June 26, 2011: Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord (Corpus Christi)
Click to hear audio homily
This past Sunday I received a call to go to a hospice and give communion to a man dying of cancer. He attended daily mass frequently and Sunday mass, and receiving Eucharist was very important to him. That Sunday afternoon, however, it seemed that is was not possible for him to receive because he was in and out of consciousness. His wife asked various questions, and he answered incoherently. Then his wife asked him, "Do you want to receive communion?" And immediately coming to his senses, he said clearly, "Yes!" I marveled at how he had unequivocal desire to receive the Eucharist.
For most of my youth and young adulthood, Eucharist did not mean much to me. It was something I did routinely, just like dipping my hand into the Holy Water font and making a sign of the Cross. When I moved away from home to attend college, one of the first things I gave up was receiving Eucharist. There were many more important things to do on Sunday, such as recovering from late night clubbing or going on a mountain biking ride. The seventh day that God gave for me to rest, I rested away from the Eucharist.
We want for food when we feel discomfort or weakness caused by not eating. When we are hungry, we get a strong desire or craving that wants to be satiated. Once we have received the Eucharist and know how Jesus satisfies our soul through the Eucharist, we feel discomfort and weakness of our soul when we stay away from Eucharist awhile. I felt it when I stayed away for several years. I didn't understand why I was feeling weak, so I tried other worldly distractions hoping that would solve the hunger. But the hunger persisted. Our First Reading describes my dilemma well:
Moses said to the people, "Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna...in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.
Sometimes we learn a great lesson by being deprived of something. For that man in the hospice, he knew he hungered for Jesus in the Eucharist at the greatest challenge of his life--his own death. He wanted Jesus to guide and protect him and nourish him with trust in the midst of his greatest fear. After receiving the Eucharist, a reading of Psalm 23 was a great comfort to him. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."
He passed away two days later, and I did his funeral and buried him yesterday. Seeing how he hungered for Jesus in the Eucharist, I cannot but marvel at how he understood what Jesus said in our Gospel today: "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." Many years ago I did not believe in the Eucharist, but now as I witness as a priest, everyday, hunger being satisfied by Jesus in the Eucharist, I hope and pray that you also experience your soul being satisfied through Our Lord in the Eucharist. It has been a great privilege for me the past year here at Immaculate Conception to witness your own firm faith in Jesus. I praise and thank God for this privilege.
