Homily for June 22, 2003
Year B - Cycle I
Feast of Corpus Christi
by Fr. John Carney
Topic:  De-habituating Ourselves to the Eucharist
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Gospel Reading:  Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

“...While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, 'Take it; this is my body.'  Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.  He said to them, 'This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.  Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'  Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."

Today we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi – the Most Holy Body & Blood of Jesus Christ.  The original day that this feast was celebrated was Holy Thursday, the day that the Eucharist was instituted.  But over the years it became obvious to the Church that a lot of people couldn’t celebrate the Mass on Holy Thursday, and the Church wanted to set aside a Sunday in which we focus on the Eucharist.  Now, every Sunday we should focus on the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ.  But this is a special Sunday that we really think about what we’re doing the other 51 weeks of the year.  And so, we have this very important and necessary Feast of Corpus Christi.

First of all, what do we believe as Catholics about the Eucharist?  Well, we believe that the Eucharist, this bread and wine, is transformed and becomes the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of the living God, and God Himself.  This is not a symbol.  We don’t believe it is a symbol.  It doesn’t re-present Jesus.  It is Jesus Christ.  It is Jesus Christ because he said it was him.  Please read John 6, the 6^th Chapter of John’s Gospel, frequently.  Over and over in that chapter, Jesus says, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you will not have life in you.  My body is real food, my blood is real drink.”  He repeats himself and repeats himself…that’s the way the Jews made a point.  That’s the way some of you make a point, too, and me as well - by repeating ourselves.  It’s really the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Do you believe that?  Really?  I’ll answer for you – yes, you do.  Jesus said, “Take and eat.”  He didn’t say, “Take and understand.”  We don’t understand, but we believe.  Like the Moslems said, “Alla can do what Alla wants.”  God can do what God wants. 

In 1984, I was in Korea, and the Holy Father was in Seoul during that year.  He canonized 103 Korean martyrs, and he had a Papal Mass.  There were one million people there, and it was held in a place called Youido Plaza, in Seoul, Korea.  The Mass didn’t begin until noon, or so, but we had to leave Camp Casey on a bus while it was still dark.  Can you imagine bringing a million people together in one place?  Getting busses in and out, and dropping them off, etc.  They had this figured out.  And we were there about three hours before the Mass began.  There were no seats; you just stood there.  In Asia that’s OK.  As a matter of fact, I think several people died that day, which was expected.  It was a hot day, with a million people in one place…a lot of elderly, many sick people, so they expected some people to die.  So we assembled, and I was taken by the assembly of the people.  I wasn’t as excited to see the Holy Father (and I loved him then and I love him now, our Pope John Paul II); I was more excited to be part of this “million people” feel.  And as they gathered around, I looked at them.  And the women were dressed in their traditional hanbok, very beautiful and colorful gowns.  Children, little girls, were dressed the same way.  Little boys in their traditional Korean formal attire.  They were there to see their Pope.  Probably most of Korea’s Catholics were there, at that one place at that one time.  And so finally, when the Mass began and the Holy Father was brought to the altar, he was this big – a  little white dot.  I was that far away.  I’m envious of people who go to Rome and they say, “Well, I attended the Papal Mass with the Holy Father.”  Our seminarian who is with us this year, our lowly seminarian, was at a Papal Mass.  Me?  I’m in the Rodney Dangerfield seats!  So, as the Mass began, I looked around and everyone was crying.  These people were in tears because the successor of St. Peter was with them.  He had come to their country to celebrate the Eucharist with them.  In tears!  And when he left, his motorcade pulled by us.  We were really kind of close to him.  He’s never changed much.  He stands in the motorcade and he goes (wave).  And he was never a real rock ‘n roll type guy, even when he was healthy.  I love him – I’m not knocking him.  And the people were just amazed, and in tears of joy. 

Here’s the point I’m going to try to make.  If we express that kind of emotion at the presence of the successor of St. Peter, why are we so dull when we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?  I’ll guarantee you that the Holy Father agrees with that.  If the Pope were here tonight, this place would be full.  And many would be in tears, because of the love they have for him.  But we have something much greater than the Pope here tonight, which will be on the altar in a few minutes.  We have Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.  And you believe that, and so do I.  And yet, somehow, this has become routine for us.  Familiarity breeds contempt.  Its true in your homes, isn’t it?  Have you ever noticed the fact that the people you hurt the most are the ones you love the most?  Because you are insensitive to them, you don’t care for them, you’re not even there.  You just kind of focus them out, the people you really love.  It’s a natural tendency we have, as humans.  Psychologists call it habituation.  We take for granted what we know, and sometimes for good reason. 

I remember when I went to college in Rhode Island.  I lived in New York City.  A friend joined me for a weekend in New York City.  He didn’t sleep a wink, because we were in the fourth floor of an apartment building, and about two hundred yards as the crow flies there was the number 7 train, of John Rocker fame.  And it would come by every ten or fifteen minutes, just shaking and rocking everything.  I slept great.  I lived there for years.  My parents slept well.  This guy went back Monday to Rhode Island like this (sleepy!).  You habituate something you are familiar with.  And it disappears – you don’t even see it.  I was in Viet Nam one time, in a firebase for about a week or two, and in it was a battery of 8 inch Howitzers.  They made a loud pop noise.  They’d shoot all day, they’d fire missions all night, and they didn’t wake me up.  I mean literally, they would just knock tents over with the blast.  And I’d be snoring away.  I was habituating something I knew was familiar. 

And that’s the problem, I think, with the Eucharist.  The Lord is so familiar to us, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, that we don’t even notice who he is.  Sometimes people come to Communion, and I can’t believe they believe that this is Christ.  And occasionally, someone will come up and they will be chewing gum, acting cool.  I will NOT give them the Host, looking like that.  No, sorry.  I’m not giving you the host.  Someone said, “Oh, how insensitive you were to him!”  I don’t care!  This is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, and if that person acts like he doesn’t know it, sorry.  I’ll stand before it at the Judgment Seat any day.  We habituate this Lord that we love so much.  We can’t do that.  And this Feast of Corpus Christi reminds us of what we have.  We spend a lot of time focusing on our Church, and a lot of it is negative.  And we need to focus on it.   There is currently a lot of scandal and nonsense that’s just terrible.  But that’s not who we are.  This is who we are.  This is the source and summit of our faith, Jesus Christ truly present, day after day after day. 

But we can de-habituate ourselves.  We can do that in a number of ways every Sunday.  First, by really preparing for the Eucharist.  Gett here early enough to get centered and focused.  I’m going to talk to the 11:15 people tomorrow.  That 11:15 crowd all arrives at 11:25.  I think there’s a bus that comes up and lets them all out.  But you’ve got to get here on time to celebrate the Mass.  You have to be prepared spiritually to receive the Eucharist.  And if you know you are in the state of serious sin, and you have not been to Confession, you can’t receive the Eucharist.  St. Paul says if you do that, you “eat and drink judgment upon yourself.”  You can’t do it!  Instituting the Sacrament of Confession was the first thing Jesus Christ did when he rose from the dead.  He said to the apostles, “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.”  It was the first thing he did!  You’ve got to get cleaned up to come to the altar.  So prepare for the Mass each week. 

The Church also asks (and this is relatively new in a formal sense) that as we receive that we show some sign that we know what we are doing.  You’ll notice the priest genuflects before he receives the Eucharist.  I get on my knees, recognizing I am about to eat the Body of Christ.  All we ask you to do, as you come to receive, is to make a reverent bow.  When the person in front of you is receiving, the Church asks that you make a reverent bow.  That way it moves very smoothly, and it doesn’t slow up the process.  The point is, we can de-habituate ourselves.  We can come here and say, “My God!  This is truly the Eucharist.  This is truly Jesus Christ, true God and true man.”  And so, tonight, if you receive Holy Communion, when the priest or deacon or extraordinary minister holds that host up and says, “The Body of Christ,” think about that.  And mean what you say, when you say, “Amen.”  You’re saying, “I believe.  I believe that’s Jesus Christ.  And He’s going to join me, Body and Soul and Divinity.”

I’m going to ask you now to bow your heads.  I want to pray this beautiful prayer of St. Ignatius Loyola. Father of the Jesuits. 

“Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

Body of Christ, save me.

Blood of Christ, flow all through me.

Water from the side of Christ, cleanse me.

Passion of Christ, strengthen me.

Oh, Good Jesus, hear me.

Within your wounds, hide me.

Never let me be separated from you.

Protect me from the evil enemy.

In the hour of my death, call me, and have me come to you.

That with your saints, I may praise you

   Forever and ever. Amen.”