Corpus Christi

Yesterday, I was at my beautiful sister’s beautiful sister-in-law, Adrienne’s (from hence forth I will refer to her as my sister as well because we are family and we don’t need to bring this law business into it) bachelorette party, and we were talking about life and its’ glorious mysteries aka babies.  Lianna, being the seasoned veteran amongst us, was talking about how moms often refer to their babies as being “delicious”, “edible”, “good enough to eat” etc.  Another lovely lady present, Katie, mentioned a study that was done about this.  The conclusion was that true love desires complete union with the beloved.  

There have been so many occasions that I have been so struck by the beauty of a sunset, sunlight streaming through clouds, etc., and have had this great desire to consume it.  It is not enough to witness the beauty, I want to be a part of it and to have it be a part of me.

Jesus knew this about humans.  My friend Trishey once spoke of this in Eucharistic terms.  She said that Jesus knew us so well, that He became Food for us.  He knew that we would crave for this unfathomable Love to be inside of us.  To touch Him, and receive Him into ourselves.  So He gave Himself as Food and Drink.  It is appropriate that we talked of this yesterday, for today is the day the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ: Corpus Christi.  

I was born and raised Catholic.  Born and raised believing that the Eucharist we celebrate at Mass every Sunday, the Eucharist that I receive, is truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Savior.  But, as in the life of the majority of humans, there came a time that “my parents told me it’s true” did not really hold enough water.  Such profound truths must be doubted, questioned, sought, and discovered, in the heart, mind, and soul of each individual human.  I have had these doubts, these questions, I have wrestled with God, argued, cried, wondered, disobeyed, rebelled, but always, always, He called me back to Himself.  

I was given an advantage that many don’t receive in my quest for self-discovery which really is the quest for Jesus, for we cannot truly know ourselves apart from Him Who created us.  My advantage was suffering.  A deep suffering that struck me at an early age.  A sorrow that gripped me and would not let me go.  It made me, in my tender years of high school, ask questions that many feel no need to ask until a mid-life crisis hits.

The questions pierced me to the core: What is the point of my existence?  What is the purpose of living? If life contains so much sadness, why did God even bother with us in the first place?  By the grace of God, I knew that (through the prayers and teachings of my parents) drugs, alcohol, sex, and people in general were not the answers I was looking for.  I could see with my own eyes the wages of this life style.  I knew enough of movie stars that “have it all”, yet live the most depressing, self-destructive, dysfunctional lives, that the human heart cries for more than these material, sensual pleasures.  Our desires are for the infinite and the world offers only the finite.  

So, I did the only thing I could think of.  I did what I saw my mom do all of my life.  I prayed. I went to the Chapel on my campus, and I prayed.  And prayed.  And wept, and went to Mass, and prayed.  I begged God for an answer.  For a reason to hope.  And though I perhaps wasn’t ready for the answers at that time, I knew there was One purpose for living.  It was Jesus in the Eucharist. 

I didn’t have many friends to speak of, I was not happy in high school, but I had a bestfriend, Who became Food and Drink for me every day so that I would know I wasn’t alone.  In high school, the Eucharist became my reason for living.  It still is today.  Because I know, that if every single thing that could go wrong in life does go wrong, I can always go to Jesus in the tabernacle and pour out my self before Him.   Just as I am.  And He waits there for me to come.  He waits there for all of us to come and see Him.  I learned at a young age that no thing on this earth, and no human being, no matter how lovely, holy, or good, will ever be able to fill the infinite void of my soul that cries for eternity.  As St. Therese so simply and truly put it:  "You alone, O Jesus, could satisfy a soul that needed to love even to the infinite."

I read this beautiful reflection on the Eucharist that speaks of the profound Humility contained in the Body of Christ:

"An accident in the middle of the desert paralyzed one of my legs. When the doctor arrived–eight days later–it was too late; I shall be lame for the rest of my life... I remained silent, trying mentally to take my soul beyond the compounds of my room into the little Arab-style chapel where I knew the Eucharist was... My leg was hurting terribly, and I had to work up the force to stop my mind wandering. I remembered Pius XII once asking in one of his audiences, "What does Jesus do in the Eucharist?" Even today, after so many years, I do not know how to reply.
In the Eucharist Jesus is immobilized not in one leg only, but both, and in his hands as well. He is reduced to a little piece of white bread. The world needs him so much and yet he doesn't speak. Men need him so much and he doesn't move!
The Eucharist is the silence of God, the weakness of God.
It is as though the world and the Eucharist were walking in opposite directions.
One has to be courageous not to let oneself be carried along by the world's march; one needs faith and will-power to go cross-current towards the Eucharist, to stop, to be silent, to worship. And one needs really strong faith to understand the impotence and defeat which the Eucharist represents and which is today what the impotence and defeat of Calvary was yesterday.
And yet this powerless Jesus, nailed down and annihilated, is the God of the Impossible, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end"
Letters From The Desert
Carlo Carretto 

It seems a strange idea, Jesus becoming Bread for us to consume.  Who amongst us would willingly become immobile and be placed in a tiny little box awaiting mere humans to come and visit and receive?  But, one day I was struck with the realization that God becoming a human being is the most radical thing I have ever heard of.  God not only becoming a human being, but taking on every sin ever committed and suffering the pain of every human, and then, dying.  Who amongst us would leave Heaven merely to suffer and die an excruciatingly painful, humiliating death, for a bunch of humans?  That is so mind-blowing, that the leap from God becoming human to God becoming bread for us to eat does not seem very extreme.  But we are surprised.  We are surprised by His depth of Love for us, because we know how unworthy we are.  And we should always be in awe of this gift.  Not only another of the uncountable gifts He has given us, but the greatest of all gifts Love Himself gives.  For it is His Sacrifice on Calvary repeated in the Mass, so that we will not forget what we are worth to Him, and what He should be worth to us.  Our entire selves. 

 

"I am the bread of life.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”  

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats  my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before...As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God"

John 6: 48-69

God in his omnipotence could not give more, in His wisdom He knew not how to give more, in His riches He had not more to give, than the Eucharist.
– St. Augustine
 
“The command, after all, was ‘Take, eat,’ not ‘Take, understand.’” CS Lewis

“If you understand it, it is not God.” St. Thomas Aquinas

"I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament...There you will find romance, glory, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth."
-JRR Tolkien, in a letter to his young son Michael

Venite Adoremus