory of God.”
But don't let that worry you.
Sometime in your life,
  hope you might see one starved man
and the look on his face
  when the bread finally arrives.
Hope you might have baked it,
  or bought it,
    or even needed it yourself.
For that look on his face,
  for your hands meeting his
    across a piece of bread 
  you might be willing to lose a lot,
    you might be willing to lose a lot,
      or suffer a lot,
        or even die a little.

Does Father Berrigan's imagery touch a place in you? in your heart, in your soul, in your faith. I hope it does. It does for me. It has for a long time. 53 years ago, I put those words in the program for the first mass I celebrated as a priest. It's how important those words are to me.

That place where Father Berrigan's words may have touched you, that is the place from which you begin to believe that the bread and wine on the altar become the Body and Blood of Christ.

 

Understanding or believing in the real presence is not something you do in your head. Ratramnus tried that in the 8th century, and he failed. He left the path of faith. No - understanding and believing in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is something we do in our hearts in our faith, in our prayer, in that place within us where we love, and where we are loved. In that place inside of us where we know that Jesus loves us – and, in our own halting ways, we try to love Jesus.

 

What we see in the bread and the chalice, that is what our own eyes report to us. But what our faith invites us to believe and accept and receive is that the bread is the Body of Christ, and the chalice holds the Blood of Christ, offered and given for us, so that we might share in his life - in the real presence of Jesus.

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