This is why I became a priest.
You may love Christmas; you may
prefer Easter; you may even find your center on Good Friday or Ash
Wednesday. But this is it for me. The Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord is
what gets me out of bed in the morning.
It’s not one day, it’s a date – a date I have every day with the God who took flesh and dwelt among us, died on
the cross and rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, all so He could
arrive on our altar.
It’s almost not fair that this great
feast of the liturgical year occurs now, when it is mixed with the other events
and obligations of our civic and social calendars. This is the crazy time of the year, and we
are all looking for the summer to start so we can goof off.
But the feast does arrive at a
logical time, since it is the culmination of the Paschal Mystery that we
prepared for throughout Lent, and celebrated through Holy Week, Easter, and
Ascension. The Holy Spirit comes at
Pentecost (two weeks ago), giving life and power to the Church, and completing
of the self-revelation of the Holy Trinity, which we celebrated the following
week (last week). The fruit of that Spirit in the Church is the
abiding and active presence in the flesh of the Eternal Word, the Divine Son,
still doing the will of the Father. So,
really, what other time would we celebrate it?
Maybe we do not get the impression that
we need to go to extra effort now for this great event because, amazingly, this
great even happens three hundred and sixty-four days a year! Minus some of the fanfare, the Body and Blood
of the Lord will be here tomorrow, and the next day; and not only here, but at
the parish near your office, and the one on your way to the baseball field
where you have the playoffs. Your sister
in Texas does not have to fly up here for it, because she can find it
there. Even your great aunt at Riderwood
who doesn’t get around much anymore need not go without.
So this celebration is not about
when and where, or, more accurately, not about which when and which
where. It revels in the reality that this when, now, and this where, here,
comes the Lord to feed us with his very life.
When and where we are is when and where the Lord happens.
So again, if that be the case, what
is so special about today? Not too much,
I guess, since as I shared a few weeks ago the actual feast originally falls on
Thursday (last week), but over a hundred years ago the Pope gave American
Catholics permission to celebrate it on Sunday.
So when we do it must not be as important as that we do it.
That is then precisely what we are
doing today; that which the Church does everywhere, not just every day, but especially
one day, one day each year. We make the
effort and take to time to rejoice together and linger over the beautiful
reality that God Himself lingers with us.
We have to remind ourselves that this gift we receive, our daily bread, is
quotidian but not mundane. It has
changed our lives, and changed the world.
And for that accomplished fact, which is simple, but not easy, we give thanks. We give thanks every day, and we give thanks
specifically today, in and for the Great Thanksgiving that is the Holy
Eucharist that feeds us.
The Most Holy Body and Blood of the
Lord is why you are what you are today, which is alive in Christ and members of
His Body on earth. And to make that
possible for you here, and now, it is my joy to be your priest.
Monsignor Smith
