All Are Welcome, but We Need to Prepare

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    How wonderful to receive an invitation!  I don’t mean the incessant invitations to subscribe to this, or buy that which we seem to receive every day through email or text.   I mean invitations to some celebration or to become a part of a group or club that means something.  Invitations make one feel desired, appreciated, even treasured.  Especially when not everyone can join, due to cost or space, invitations have a way of stroking the ego in a healthy way.

    And so our Liturgy of the Word, the first main part of our Mass today, begins with an invitation.  “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!  You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!”  And when paired with our Gospel and the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, we certainly understand this banquet to point towards our Eucharistic celebration, the Mass.  I’ve mentioned before the beautiful mosaic at Tabgha at the place of the miracle in the Gospel, where there's a chapel, and underneath the altar is a mosaic with two fish and four loaves, signifying that the fifth loaf is the one on the altar, and that the miracle points to the Eucharist.
    What we see in both the prophecy from Isaiah and the miracle that we hear from Matthew, but which is in all four Gospels, is that everyone is welcome.  God invites everyone to come to him to receive proper drink and food.  And Christ feels compassion for the crowd of 5,000 people who have nowhere to go without being quite hungry.  They were certainly all disciples, as they stopped to listen to Him for an entire day, but we don’t get a sense that they were equally knowledgeable of Christ, or faithful to Christ.  Some may have simply been curious and become quite intrigued with the words Christ spoke.  Others may have been dragged there by friends and simply didn’t want to be rude and return home without the host who brought them.  So we see a certain universal call, a call to all people, to Christ’s banquet where He feeds them.
    However, Isaiah’s prophecy and the feeding of the 5,000 are not the Mass, even though they point to it.  We don’t use bread and wine and milk in the Mass.  Nor do we use bread and fish.  Milk doesn’t really agree with my digestion (though I’ll suffer through it for ice cream, pizza, and lasagna), so I’m glad we don’t use milk.  And imagine trying to keep fish and distribute it at Mass: we’d have to use incense just to mask the smell of aging fish!
    So even within the universal call to the banquet of Christ that we hear issued, which, in some sense, is true of the Mass, we also have restrictions on who partakes of the banquet.  In another parable, Christ speaks about how he invites the unlikely to the wedding banquet after the original invitees demure and do not come, but how the master expects the guests to come to the banquet in proper clothing.  So a universal invitation and guidance on how we carry ourselves in responding to that invitation is not foreign to the Gospel.  Imagine thinking that because your friends invited you to their wedding, you could show up in your pjs, because that made you feel the most comfortable.  Your friends may not mention your attire to your face, but I assure you everyone would be talking about it.
    So how do we come to this Eucharistic banquet to which we were invited?  I know it was vogue to say that clothing doesn’t matter when you come to Mass, but that’s simply not true.  I’m not saying everyone has to be in suit and tie or best dress, but there’s a reason why we call certain attire “Sunday best.”  Your Sunday best may be different than others, but do we give our best and show that this banquet means something to us, at least as best as we can muster as a college student, or parents with an infant, or established adults, or senior citizens?  Again, as long as we can say we’re giving our best to God, that’s what counts, not as much of what type of clothing we wear (though, if you’re over the age of 5, pjs should never be considered one’s best).
    Another consideration on the invitation to all is what we believe.  St. Justin Martyr, writing in the mid-second century, says that only those who have been baptized and believe in what the Church teaches receive the Eucharist.  That’s why we generally don’t have intercommunion, even for baptized non-Catholics, because they don’t believe in the fullness of what the Catholic Church teaches.
    Likewise, in order to receive the full graces of the banquet, we should prepare for receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  If we are aware of grave sins, like skipping Mass, using God’s Name in vain, improper use of our sexual faculties, etc., we need to go to confession first.  If we receive Holy Communion in a state of grave sin, we add the sin of a sacrilegious communion to our previous list and damage further our relationship with Christ.  We fast from all food and drink except water and medicine for one hour before receiving Holy Communion in order to prepare even our bodies, which are united with our souls, to receive Christ into us.  We might even, on Saturday or earlier in the week, read the Sunday readings ahead of time so that we’re more ready to hear them proclaimed at Mass, or if our kids are distracting us, as kids do, we still know what God is saying through the Scriptures for that day.  This doesn’t mean God doesn’t want you to come at all to His banquet, but that while attendance is open to all, the full participation in the banquet does require certain actions and forbids others.
    There is room for everyone in God’s kingdom and at the wedding feast of the Lamb.  God invites each of us to union with Him and attendance at His banquet because of His great love for all of us.  But He expects that we will prepare ourselves for the banquet, because it is such a joyous occasion, just like we prepare ourselves for a wedding.  Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!

Truly a Miracle

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Last Sunday concluded the National Eucharistic Congress, a great gathering from Catholics from all across the United States, some 50,000 people who assembled to witness to their faith in our Eucharistic Lord, and be strengthened by confession, Mass, and talks by world-renown speakers.  How fortuitous and providential it is that, coming off the this great witness of the Church in the United States of our belief that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we now, this weekend, begin a few weeks away from our usual Marcan Gospel accounts, and look towards John and His Eucharistic writings in the sixth chapter of his Gospel account.

From the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves

    It’s funny (perhaps funny is not the right word) that a drop in faith in the Eucharist has happened as priests wrongly interpreted this passage of the multiplication of the loaves and fish as a story about the “miracle” of sharing.  Perhaps you have heard it preached that the boy gives what little amount he has to Jesus, but then the people feel bad because they, too, have food, and so there is enough food because Jesus gets everybody to share.  It’s an interesting hypothesis, but one that is totally implausible if you actually read the Gospel passage.  You basically have to start with the premise that miracles don’t happen, and then read that thesis into this Gospel to create the rather unintelligent explanation that what we heard today was the miracle of sharing.
    How can I say this?  Well, Jesus clearly prays over the bread and the fish, which were not enough for everybody, but then John says that they distributed as much as they wanted, enough for 5,000 men, not counting women and children.  Secondly, after this, the response of the crowd is twofold: they think He is the Prophet (with a capital P), and they want to make Him king.
    The term “The Prophet” refers back to Deuteronomy, chapter 18, where Moses says, “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen.”  What did Moses do that a prophet like him would do?  Moses asked God for miraculous bread, and God gave them manna, a bread that they did not anticipate, and which they could only collect the amount they needed; any extra would waste away.  So the people recognize that Jesus is giving them miraculous bread (and we’ll hear more about this in the coming weeks), but not just enough for what they needed; there was some left over.  Jesus went beyond what Moses could do.  
    In seeking to make him king, they recognized some greatness in Him.  Sharing, while we might think it is tough at times, and something which people do not do of their own accord, is not something which would make people want to make Jesus a king.  If anything, it simply shows that they have the power.  They wanted to make Jesus king because they realized that if He could multiple bread and fish, He could be the Messiah, the Davidic ruler of Israel.  So they knew this was not mere sharing.  

    So, too, more Catholics, though not at this parish as much, have started to think of the Eucharist as simply a reminder of Jesus’ presence, or a sign of His presence.  They have abandoned the faith of the Apostles, the Church Fathers (those who came immediately after the Apostles), and the unbroken faith throughout the two millennia of the Church, that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ.  St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around the year AD 112 talks about the Eucharist truly being the flesh of Christ.  St. Justin Martyr, who died around the year AD 165 said that while it looks like bread and wine, it “is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”  Indeed, the first Christians were accused of cannibalism because of these rumors that they were eating the flesh of Jesus.
    There were arguments around the year 1000 about the Eucharist, but it was around how we could understand that we truly received the flesh of Jesus.  In the year 1215, during the Fourth Ecumenical Lateran Council, Pope Innocent decreed that, “[Jesus Christ’s] body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been changed in substance [transsubstantiatis], by God’s power, into his body and blood.”  This word, transubstantiation, is adopted by the Church and echoes throughout the rest of the centuries as our understanding of how what looks like bread and wine actually are, in substance, the Body and Blood of Christ.
    This is no less a miracle than the multiplication of the loaves and fish.  If God can make something out of nothing, whether at the beginning of creation or when Jesus creates bread and fish from fives loaves and two fish, He can certainly change bread into the flesh of Jesus and wine into His blood.  We see this miracle take place each time we come to Mass.
    So how do we respond?  Do we, like the people, acknowledge Jesus as someone special because we encounter this miracle?  Do we want to make Him king of our hearts and lives because He gives us His flesh?  There are more and more stories coming out of the National Eucharistic Congress of the way that the encounter with the Eucharistic Lord changes lives, whether of devout Catholics, lukewarm Catholics, Catholics who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of priests, or even non-Catholics who met people alive in their faith and wanted to know how to have that joy in their life.  But even though we’re not 50,000 strong here at St. Matthew, it’s the same Lord who makes Himself present on the altar that made Himself present in Indianapolis last weekend, and that multiplied loaves and fish some 2,000 years ago.
    Allow this weekly miracle to change your lives, as God wants it to.  We don’t have to wait for a Eucharistic Congress to know that God is real, and He gives Himself for us in the Sacrament of the Altar.  Have faith in the miracle of the multiplication; have faith in the miracle of transubstantiation.  And let that faith open you up to the graces that God wants to send to change your life!

Holy Communion

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  This weekend in our Diocese of Lansing we begin our Eucharistic Revival, leading up to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024.  Why do a Eucharistic Revival?  Because, statistically speaking, Catholics in the US do not have Catholic faith about the Eucharist.  A recent study put faith in the Eucharist as the actual Body and Blood of Christ at around 33% of active Catholics.  Fewer and fewer Catholics go to Mass, which is where we most frequently encounter Christ in the Eucharist.  And there are fewer and fewer Catholics period, as the steady stream over the 2010s of Catholics leaving the faith became a rushing waterfall after 2020 and COVID. 
    We all have a share in the sources for these depressing facts.  We priests have not always preached about the Eucharist, and what a beautiful and sacred treasure we have.  Some priests have not reminded the faithful of the Church’s teachings and disciplines concerning the Eucharist, and some have celebrated Mass in an irreverent way and admitted to Mass things which have no place there.  Some bishops, too, have not always demonstrated respect for the Eucharist in making sure that their priests celebrate according to the way the Church wants Mass celebrated, or admitting to Holy Communion those who, according to our own post-Vatican II Code of Canon Law, should be refused Holy Communion because of the public way they live and the public policies they openly support which are contrary to the Catholic faith. 
    But it’s not just clergy.  How do you approach the Eucharist each week?  Do you make it a priority, or something you get to if it doesn’t conflict with your other activities or schedule?  Do you prepare for Mass by reading the readings ahead of time, fasting for at least an hour before receiving the Eucharist, and showing by your posture at Mass and especially as you approach the sanctuary that you are receiving the King of Heaven?
    So we all have a hand in a lack of due devotion and demonstration of just how sacred the Eucharist is, without pointing out any individuals.  And I certainly cannot solve issues which have arisen in the Church over the past sixty years in one homily.  But I do want to focus, as we celebrate Corpus Christi, on a phrase we use for the Eucharist: Holy Communion.
    Holy Communion as a phrase slides easily off our tongue.  We probably say it without really giving it a thought as to its meaning.  Holy is probably obvious enough, but still worth saying: belonging to God or associated with God.  God is utter holiness, which is why in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and the Book of Revelation, the angels cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.”  Communion comes from two Latin words, cum and unio, which, when put together, means union with.  When we are in communion with another, we are united to that person.  So Holy Communion is our union with God, who is the source of all holiness. 

    When we come for Holy Communion, union with God is both the pre-requisite as well as the result of receiving (in a state of grace) the Eucharist.  In order to receive the grace of the Eucharist which brings us closer to God, we cannot be aware of any grave or mortal sin.  Such a state of sinfulness makes reception of Holy Communion an act of sacrilege.  That may sound harsh, but Bishop Vincke uses this analogy:
 

Imagine a woman whose husband goes to strip clubs and repeatedly sleeps with many other women, and she knows about it.  The husband comes home and wants to have dinner with his wife, acting as if nothing was wrong.  He is indifferent to the many ways he has hurt and wounded her.  […] Let’s take this a step further.  The cheating husband now wants to be intimate with his wife.  Again, he shows no remorse for the ways he has hurt her.  At the very least, shouldn’t the husband first apologize to his wife?  […] In a similar way, Holy Communion is a sacred banquet in which Jesus becomes intimate with us.  He desires to be one with us in Holy Communion, much like a married couple becomes one flesh.  Jesus has a heart.  […] When we commit mortal sin or “cheat” on God, we must first apologize and beg for his forgiveness.  We know he will grant it in the saving sacrament of confession.  And then, once our broken relationship has been healed, we can return to the intimate banquet of the Eucharist.

Not discerning whether or not we should receive the Eucharist based upon our actions is like being the cheating husband.  Only when we have confessed our sin in the Sacrament of Penance can we one more return to the intimacy and union that God desires with us.
    But Communion is not only with God.  It is also with the rest of the Church.  The Catholic Church has taught many things which are required beliefs and ways we live our life in order to call ourselves good Catholics.  Some are present in the creed.  Others are present in papal pronouncements or documents of ecumenical councils.  Others are so basic that they are presented in the Catechism, but often taken for granted.  When we come forward for Holy Communion, we are saying that we agree with all those things that are part of the Catholic faith, revealed for our salvation.  We may not always understand it fully (like our belief in the Trinity), but if we reject that belief, or the call to live our life a particular way (like the prohibition against abortion or support for abortion), then we are not truly in union with the Church, and our act of receiving Holy Communion becomes a lie at the most sacred time of any person’s day.  St. Justin Martyr, whom we just celebrated on 1 June, wrote around AD 155: “And this food is called among us Eucharistia, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins.”  It’s not just that a person is baptized, but that they also believe what the Church teaches is true. 
    This applies to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.  No matter whether a person is Catholic or a baptized non-Catholic, if they do not believe the major teachings of the faith, then they should not present themselves for, and should not be given, the Eucharist.  If we are not united in major teachings, then we cannot claim to have the graces of communion with God and the Church that the Eucharist desires to impart. 
    Again, I can’t cover everything about the Eucharist in this one homily, though I will try have more homilies on the Eucharist throughout the Eucharistic Revival.  To be clear, this has nothing to do with being a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or anything else.  Our teaching on the Eucharist is not aligned to a political party or persona.  Our practice around the Eucharist is based upon what the Church believes and how the Church lives, which is based in Christ.  Since the Eucharist truly is the Body and Blood of Christ, and not just a symbol, how we treat the Eucharist is how we treat Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Understanding the Deeper Meaning

 Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One tradition that exists in law enforcement is challenge coins (it’s also a military tradition).  A challenge coin is just a coin that has some representation of a unit or a department on it.  We don’t quite use challenge coins in law enforcement the same way that the military does (which often has an effect on whether or not you’re paying for your drinks).  But it’s a way to honor a person by sharing a part of the unit’s history.  As an example, about a year ago was given a challenge coin from the State Police Emergency Support (ES) Team (most people would think of it as a SWAT team) that honored the last ES Trooper who died in the line of duty.  This was an amazing gift which I treasure because it honors one of the ES team’s members who gave his all.
    But if you are not aware of that tradition, you may think the challenge coin is simply a nice, little knick-knack, but nothing more.  If you don’t know the background of the challenge coin, you may not give that gift the same importance that someone who knows what’s going on would.
    As we continue our Gospel readings on the Eucharist, we hear that the people do not understand the deeper meaning behind the miracle of the loaves and fish.  The people were amazed at what happened, but their understanding was limited to the physical reality that they sensed, rather than the metaphysical reality that required going beyond the simple five senses.  Jesus even tells them that they are looking for him simply because they liked eating the bread and fish, not because of a deeper faith.  And then Jesus uses that to springboard to teaching about the true bread from heaven, which is not an “it,” but a “who”: Jesus Himself.  
    For followers of Jesus, this problem of not getting the deeper meaning still exists.  It exists in a particular way among those who are not Catholic nor Orthodox.  So many Christians see Communion as simply bread and wine.  Yes, it has been prayed over; yes it is a reminder of Jesus’ presence, but they stop at the level of their physical senses.  But sometimes even Catholics forget, or perhaps were never taught, that the Eucharist is not bread and wine, though it retains those physical properties, but truly Jesus–His Body and Blood.

We, as Catholics, believe that a valid priest of Jesus Christ, who was ordained by the successors of the Apostles (the bishops), and who follows the prayer of the Church, intending to do what the Church intends to do, by the power of the Holy Spirit changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, not just for the time of that prayer, but as long as the bread and wine have those physical properties that are proper to bread and wine.  It looks like bread and tastes like bread, but it is no longer bread.  It is the Body of the Lord.  It looks like wine and tastes like wine, but it is not longer wine.  It is the Blood of the Lord.  
    This wasn’t some new invention of the Middle Ages, either.  St. Paul talks about partaking in the bread and cup as a sharing in the Passion of the Lord, which is what the Eucharist is: our participation in Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice.  St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around AD 107, says that the Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, and a descendant of King David.  St. Justin Martyr, writing slightly later, says the same thing.  So, too, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, in the fourth and fifth centuries (respectively) say that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ.
    It wasn’t until the eleventh century that controversy really arose about the Eucharist, and whether or not it was the Body of Christ.  Quickly, the Church re-iterated that it was, and solemnly proclaimed it in a the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council in 1215, using the word that has been codified: transubstantiation.  While this teaching was rejected by the Protestants as they sprung up in the 1500s, the Ecumenical Council of Trent reaffirmed the perennial belief that the Eucharist is Jesus, not just a reminder, not just a symbol, but truly our Lord’s glorified Body and Blood.
    That, of course, affects the way that we treat the Eucharist.  If it really is Jesus, then we are extra-careful with it.  We use precious metal to hold and house the Eucharist.  We do not give it to those who do not believe what we do, which is why Protestants and non-Christians cannot receive the Eucharist–they don’t believe what we do about the Eucharist.  Before we receive, we fast (currently the law is that we fast from all food and drink except water and medicine) for one hour before we receive Holy Communion.  And as we approach the Eucharist, we do so with profound wonder and awe, knowing that we are receiving, on our tongue or in our hands, the very same Lord who was born of the Virgin Mary, and who is now seated at the right hand of the Father.  We dare, only because He commanded us, to receive the King of Kings into ourselves.  We dare because He told us we needed to receive Him to have the spiritual strength to follow Him.  
    As a sign of our respect and reverence our hands should be clean if we receive in our hands.  And the Church invites us to bow before receiving the Eucharist (though some genuflect or kneel down).  The point is that we want to show reverence for the divine encounter we have, an encounter with God that is the closest we can get to God on earth; greater than even the best sunrise or sunset, or the best musical composition, or even the love of a spouse, or whatever other way the we might encounter God.  Nothing even comes close to just how truly awesome the Eucharist is.  St. John Vianney, the priest, said, “What the Angels behold only with awe, the radiant splendor of which they cannot sustain, we make our food, we receive into us, we become with Jesus Christ one same Body, one sole Flesh.”  He also said, “If we truly understood the Mass, we would die of joy.”  
    May we truly recognize that the Eucharist is not bread and wine, but our Savior, who chooses to humble Himself and make Himself vulnerable to us.  May we value and treasure the Eucharist as the greatest gift we can receive here on earth, because it is already a foretaste, a preview of heaven!

A Godly Diet

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are all sorts of diets these days: Atkins, South Beach, Paleo, No Carb, and the list goes on and on.  The different types of food you eat are supposed to help you either lose weight or maybe grow muscle mass, or help with a particular health goal.  Growing up watching cartoons, I was very familiar with the Popeye diet, where, if you wanted to grow strong, you downed a can of spinach.  I didn’t know what spinach was (we never really ate it at my house), but it seemed to work well for Popeye.  I have had spinach in salads and Greek food since, and it’s pretty tasty, but I can’t say that I have become as strong as Popeye when I eat it.

Our first reading, psalm response, and Gospel reading all have to do with eating.  So if you’re getting hungry, that’s understandable.  In the first reading, an angel tells Elijah to eat, or else “the journey will be too long!”  And our psalm and Gospel both speak about tasting the Lord.  The Psalm says that we are to taste and see the goodness of the Lord.  And Jesus in the Gospel talks about Himself as the Bread of Life, and if we eat of Him we will live for ever.  

We need the Eucharist.  It is our spiritual diet that gives us strength to live as Christians.  Vatican II called the Eucharist the source and summit of our Christian life: the fount from which we gain all of our strength to follow Jesus, and the goal of our life, because heaven in the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God.  We tend to talk about the Eucharist as food for our Christian journey with people who are dying, as we give them Viaticum, which literally means “on the way with you,” but in our daily lives, even when we are not dying, we need Jesus to be with us on our way to Him.  

The Eucharist is our spiritual life, because it is the life of God, the true flesh and true blood of Jesus.  We taste the goodness of God by tasting His Body and Blood in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  And yet, from the very beginning, we have also protected the Eucharist and required preparation for it, since it is not any everyday food.  St. Justin Martyr, in the early second century, spoke about how the Eucharist was only for those who were baptized and believed what the Church taught.  It wasn’t for everyone.  And to this day, we still hold that, unless one is Catholic, one cannot receive the Eucharist in a Catholic church (with very few exceptions).  Those who are not Catholics, even if they believe in Jesus, cannot partake of Holy Communion with us, because they don’t have communion with us, and we are never closer to each other in the Body of Christ than we are in the Eucharist.  

But even beyond that, sometimes even Catholics lose communion with Jesus and with the Church through grave or mortal sins, sins that separate us from the saving grace of God given to us in baptism.  And so the Church requires us to have that communion restored, to be healed of our grave or mortal sins before we present ourselves for Holy Communion, for, how can we have communion with Jesus in Holy Communion if we have separated ourselves from Him through sin?  Now perhaps you are thinking to yourself, “Well, I’m not aware of any grave or mortal sins, nor have I been in some time, so you’re losing me, Father.”  Praise God that you have been sustained in grace.  But others may struggle more, and, as a good shepherd, I need to warn the sheep about pitfalls.  If we have skipped Mass through laziness, if we are guilty of adultery or fornication, if we have taken God’s Name in vain, or any other grave sin, then we need to go to confession first before we present ourselves for Holy Communion.  Otherwise, our unworthy reception of the Eucharist does not help us on our way, but becomes another obstacle to having God’s grace and life within us through the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.

But beyond what we shouldn’t do, what does the Eucharist do for us?  If it is the food for our Christian journey, how does it give us strength?  For one, the Eucharist unites us to Christ more closely than we could ever be with anyone else on earth.  We often think of marriage as the greatest exchange of love between two persons, but infinitely greater than that is receiving the Eucharist, because we receive the love of Jesus which was made manifest for us when He died on the cross for you.  If no one else existed on earth, Jesus would have still died for you; that’s how much he loves you, and that love is consumed when receive the Eucharist worthily.

A second effect is that our venial sins, the small ways that we have said no to God, are wiped clean.  All those little things that we do, and we know what they are, that are not what we should be doing as followers of Jesus, those things are washed clean in our souls.  The Eucharist is a great way to find forgiveness for our small sins (not our mortal or big sins, but our small ones).  

A third effect is that we get to taste heaven.  We often talk about being so close to something that we can almost taste it.  In the Eucharist, we can taste heaven, because we receive Jesus who is in heaven.  When we receive the Eucharist, heaven exists within us, and the more that we live the life of heaven here on earth, the more we’ll be ready for it for ever at the end of our lives.  The more we practice for heaven, the more we’ll be ready for it at game time.  Through the Eucharist, the veil that separates heaven from earth is pulled back, and Jesus gives us Himself so that we can experience it in a small way.  What a great blessing the Eucharist is for us!  There is nothing more valuable on earth, because nothing is more valuable than Christ, and the Eucharist is His Body and Blood.

I want to leave you today with a beautiful prayer written by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ.  I invite you to learn this prayer, and perhaps make it a part of your preparation prayers before Mass begins.

O Sacred Banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of his Passion is recalled, the soul is filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory is given us.  Amen.