Jesus gives us his peace in today’s Gospel, “not as the world gives it.” In fact, he bestows this peace upon his disciples precisely as he faces his own crucifixion, during the “Last Supper discourses” in John 14. Jesus speaks of peace knowing full well that he would soon writhe in agony.

700 people came to our parish on Sunday night to hear Raymond Arroyo speak of hope in what many would consider a hopeless time for the Church. He gave us Padre Pio as a model of hope. God configured this simple friar to himself even to the point of impressing Christ’s bloody wounds upon his body, and it was precisely these wounds that made Padre Pio a man of peaceful hope. He was a Catholic priest, ordained to offer Mass. No one who attended one of Fr. Pio’s Masses could ever feel the same about the Holy Eucharist.

The heart of our parish, and of our faith, must be the Holy Eucharist. After consulting with the parish councils and staff, I’ve ratified our parish mission statement as “To Evangelize God’s People, beginning with the gift of the Holy Eucharist.” The Church’s primary mission is to evangelize, because all of God’s children have a right to the Gospel. But I, who am sinful and weak and not brilliant, can evangelize only by relying on the Holy Eucharist. The Gospel of Hope, the Joy of the Gospel, the Gospel of Life, the Peace this world cannot give—all comes to us through the Eucharistic presence of Christ in our world. We begin our evangelizing on our knees at Mass and continue it through Eucharistic adoration.

I am greatly consoled that so many are attending daily Mass, and that Sunday Masses continue to grow slowly. The Mass, and Eucharistic adoration, must be the heart of our parish. Many are attending our weekly holy hours, and someday, please God, we will reach “perpetual” (24-hour) adoration. Let us pray to Our Lady (to whom we will reconsecrate the parish the last weekend of May) to bring all the people of our parish to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

Feeding Five thousand

In today’s Gospel Jesus feeds five thousand, as he feeds five billion mouths every week throughout the world in the Holy Mass. It is growing late, and the Apostles see five thousand hungry and (potentially angry) men before them. “Dismiss this crowd!” they urge Jesus. Our Lord contests: “No. They are hungry. Feed them.” Jesus commands his first pastors to feed the world, but not with earthly bread. But the apostles reply, “feed them with what? We have only five loaves and two fish.” Jesus instructs them: “Then give them what you have. Give them all you have.” The disciples, thankfully, give everything they have to Jesus. He blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples, who give it to the people. All ate and were satisfied. 

The priest must give what he has to Jesus before he can give it to the people. He cannot offer the Church anything of value without first surrendering it to Christ. It is Christ who consecrates and multiplies what we give, so that it may be sufficient. What have we to offer that will satisfy anyone? Very little, and certainly not enough. Do you ever feel inadequate in trying to meet the needs of your spouse, your children, your friends, or your parishioners? The trick is to offer what we do have to Jesus. Mother Teresa would say, “To God there is nothing small. The moment we have given it to God, it becomes infinite...”

Adoration

In the Incarnation, God took what little Our Lady had to offer—her finite human will, her small and imperfect body—and he made it infinite. In Sacred Eucharist, God repeats that miracle. He takes what little we have to offer—a bit of bread and a few drops of wine—an hour of our time, a few dollars thrown into the basket, the little bit of energy we spend in getting to Mass. He takes our little tithe and feeds the world with it. The eternal salvation of every man, woman, and child on earth depends on the Mass, and the Mass depends on us. If we don’t offer the Eucharist, it won’t happen—Jesus entrusted this duty to men, after all. We have to offer what we have, as Abraham offered his little tithe in the first reading. He offered just a tenth of his wealth to the priest-king Melchizidek, who brought out offerings of bread and wine. And the blessing our father Abraham received is sufficient even unto this day.

Procession 

After Mass we will process behind the Blessed Sacrament. In the words of Blessed John Paul II, the Church “solemnly bears it in procession, publicly proclaiming the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of the whole world.” The parishes that carry Christ in procession, and enthrone Him in the Blessed Sacrament, are transformed. My last parish had more people at daily Mass, fed more poor people every week, received more money in the Sunday offertory, and sent more men into the seminary than any other parish in the diocese. Asked by our local newspaper why this was so, one of our elderly parishioners replied immediately: it is because we have a perpetual adoration chapel. 

Our Procession and Holy Hour

In our Corpus Christi procession today, we will consecrate the entire student body and academic year by bringing the Blessed Sacrament into the residence halls and throughout the campus. Pope Francis himself processed with the Sacrament through the city of Rome on Thursday, and today has just completed a Eucharistic Holy Hour (5-6pm Rome time, or 8-9am Santa Paula time). We join him in our Mass this morning, as we join him in a holy hour after our procession, with benediction at 11:30, just before a nice lunch at the Commons. 

In a small work on Corpus Christi Sunday, St. Thomas articulates our own wonder in the Holy Eucharist: “O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value?...In the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this Sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source….it was the fulfillment of ancient figures and the greatest of his miracles, and for those who were to experience the sorrow of his departure, a unique and abiding consolation.” The Eucharist, the Holy Mass, is our unique and abiding consolation, a divine foretaste of what awaits us in heaven.