This is not a homily, but a reflection on a homily. The local priest here in Mata de Ferfán (Dominican Republic) asked me to help him with some of his 12 weekend Masses, so I took two. My second Mass was in a poor chapel in the barrio: dirt streets led to a corrugated tin building open to singing sparrows and wandering hounds. The people were sweetly affectionate and devout, greeting each other with warm embraces and singing the Mass in one heartfelt voice of praise. I felt at home.

The Gospel for today is Jesus’ powerful Eucharistic teaching from John 6. “The bread that I will give is my flesh….” Jesus doesn’t just give us a part of himself, as we might give some of our time, talent, or treasure. He gives us his flesh, his blood sacrifice, his entire person “for the life of the world.” Priests all over the world are striving to convey the impact of this doctrine today. God is not a god who finds humanity amusing but won’t get too involved in our personal welfare. God saves humanity by giving himself in sacrifice. That should make us pause. Without the Eucharist, we are dead men walking. “How can I repay the Lord for all that he has done for me?” the priest asks himself in the older form of the Mass, just before receiving the Blood. How indeed? Well, we can begin by handling the Eucharist with the utmost respect, as if what we handled were really the Body and Blood of God – because it is. Thus my homily.

After the Consecration I approached the people to administer this unspeakable gift. With dismay I noticed that these hosts, now the Body of Christ, were roughly cut and crumbly. Pieces were blowing about under the wall-mounted fans. With dismay I found myself compelled to put these flaking pieces of Christ’s Body in the people’s outstretched hands rather than safely on their tongues. With a helpless dismay I saw the Body and Blood of Christ spattered about this poor church. If I believed in what I had just read and preached, I would behold a scene of carnage, not of human flesh, but of God’s flesh.

How can anyone be expected to believe in the Real Presence when the Church treats the Body of Christ like this? What madness brought the Church to encourage, even to force, these devout old ladies to take Christ in their hands rather receive Him on their tongues? What carelessness brings ecclesiastical supply houses to make hosts that disintegrate to the touch, and what thoughtlessness brings bishops and priests to buy these hosts? Most of the older folks approached with hands limply outstretched and mouths open, as if instinctively knowing the proper place to receive Jesus but shamed into taking Him on their hands. They have been taught to “own” the Mass, to “take hold” of Jesus, rather than letting Jesus and his Mass take hold of us.

I am convinced that we should receive the Sacred Eucharist on our tongues, kneeling. Pope Benedict was right to return to this practice in his diocese, as have some other archbishops. I encourage this in my own parish, but confusion reigns, as we have all been taught for the last 40 years that only slaves kneel and only the ignorant receive on the tongue. It took 50 years to convince the poor old ladies of Mata de Ferfán to “take hold of Jesus,” and I suppose that it will take another 50 years to convince them to let Jesus take hold of them in Holy Communion. Ah, Santa Paciencia!

John 6
We believe Jesus Christ is present in the Holy Eucharist, not only in a symbolic manner, but fully present, body, blood, soul, and divinity. We understand his words “this is my body” to be taken literally, and for 2000 years we’ve exercised the utmost reverence for the Eucharistic host. This doctrine is hard to accept and has divided Christians since Jesus first declared it. In today’s Gospel, he says that the bread he will give is his flesh. A little farther in this Gospel, which will be read at Mass in two Sundays, we hear that “as a result of this teaching, many of Jesus’ disciples left him.” The 12 remaining Apostles were confused, and Jesus lays further stress on them by saying “will you also leave me?” Peter simply says “Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” Peter doesn’t understand very much of what Christ is saying, but he accepts it because he accepts Him.

Friendship
And isn’t that how friendships work? We trust people, not contracts. We understand people more for who they are, our whole experience of them, than for what they say or write. How many times have we said “Oh Josh, you don’t really mean that! I know you better than that”—meaning, I must be misunderstanding something you are saying because I know you don’t mean what I’m hearing. That’s the limitation of texting or emails, for example: it cannot convey the full range of human relationship—body language, past experiences, unspoken meanings—that is so crucial to human communication.

The Sacred Host
So God communicates himself in a total way, not just in a doctrine. The Eucharist is the Word made flesh, not just a doctrine but a Person, who is all love. “the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world,” Jesus says. I give you not a piece of me—a piece of my mind—but my whole self. You must “eat” me—take me completely into yourself, as I take you completely into myself. That is what “holy communion” means. In the Old Testament reading, Elijah was running for his life from the government (King Ahab) and eventually collapsed in the desert about 80 miles south of Jerusalem. “Take my life,” he says to God. “I cannot go on.” And he lies down to sleep. An angel awakens him: “Get up and eat,” and he finds a hearth cake and a jug of water on the rock beside him. From that food, which was the love of God, he found the strength to go on to his destiny, to ascend the holy mountain of God and gain the strength to carry out His will.

Soul Food
We need to eat physical food or our bodies atrophy. We need to eat intellectual food or our minds become stupid. And we need to eat spiritual food, or our spirits become coarse and hardened. Permit me to recommend four daily practices that have nourished the best people throughout the ages, from St. Augustine to St. Francis to Mother Teresa:

1) Prayer: every day, enter into a conversation with God, which means essentially listening to him in silence. Ten minutes, perhaps with the Scriptures, of keeping still.

2) Reading: practice the discipline of reading the Word of God, and not only the Bible, but also works of spirituality, such as lives of the saints or writings of the saints, even for only ten minutes a day.

3) The Eucharist: receive the Holy Eucharist every day if possible, and if not, make a spiritual communion, an act of desire for the Eucharistic Christ.

4)   Our Blessed Mother: no one should go a day without greeting his mother, and telling her how much he loves her. Jesus gave us his mother from the Cross, and we should be careful not to neglect this gift.

So we feed our souls, and so we prepare for heaven. 

Yesterday I returned from Tanzania and a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro, and later this week will post a description of this adventure. Today the Church gives us Corpus Christi Sunday, and so I post the homily I gave to the Missionaries of Charity here in Nairobi. Many of the disabled men from the sisters’ home came to Mass, and their genuine smiles and authentic devotion shone through otherwise crippling physical and mental disabilities. Of such children is the Kingdom of God.

A Public Holiday

The Church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi as a “public” holy day. Obviously not everyone celebrates it, but Corpus Christi is “public” because Jesus gives his flesh not only for Catholics but “for the life of the world.” Manna, the Old Testament symbol of the Eucharist, was given only to the Jewish people. Christ gives His body, however, to the whole world, and we receive it on behalf of the entire human race. If only “the public” would eat this bread, we would have peace on earth and endless life in heaven! Mother Teresa often said that Jesus is the bread to be broken, and we become that bread when we receive him. As His broken body heals the brokenness of humanity, so our brokenness, in Christ, heals “the public.” That is your essential vocation as Missionaries of Charity: not just to give bread to the poor, but to be bread for the poor.

Justin the Atheist

St. John Paul wrote that, by bearing the Eucharist in procession through city streets, “the Church proclaims that the sacrifice of Christ is for the whole world.” When John Paul offered public Mass for a million people in Warsaw in 1979, and when he offered the Body of Christ to five million in Manila’s city square in 1995, and when he gave the Body of Christ to 12 million in Mexico City in 2002, he did so not just for those Catholics present, but for the entire world. And the entire world received blessing from that Mass in Warsaw, which ultimately led to the overthrow of communist regimes in all of Eastern Europe.

Last week I hiked for a week with a young man from Colorado named Justin. Educated in American public schools, which exclude any mention of God, he said he didn’t believe in God or in anything he couldn’t see. Three times the Holy Spirit gave me the right moment to speak to him about God’s love without awkwardness, and each time Justin expressed polite non-responsiveness. He could see how many Tanzanian porters attended morning Mass on the trail, but he could also see that no European or Americans paid the least attention to the things of God on our journey. Justin and other wealthy unbelievers are that public for whom this feast of Corpus Christi is also offered. Justin is dying from hunger but doesn’t know it; who will receive the bread of life for him?

Sacrifices made all for thee

Mother begged you sisters to offer your afflictions for the love of Jesus and the poor. “Our chalices,” she wrote, “will be filled with sacrifices made all for thee.” In the First reading, Moses explains that God allowed the Israelites to suffer hunger, and then fed them with manna in order to convince them that man does not live by bread alone. It was the Lord who guided them through that “vast and terrible desert” with its serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground, bringing forth water from the rock and manna from the sky. Thus Moses explains why God allows suffering? Only through the humility of deprivation do we learn to trust Him, and learn to love Him. The public is dying of hunger for love, for meaning, for God, but it is so drugged on cheap substitutes that it doesn’t know it. My friend Justin, for example, desperately seeks to convince himself that he is happy, or as happy as one can be in a sad and meaningless world. God will allow Justin to suffer in the hope that he will learn to love and trust Him. Let us trust the divine physician’s treatment for our spiritual sickness when we suffer or see pain in others.

Corpus Christi priests

In 1981, Fr. Joseph Langford and some other priests wanted to work more closely with Mother for the poorest of the poor. They wanted a share in the secret fire that radiated from this little Albanian nun. At first this little group called itself the “Priestly coworkers of Mother Teresa.” But Mother soon changed the name to the “Corpus Christi Movement of Priests.” Why did Mother choose the name of Corpus Christi? I think it was because she wanted to remind priests of their essential purpose: to bring the Eucharist from heaven to earth “for the life of the world.” Mother also knew the essential purpose of your Society is to touch the Body of Christ, first in the Holy Mass and then in the poorest of the poor. “It is the same Jesus.”

Let us learn how to touch the fragile Body of Christ from that Mother who first received Him on earth. Our Lady knows how to receive him perfectly, as she did at the Annunciation, and will teach us how to receive the Body of Christ, both in the Eucharist and in poverty-stricken humanity. We can receive Him with the purity of her Immaculate Heart, if we stay devoted to her.

On Saturday a local priest pointed to a large green area on the other side of the highway. “Lots of monkeys in that park,” he said. “They come across the road looking for food in our house.” Yesterday I rode to that park, Nairobi’s City Park, in search of monkeys. There were lots of them, hanging from branches, crashing through bushes, perched thoughtfully on fenceposts, and hauling cute monkey babies upside down under their bellies. I stopped to inspect one at close range, and of course a man with a camera appeared to ask if I wanted my photo taken with the little beast. “Maybe,” I demurred. “But what is the name of these monkeys?” “They are monkeys,” he drawled. “They don’t have names.” “No, I mean the name of their species,” I persisted. He seemed unenlightened. “They’re just monkeys.”

It made me think: thousands of monkeys in the middle of Nairobi, and no one knows their names. But certainly God knows them. “Not a sparrow falls without your Father knowing it.” In this park, in addition to the monkeys, were hundreds of Kenyans and at least one American. Each of us has a mother, and each one’s mother knows us.

I gave a talk to the sisters last night on Our Lady and the Eucharist (the retreat is on Our Lady, roughly following the 20 mysteries of the rosary). I have to make the sisters laugh a bit, so I told them about the monkeys. If God loves the monkeys, He loves us too, and that’s why He gave us His Holy Mother, to feed us the Bread of Life. Here is a bit of what the sisters heard last night.

Our Lady was not at the Last Supper. One reason was that Christ held this Supper for his Apostles, to ordain them for the Eucharist. She was not called to be a priest; her role, like that of Mother Teresa, was not to bring the Eucharist to the people, but to bring the people to the Eucharist. Mother Teresa brought the love of Jesus into the dark holes of the poor, where the priests could not go. When the poor had received the love of Jesus in their hearts, then she would bring the priest to give them the love of Jesus in their bodies. Then she would call the priest, who would hear their confessions and give them the Eucharist.

Another reason Mary was not at the Last Supper was that she had already received her First Holy Communion, which the Apostles were to receive that night. She had already received Jesus when she had said her “Fiat” (or in Hebrew “Amen”) to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation. Also, while Jesus gave Himself to the apostles veiled under sacramental signs, Our Lady had received Him in the fullness of his physical reality. Hers was the world’s first First Holy Communion, and the only reception of the Eucharist “unveiled,” not as bread but as a baby in her womb. She knew the Eucharist “face to face;” she nursed Him, and spoke with Him, and loved Him as her child.

But to receive that First Eucharist, Jesus’ Mother first had to say an unconditional “yes” to God’s will. We call it her Fiat, from the Latin “let it be done [according to your will],” but this simple village girl didn’t speak Latin. She probably said the Hebrew word Amen. That means something like “so be it” or “yes, of course!” or “be it done!” That was Our Lady’s vow of consecration to God; she said it once, and she renewed her total surrender every day. You too, dear sisters, say “Amen” every day, before receiving Jesus Christ, and when you say it, you are renewing your vows. Mary made one vow, but you have made six baptismal vows and four religious vows. All our vows, however, come down to one word: “Amen.” We say it before receiving Holy Communion, and we say it with Our Lady. Every time you say Amen to the Eucharist you renew your vows, and you strengthen the joy of living those vows. Your vows are enclosed within the one vow of our Lady: “be it done to me as you have said.” So do not be afraid of keeping those vows, and knowing the love of Jesus in your hearts. God receives your Amen as He received our Lady’s Fiat. He knows you as he knows her, and he stays in your heart, as long as you keep saying Amen to the Holy Eucharist. 

I am in Rio de Janeiro, “on retreat” with the dear Missionaries of Charity sisters. I especially love the silence before breakfast. I usually come into chapel for my holy hour at 6am. At 6:20 the sisters leave to do their morning washing. From every part of the compound I hear the quiet sounds of sweeping, scrubbing, dusting, and mopping. The birds alone chatter and sing as the sisters quietly clean chapel, house, and garden for the new day. Usually they let me stay in the chapel, deftly working around me, but this morning they banished me to a beautiful little side chapel.

The sisters feed their priests with the same love with which they clean their chapels. Three times a day a sister serves the priest his meals in the “priest room,” which is also the confessional and sometimes his bedroom. Sr. Amanda from India is serving me this retreat, with assistance from Sr. Therese Anna from Brazil. “Thank you, Father,” she beams after placing steaming plates of stew or soup on the table.

“But, I wish to thank you,” I smile.

“Oh, you may certainly thank me, but my greatest happiness is to see the fathers eat,” Sr. Amanda reassures me. “You hardly ate any of the chicken this afternoon,” she scolds. “Have some another sandwich.” The MC’s are ascetical in many ways, but not so much when it comes to food. “Sisters,” Mother Teresa would tell them, “you must eat enough to keep up your strength.” Sometimes, perhaps, a sister might go a bit farther than Mother would have recommended. All of them certainly make sure their priests have plenty to eat.

“Obrigado,” calls out Sister Amanda again, all smiles. She had placed a bowl of fried potatoes and another of steamed rice, two ham-and-cheese sandwiches, a pot of beef stew, a large salad, half a pound of sliced watermelon, a bag of potato chips, and various fruit drinks before me.

I used to get a little irritated at how much the MC’s expected me to eat, but I have long ago surrendered. They are mothers, and after all, our religion is based on food. Jesus commanded us to “do this in remembrance of me,” and he was talking about supper. From Mass to Mass, we eat our way to heaven. True, what we eat and drink is the Body and Blood of the Lord, and St. Paul excoriates the Corinthians for turning the Eucharist into a food fest, but for Jews and Christians, eating is sacred. Every meal recalls that Last Meal of the Lord before the Redemption. Upon appearing after his Resurrection, what did Jesus do? He wasted no time in having another meal with his disciples—this time a breakfast of bread and fish by the lakeshore.

“Obrigado” in Portuguese means the same thing as “eucharistein” in Greek: to render thanks. The Eucharist is how we render thanks, and we do it by feeding others and ourselves. My job as a priest can be reduced to one word: “feed,” as in “feed my sheep,” as Jesus instructed Peter. “Give them something to eat,” he had told the Apostles after the Sermon on the Mount. “If you love me, you will feed my people.” Why should I be surprised that Sr. Amanda takes any less delight in feeding her priests than her priests take in feeding her? I am saddened when folks do not come to Mass very often to eat the body and blood of Christ. Sr. Amanda is saddened by priests who don’t eat much of her food. God gives us food, and He gives us the Eucharist, so we can give it to others.

Tonight Sr. Amanda placed impossibly large quantities of food before me. She probably did that because I finished every last crumb of last night’s meal. I did my best tonight, and I think she was happy. My plan, after this retreat and next week’s retreat in Kenya, is to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I wonder if, for an additional fee, they will take you up the mountain in a sedan chair?

Today is Holy Thursday, the day of the Lord’s Supper, the Fifth Luminous Mystery, the institution of the Holy Eucharist. It is today that the priest says in the First Eucharistic prayer, “on the day before he was to suffer for our salvation and the salvation of all, that is, today…” I can remember first adverting to those three words (“that is, today”) at a Holy Thursday Mass in the seminary. These three words, uttered only once a year on this night, bring the Lord’s Supper into the present, and the Mass into our hearts here and now.

The other morning I had the early Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the College. In the more ancient form, the priest turns to the people to show them the newly-consecrated Host. He says ecce Agnus Dei; ecce qui tollit peccata mundi (“behold the Lamb of God; behold Him who takes away the sins of the world”), just as he does in the Ordinary Form. But then, in the Extraordinary Form, priest and people say three times rather than just once, “Lord I am not worthy….” The effect is that all of us “behold” the Lamb three times longer than in the Ordinary Form. It permits us time to “behold,” to look more deeply, to “study his face,” rather than to simply glace up at him.

The other morning I held up the sacred Host to repeat those words with the people. A feeling of tenderness came to me. Feelings are undependable, but I think we should take what is true from them and discard what is not true. This feeling accorded with the truth of what I held in my hands; and so this blessed assurance, which deepened into an act of faith, came to me as I elevated the Host. “I believe, Jesus, that you are in my hands at this moment. You look at me, and I look at you. You clothe yourself in the simple and tender appearance of smooth bread, a little bit of unleavened manna between my thumb and forefinger. You look at me, you look at all of us, with tender love. I love you.”

It’s as simple as that. Holy Thursday, the Sacred Eucharist, the entire Judeo-Christian revelation which has determined human history on this planet, is as simple as that little white Host. Consider that the rule of law, free-market economies, the development of the arts and sciences—all stem from that day when God spoke to Abram in the Chaldean desert. God assured Moses that “I AM … here … for you.” He is here, for us, at every Mass. I can feel that presence of God, directing humanity, when I hold up the Lord of history, the lover of mankind, between thumb and forefinger in the Mass.

A blessed Holy Thursday to you all, a blessed Triduum, and Happy Easter.

Rain Down Upon Us

We are only three days from Christmas, and the readings and prayers bring us right to the edge of the mystery of the Incarnation. The introit of today’s Mass: Rorate cæli, désuper, et nubes pluant justum: aperiátur terra, et gérminet Salvatórem. “Drop down moisture, O ye Heavens, from above, and the clouds will rain down the Just One; the earth will open, and a Savior will spring up.” So the luminous Shekinah, the shining cloud of God’s presence, rained down grace from above, into the heart of the maiden of Nazareth, a heart which opened to the world on Christmas Day. When Mary said yes to the angel, and so conceived by the Holy Spirit, our salvation was accomplished. Her yes to God, the first time in human history that someone permitted God complete access to her heart and will, Mary’s yes to God began a new era, the time of grace, the New Covenant of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The communion between God and Mary is the greatest of all mysteries, renewed each time we receive Holy Communion.

St. Paul describes Christians as the “Stewards of God’s Mysteries” in the Epistle. These “mysteries” are the Sacraments and their effects. Grace rains down constantly upon us from heaven, but the future of humanity depends on what we do with that grace. Do we squander it, toss it away, ignore it—or do we nurture it, keep it in our hearts, act upon it? Are we stewards of the mysteries, or wasters and squanderers?

Stewards of the Mysteries

The one thing necessary of a steward is that he be found faithful, writes St. Paul. He must be faithful to the gift entrusted to him. We receive the gift and mystery of the Holy Eucharist today. Are we faithful to that mystery? What do we do with what we have received? What did Our Lady do with what she received? She kept it in her heart, and she grew the grace, in obedience to God. God gave her a little baby, and she grew that baby into a man, into a Savior. Has God given you children? Grow them into saints. It is not enough that your children get all A’s in school, that they learn the piano and play soccer. You must do more than feed, clothe, and educate them. You must lead them to sanctity if you are to be a steward of the mysteries.

Has God given you employment? Grow that work into an apostolate, a means of conversion for those with whom you work. Your job must build the Kingdom of Christ, not just to put food on the table. Your work is to save souls. Imagine if every card-carrying Catholic in this country were faithful to the mysteries in their work and personal lives: if they used the sacraments and the Word of God to build a Civilization of Love rather than fabricate a culture of death. Imagine what our Catholic Vice President could do to protect human life, to strengthen marriage, and to increase goodness in our country. Imagine what the top Catholic business leaders, Catholic entertainment moguls, and Catholic university professors, could do with the faith they have been given. There are many who use their faith well—I read yesterday that Comedian Bob Newhart has backed out of a scheduled appearance before Legatus, a group of Catholic businessmen, under heavy pressure from militant homosexuals. That’s a good sign that these Catholic businessmen are taking their faith seriously and promoting the Gospel in the Public Square.

Just a Housewife

Most of us are not high-powered businessmen, or professors, or Supreme Court justices. But neither was Our Lady. She was a housewife, a simple woman who decided to trust God with her whole mind, her whole strength, her whole soul. She trusted God. What have you and I been given that needs to be surrendered to Him? What gift can you return to him this Christmas?  Your children? Your marriage? Your job? What parts of my life have I not submitted to his Lordship? Let us aspire to imitate Our Lady, and hold nothing back from him; to give what He takes, and take what He gives, with a big smile. Holy Mary, pray for us, that we may trust the Good God as you trusted him, and so bring him to birth again this Christmas.

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.

Homily: The City of God and the City of Man
Extraordinary Form Homily, October 7th, 2012
19th Sunday after Pentecost

A tale of two cities

Dickens’ great novel about revolutionary Paris and London tells the tale of Two Cities. So our Lord in today’s Gospel tells the tale of two cities: the City of God and the City of Man. You belong to one, or you belong to the other. The Kingdom of heaven is like a King who invited many guests to his Son’s wedding feast. He slaughtered his oxen and fatlings and dressed the great table for his guests, so earnestly does he desire each guest’s salvation. He prepares his table at every Mass, but many guests do not come. They treat the king’s invitation with contempt, and murder his messengers. 

Do you know the largest religious group in this country? It is not Catholics, for Catholics attend Mass every Sunday and submit themselves to the apostles’ teaching. The largest religious group in our country is not Catholics, but non-practicing Catholics, for 75% of those who claim membership in the Catholic Church neither attend Mass faithfully nor believe in all the Church’s teachings. They do not come to the Wedding Feast, and they ridicule the Pope and his faithful bishops. What is this mysterious malice, that not only ignores the King’s invitation, but that drives the invited guests to a fury of intolerance?

So the King destroys those murderers and burns their city, the City of Man. The King affords apostates no quarter, and for us, neither is there any third way. Either we enter the City of God, and take our place at the wedding feast of the Lamb, or we obtusely remain in the City of Man to await our certain destruction. But one man did try a third way. He entered the City of God in shabby clothing. St. Gregory the Great writes of this passage: “The marriage is the wedding of Christ and his Church, and the garment is the virtue of charity: a person who goes into the feast without a wedding garment is someone who believes in the Church but does not have charity.”

How terrible to come before God with dirty, stinking, rotten clothing! We observe a dress code in our college chapel. It is a sign that we do not come before the Lord without clothing ourselves, as best we can, with the virtues that God himself provides. God provides grace, but we must put it on, as St. Paul says in the Epistle: “Put on the new man … put away lying … let not the sun set on your anger … steal no more….”

Year of Faith

God intensely desires our happiness, now and forever. He prepares the nuptial feast of his Son, at which we receive the very self-offering of our bridegroom. With his own hand he feeds each of us with himself. Yet how many Catholics believe this? How many, rather, manifest the obstinate malice that ridicules their own Mother, the Church? They have lost the virtue of faith. Faith must be received from another, certainly, but we must develop and practice the faith we receive. Pope Benedict opens a Year of Faith this week, on Thursday, October 11, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The “Door of Faith is always open for us,” writes the Pontiff. “To enter that door is to set out on a journey that lasts a lifetime.” But “in large swathes of society, a profound crisis of faith has affected many people.” How will you, college students and college tutors, practice this Year of Faith? The Pope recommends, above all, studying and teaching the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I will say more on the Year of Faith in the coming weeks.

The Holy Rosary

Today is also October 7th, the Feast of the Holy Rosary. On this day in 1571, 70,000 Christian men came up against the seemingly invincible Ottoman Navy. Each Christian held a rosary in his hand, and so the ensuing victory brought about a new devotion to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. We too must bear the rosary into our battles. The City of Man wars incessantly against the City of God, and the battle lines cross directly through each human heart. What will save us from the furious secularism of our time, intent with mysterious malice to humble and subjugate the Church of Christ? You and I must pray the rosary, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “my favorite prayer. A marvelous prayer! Marvelous in its simplicity and its depth.” Nothing bad can touch the family that regularly prays the rosary with devotion. It is one of the great anthems of the City of God, of which, we beseech God and His Holy Mother, we many always be faithful and true citizens.

Homily: The Holy Eucharist
 
St. John, Chapter 6

Today begins the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 6, the great Eucharistic teaching of Jesus Christ. It is impossible to read this chapter carefully and not be Catholic. Today Jesus feeds 5000 men with five loaves and two fish. Next Sunday he declares himself to be the bread of life. August 12 he will reveal that “the bread that he will give is his flesh for the life of the world. On August 19 Jesus will say five times that “unless a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he has no life in him, but if he eats my flesh, he will never die;” and finally, on August 26 Jesus will allow most of his disciples to leave him over his insistence on the doctrine of the Eucharist. How many disciples have left his company over this very teaching throughout the centuries? How many find this teaching “too hard to accept,” and so reject the Catholic Church, and reject Christ’s sacraments? And yet the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar is our very life, our only hope for eternal life.

In a few days I will be leaving this community after 12 years with you. If I have done nothing else, I hope I have been able to provide you with the Holy Eucharist, the one thing necessary for our salvation. The Eucharist, however, will not save us, if we don’t receive it in faith. Jesus will not save us, if we don’t surrender to him in faith. I hope that over the last 12 years, I have been able to walk with you a little farther on the lifelong journey of true faith. I hope that together we have been able to study the Scriptures, and so been able to receive the Sacred Eucharist in purity and faith. That is the only real desire of every priest: the sanctification of his people through Word and Sacrament.

Stewardship: Five Loaves and Two Fish

In today’s Gospel, 5000 hungry men, not counting women and children, crowd near to Jesus. Where to get food for all these people? A boy has brought along five loaves and two fish—just enough for his family. Little boy, will you entrust your supper to Jesus, so that he can do a miracle? The boy knows that the food he has is from God anyway, so he gives it back to God: “Stewardship.” He trusts Jesus to provide. And this boy goes down in history as the “efficient cause,” God’s chosen instrument, for the great miracle of the multiplication of loaves. I would like to know your name, little boy. Thank you for offering what you had to God.

The Mass

The same happens at every Mass. A little boy, or girl, brings up a little bread to the priest. Someone else brings up a flask of wine. We also give a little bit of our financial blessings at the offertory. And hopefully we give this little bit with trust and joy. Let me entrust this to God, that he may multiply it. And from the little bit that we give, God gives us the body, blood, soul, and divinity of His Son. He gives us the means of eternal life, at every Mass.

Good-bye

For what am I grateful as I leave this parish? Most of all, I am grateful for the Mass, our supreme act of thanksgiving. It is only a small thing that we do—giving an hour or two of our time each week, standing with the Lord as he dies for us at Calvary. But in this parish, we do it with great love. I can see it on the faces of the altar servers, in the tenderness with which folks receive Holy Communion, in peoples’ rapt attention during the Scriptures and the Consecration. I can see it in the folks who prepare for the Mass, and sing the Mass, who read the Scriptures at Mass, those who come day and night to our adoration chapel, and to confession, and in those who feed the poor, who teach our children the Gospel, and who give themselves in 95 different apostolates at this parish. Let us “live in a manner worthy of the call we have received,” as St. Paul says in our second reading: with all humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, striving to preserve unity. Not big things; just small things done with great love.

I leave you in the hands of our Lady, where I began 12 years ago. The first act I did as your new pastor was to consecrate this parish to Our Blessed Mother. She will teach us the way of humility and gentleness. Let us turn to her in every difficult moment, and she will show us her Son, Jesus Christ.