Homily
for Jun 10, 2007
Liturgical Year C - Cycle I
10th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
Corpus Christi
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It’s
a gorgeous day out there, isn’t it? There’s a danger that we don’t
notice that. We get so used to this gift we have that we don’t
appreciate it. I hope nobody here didn’t remark on what a beautiful day
it is and thank God for it. I had relatives from Ireland visit years
ago and every day they’d get up and they’d look out and say, “Look at
it. It’s lovely.” I’d say, “It’s always like this.” “No, not at
all,
you’re lying to us.” Every hour they’d get up and go outside and say,
“It’s still lovely.” Have you ever been to Ireland? You know what they
meant.
Just a note on Melchizedek: I love
that psalm and the songs that we
sing. Melchizedek in Hebrew means king of justice. He was the Canaanite
king of Salem which means peace. So, the king of justice is the king of
peace. If you want peace, work for justice. When Abraham came into the
land and fought the Canaanite kings and defeated them, he went to
Salem, which later became Jerusalem, city of peace. Abraham gave
him
ten percent of his booty. Melchizedek gave Abraham bread and wine. It
says you are a priest forever according to the lineage or order of
Melchizedek. Strictly interpreting the scriptures or Jewish scriptures,
there’s no mention of Melchizedek’s lineage. In the seventh chapter of
Hebrew’s gospel, it says that he has no human lineage, suggesting he
was un-begotten or he was not of the normal order. Some hold that he
was a mythical figure. Read the seventh chapter of Hebrews. See how it
all ties in?
Therefore, Jesus, of course, is a
priest forever according to
the order of Melchizedek, not of human lineage. It’s really fascinating
to take the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures and mix them
up and look how deep they are.
However, I want to talk about
something else, on this feast
of Corpus Christi, the body and blood of Christ. I received an e-mail
yesterday morning from one of our parishioners who is serving in Iraq.
He’s a soldier and he’s in a combat unit. He’s been in Iraq, almost six
months. The first part of the e-mail which I cannot read to you because
it was a soldier to soldier e-mail, he relates how he’s changed these
past six months. He sees carnage, human carnage frequently, almost at
times on a daily basis. He’s experienced countless numbers of suicide
bombers and their victims, IEDs and all these things that we read
about. He’s lost friends who have been killed. He said at first he was
super sensitive to the sight of death and carnage. He was repulsed by
it but you get used to things, even terrible things. Hardly a week goes
by when there’s not some dismembered body that he and his troops have
to police up and try to identify. He says it’s changed him. After
relating this, he said, “As I reflect on this feast of Corpus Christi
about how you never really know life until you have witnessed death, I
have, beyond words, a deep appreciation for life. I see how we
experience through our bodies, our corpus, all the good and bad and how
blessed we are to have our bodies. I think about Jesus giving his body
for us, how he was degraded in front of so many. He did that to give us
life. So I guess, this year I appreciate the Eucharist a little more,
not only because I have had Holy Communion only three times in the last
six months but because I understand the body and how important and how
sacred it is and how precious the gift of Jesus’ body is to us.” He
stayed awake in his catechism class, didn’t he? I’m so proud of this
young man.
The Eucharist: indeed, Jesus gives us
himself, his body, blood, soul,
and divinity. In my work as a priest, I meet people at all places
in
their faith journey, some just entering and some about to leave through
death. There are some who are being challenged and some who are
disillusioned with the faith and who are disillusioned in their view
with Christ. They often recount how when they accepted Him as Lord and
savior, how they felt so great and felt saved. They suggest to me that
they thought their life would be changed and be easy. Somehow, they
would start to live this heaven on earth but the crosses kept coming.
They would get worn down and sometimes they gave up. They tell me
they’re disillusioned. They’re surprised when I respond and I say,
“Well, I’m delighted that you’re disillusioned. It’s always good to be
disillusioned because before you’re disillusioned, you must be living
under an illusion.” I tell them. “If you thought Christ was some kind
of tablet you take to make you happy, then you were indeed under an
illusion about who this Jesus is.” Peter Kreeft, the writer and, I
think, theologian wrote this recently, “Jesus didn’t give us a placebo
or a pill or good advice. He gave us himself. He came. He entered space
and time and suffering. He came like a lover. Love seeks above all
intimacy, presence and togetherness and that is what the Eucharist is.”
On a related question, Benedict XVI in
his book, Jesus of
Nazareth,
which has just recently been published, Benedict writes, “We have been
asked, ‘So what has your messiah Jesus actually brought? He has not
brought the world peace and He has not conquered the world’s misery.’”
The Holy Father wrote, “What did Jesus actually bring if not world
peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought?
The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God and now we know his
face. We can call upon Him. We know His name. Now we know the path we
human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with
God the truth about our origin and destiny. It is only because of our
hardness of heart that we think this is too little.”
Jesus didn’t come to take away our
problems and woes. As a
matter of fact, if you follow Him closely, you will receive additional
crosses in this life but he’ll help you to carry them. He’ll share your
burdens and he’ll give your life purpose and hope as you know. He does
that most perfectly here by giving us himself, his body and blood, soul
and divinity. I often think of why did Jesus do this? It cost Him most
of his followers. If you read John 6, they didn’t believe Him that he
could turn bread and wine into his body and blood. They didn’t believe
that unless you eat His body and drink His blood you would have life so
they left Him. Why did He do it? We say, “He did it for us to be close
to us, to nourish us, to give us strength.” However, He also did it for
himself. Jesus has the desire to be with you. He loves you and wants to
be with you in the most intimate way. He wants to be physically part of
who you are so he did it for himself as well.
Is that enough for you? Is that enough
for me? That’s why
we’re here, each day, or each mass. Each time we come to mass, we’re
here to hear the word of God of course, to be challenged to live holy
lives, yes, to experience fellowship with one another, of course.
However, the first and foremost is to receive the risen Lord into our
body and into our hearts, to be united with Jesus, to be strengthened
and nourished by Him and to be one with Him.
St. John of the Cross, writing in his Dark Night of
the Soul said, “What more do
you want, o soul?”
The body and blood of Jesus
Christ. I hope that’s enough for
you because it is everything that Jesus had. Everything. It is
Himself.