Showing What We Believe

Solemnity of Corpus Christi
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Recently, pilgrims from across the US started a walking pilgrimage from the four corners of our country: the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota; New Haven, Connecticut; Brownsville, Texas; and San Francisco, California.  The idea is that all of the pilgrimages will leave in time for the Blessed Sacrament to arrive in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July.

Eucharistic Procession at St. Pius X, Flint

    Why would Catholics walk all that way for a piece of bread?  The answer is simple: it’s not a piece of bread.  It is the Lord.  It’s not just a reminder of the Lord.  The Lord doesn’t simply come in and dwell inside the bread.  By the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of an ordained priest acting in the Person of Christ the Head (in persona Christi capitis), bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.  And walking across the country with Christ makes a lot of sense, because the Lord always walks with us on our pilgrimage of life, and at times [like tonight] when we have a chance to walk with our Eucharistic Lord, we take advantage of the opportunity to be with Him.
    But it’s not just about walking with Him.  Our attitude around the Blessed Sacrament, whether walking on the road or even here in the church, says a lot to people about what we truly believe.  I remember hearing a story about a Catholic interacting with a Muslim man.  The Muslim asked the Catholic if he really believed that the bread becomes the Body of the Lord.  The Catholic said, “Of course I do!”  The Muslim man said, “Then why don’t your actions show it?  If Allah [the Arab word for God] were to be in the flesh in front of me, it would change the way I acted in His presence.” 
    Or I recently read in a Matthew Kelly book on the Eucharist a story that Fr. Mike Schmitz told about his days in college.  Fr. Mike related how, during his time in college, he wasn’t as strong in his faith.  He went to Mass, but many things didn’t click.  It was vogue at that time for parishioners to make the unleavened bread which was used for Mass.  When the eucharistic bread is made that way (even according to Church law), it tends to be crumbly.  And crumbs would inevitably fall around the altar.  After Mass, another young college student would gather the crumbs up and reverently consume them.  And college-student Mike Schmitz eventually asked him why.  The student told this story.
    When Communism first started in China, there was a great persecution of the Church.  The government soldiers went to a Catholic Church and beat up the priest, and then locked him in his house, and forced him to watch as they desecrated and destroyed the church at which he served.  They eventually threw out the tabernacle, and and it burst open, consecrated hosts spilling all over the ground.  But the guards wouldn’t let the priest out to tend to the Lord scattered on the ground.  At night, the priest looked out and saw a little Chinese girl slowly approach the place where the consecrated hosts were.  There were still no permissions at this point to receive the Eucharist in the hand, so she crept up to a host, and picked it up the ground on her tongue, reverently receiving it.  Then she scurried back to the darkness, never being noticed by the guards.  She did this night after night, until there was one consecrated host left.   She reverently received the Lord one last time, so that there was no more Eucharist on the ground.  But as she returned this time, she slipped and made a little noise.  The guards noticed her and shot and killed her.  That, the student related, is why he gathered the crumbs, because each crumb was still the Lord.
    How do we approach the Lord?  Would an outside recognize what we believe, Who we believe the Eucharist is by the way we act in church, by the way we receive the Lord, by the way we act outside of church, having just received the Eucharist?  I have been thinking about this a lot over the past few years, and it changed me.  Before, when transferring hosts between two ciboria, the containers that hold the consecrated hosts, I would pour them one into another.  But I was convicted that the way I transferred the hosts was more like pouring out a bag of chips into a serving bowl, not the way I would handle my Lord.  I don’t say that to condemn or criticize other priests; simply to say that I want people to know what I believe by how I act.
    I recently added the chalice veil and burse to our set-up before Mass.  And we have been using for some months the hand patens when I distribute Holy Communion at Sunday Masses.  I know that sometimes it takes a little more time, and sometimes the placement of the paten is a little awkward, but I hope it demonstrates that this is not like standing in line to pick up a snack or even an expensive bottle of bourbon.  During Communion, the Lord of Heaven and Earth is present for us in a unique way, and so we treat everything surrounding it differently to remind ourselves of this great miracle that takes place on millions of altars around the world each day.  We elevate our language and we elevate what we use to communicate just how precious the gift of the Eucharist is.
    As we come forward for Holy Communion today, if we have fasted for at least an hour, if we have gone to confession if we have previously committed a mortal sin, and if our lives conform to the major teachings of the Church in terms of moral theology, I would invite us to think about how we receive?  Am I doing so reverently?  I do not change my behavior to be seen and admired by others, but I change my behavior to reflect the Other who gave His life for me, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

"Father, Mass is boring..."

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

            There are few things more disappointing to a priest than the words, “Father, I think Mass is boring.  I prefer going to my friend’s church because it’s more exciting and they have better music.”  These words generally come out of the mouths of teens, because they generally speak their mind, whether you like it or not.  But, if I had to guess, I would say that many adults feel this way too, they just have become familiar enough with the rules of decorum not to say it, at least, not to the priest’s face.

            Saying that Mass is boring betrays that one does not know what’s really going on at Mass.  Many of us come because we have always come.  Many come because we don’t want to commit a mortal sin of missing Mass on a Sunday or Holyday.  If you’re a minor, you may come simply because it’s one of the expectations for those who are provided with free room and board by mom and dad.  But do we know what we are doing when we come here?  Do we know the privilege we have?

            In our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, the author tells us that we

have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and the sprinkled blood which speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.

He is talking about the worship of the Church, and contrasting it with the ways the Israelites worshipped at Mount Sinai, when God revealed Himself, and it was so terrible (causing terror)—with a mountain that could not be touched, blazing fire, gloomy darkness, storm, trumpet blast, and a voice speaking from the clouds—that they begged the Lord not to reveal Himself to them in such a way, but to speak through Moses from that point on.

            As we gather here, in this Church, to celebrate Mass, we are being drawn up to heaven.  The stained glass, the high ceilings, the occasional incense, the candles, the bells, the gold, the special vestments, the occasional sprinkling rite—all of this is meant to tell our senses that we have left earth and have entered into a new reality.  We, at this Mass, have entered into the halfway point between   With angels bowing down in worship, with the saints, our Catholic brothers and sisters who have shown us in countless ways what it means to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, we hear God’s Word proclaimed to us, the Word that brings life, the Word that saves us from sin, the Word that tells us how to live so as to not stay in the halfway point, but to truly enter in to what was promised to us in Baptism: the Kingdom of Heaven.  We are able to see the miraculous, as Bread and Wine become, not as a corporate game of imagination, but in reality, the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.  What the angels do not even dare to gaze upon, we hold in our hands or receive on our tongues and Christ becomes one with us.  Our God so loves us that He will not remain separate but pierces the veil between heaven and earth and draws us up to Himself so that we can have communion—union with—Him.  And because of that, our music is different, our words are different.  This is no common place, this is not just another building.  This is sacred space, dedicated to God, and where we are drawn up in anticipation of what heaven will be like, when we are all worshipping God in love before the throne and the Lamb, as the Book of Revelation tells us.

earth and heaven.

            And how do I know that at least some do not understand?  I can tell because, if this Sunday is like other Sundays, or weddings, or funerals, some here are probably chewing gum as I speak.  Some here probably brought in coffee to the Church, or have not observed the fast for one hour before the reception of Holy Communion.  Some here were probably reading the bulletin during the proclamation of the Word of God.  And because some here in coming weeks will just drop the kids off for religious ed and your children will only rejoin you more than halfway through Mass, and they will never fulfill their Sunday obligation.  And that’s just those who are here.  There are so many, including even parents who sacrifice to send their children to our parish school, who won’t even come on Sundays.  This betrays the fact that there is ignorance about what’s going on.  “Father, you don’t know me.  You don’t know my circumstances.  You can’t judge me!”  I certainly cannot judge your soul; that is only for God to do.  I cannot judge your culpability: perhaps you’ve never heard this before; perhaps you have forgotten; perhaps we priests have not done all we can to form you in understanding what the Mass is.  But I can call all of us together, as the Body of Christ, to feel shame for the fact that we have the most precious gift here, and at times we treat it like going to a movie theater, or a play, or a concert.  We treat it just like another weekly event on our calendar that we need to attend for whatever reason.

            Right now in Egypt there are families who are risking their lives, in no exaggeration of that phrase, to go to Mass, because it is likely that radicals could blow up or try to set fire to their church.  Right now in China there are groups of Catholics that gather in secret locations for Mass because if the government finds out that they are more faithful to the Pope than to the Communist government they could go to jail, be tortured, or just “disappear.”  Right now there are many places in the US that see a priest once every month, or even once every few months, and that is the only time they are able to receive Holy Communion.

Our first reading and our Gospel both remind us to be humble.  Let us be humble enough to recognize that we somtimes don’t understand what we are doing, or don’t show the proper appreciation for the great gift that we have in being able to gather each Sunday as the People of God and join in the worship of the angels and saints in heaven as we hear the Word of God and receive that same Word of God, Jesus, in the Eucharist.  And then let us work at being formed to be receptive to the Mass through the many great books that are out there on the Mass, through adult formation sessions, and more, rather than asking the Mass to be formed according to our desires.  Because, brothers and sisters, right now, at this moment, we are participating in the halfway point between heaven and earth.  We are worshipping God and the Lamb, as angels bow down in adoration around this altar as Christ is made present.  We are surrounded by the saints who are filling this room to capacity, joining with us in our worship of God.  We are preparing to receive “Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.”