This
morning I’d like to talk a bit about history and geography and
literature - A Tale of Two Cities—Corpus
Christi and Sacramento. With names like those, you might think the
U.S. was a very religious country indeed. But those names were given
when the cities were part of Mexico, when the Spanish missionaries
and explorers were “discovering" the West. All those great
religious Spanish city names are now part of our secular culture and
when we hear them we don’t often think of their roots—Corpus
Christi, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Monica.
That
doesn’t mean that we’ve fully forgotten those religious
roots—it’s just to note that those names have taken on a new,
more common and familiar usage. And unless the context clearly
points us in some other direction, they merely raise in our minds the
image of a place. This is
equally true of other city names with meaningful secular roots, like
Washington or Cincinnati. Once something
becomes very familiar we don’t often think about it too deeply.
And,
the Spanish and the West had no monopoly on religious names for U.S.
places. Heading back east we have name like St. Paul, St. Louis, and
Santa Monica’s Floridian son, St. Augustine, and even the state,
Maryland.
Today
is the Feast of Corpus Christi. And many people might assume that
means they’re having a big parade in Texas – a special
celebration of their city. Actually, the city got its name from this
Feast. One day in the 1500’s a Spanish explorer sailed into a
great bay off the coast of what we now call Texas. And, being one of
those holy Spaniards, he was aware that it was the day of the Feast
of Corpus Christi, and he named the bay after that Feast. A few
hundred years later, another holy Spanish sailor was exploring the
inland waterways of California. He came upon a new river, or one
that was at least new to him, and, following precedent, he pulled out
his liturgical calendar and noted that it was the Day of the Holy
Sacrament, or as his Spanish calendar said, Sacramento.
He named the river the Sacramento River (and that name stuck, even
though another Spanish explorer had discovered it many years earlier
and, evidently finding himself without a liturgical calendar, had
named it simply the Jesu Maria.)
Eventually,
a city sprang up by each of those waterways, and each of those two
cities took the name of its nearby water. Actually, the Day of the
Holy Sacrament and the Feast of Corpus Christi are the very same
Feast. So, we have two major US cities named after this holy day.
Whatever
they may be doing on the secular front in Corpus Christi and
Sacramento today, we are having a special celebration here on Capitol
Hill. We’re in the midst of it right now. It’s a celebration we
have right here every week; actually every day, and actually more
than once on most days. And today, along with all the Catholics at
all the Masses around the world, we draw a special focus to this
particular Feast as we observe it in our every-day but always-special
celebration.
What
is this Feast all about, what does the term Corpus Christi mean?
We’ll, I’m old enough to remember the Latin Mass. We would kneel
here, all along this bottom step where the communion rail used to be.
The priest (and no one but the priest) would carry the ciborium and
work his way along the inside of the rail placing a host on each
outstretched tongue, with the alter boy poised each time to catch
that host on the paten if there should be a fumble. And each time
the priest presented the host he would say – “Corpus Christi”.
Of
course, we do the same thing today. We just do it a little
differently. The trappings of the sacrament can change so long as
the essential elements remain intact. Now, we’ve abandoned the
Communion rail, we can receive the host in our hand, and the priest
(or other minister) speaks to us in English and he (or she) says “The
Body of Christ.” So, at a simple level, and as all you Latin
speakers already knew, “Corpus Christi” just means the “Body of
Christ.” And what we’re celebrating today is that we have this
special sacrament; the
Holy Sacrament, as they might say along the Sacramento Valley.
Our
readings today give us more background regarding this most holy
sacrament. In our first reading, Moses tells the Jews that the
reason God tested them in the desert for 40 years was to see if they
would continue to follow Him and His commandments. He let them be
afflicted with hunger, but then he gave them manna from heaven –
food that was unknown to their fathers. And this was to show them
that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
forth from the mouth of God. In our next reading, Paul tells the
Corinthians, and us, that the bread and the wine are our
participation in the body and blood of Christ.
And
finally in John’s Gospel, Jesus, the fulfillment of the Old
Testament, tells the Jews that he is the unknown food, “I
am the living bread that came down from
heaven ... Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life
... 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.”
Jesus was talking to a large crowd, many were already his followers
and some had been disciples for a long time. But they were shocked
by his words.
It
was blasphemy; and maybe even a call to cannibalism — gruesome and
sinful. Cannibalism is always shocking and notorious (though not
necessarily depraved.) Remember the Argentine air crash a few
decades ago when young athletes lost in the frozen Andes resorted to
cannibalism? Remember the stories of the Donner Party, trapped in
the frozen storms of the Sierra Nevadas over a century ago?—they
had almost made it to Sacramento.
As
shocking as those events were to our more modern world, Jesus’
words were even more shocking to his followers. It was too much for
many of them to bear. Despite all the miracles they had seen or
heard about, despite all his other brilliant teachings. This was
more than they could accept.
So, they left him. They didn’t have
sufficient faith or trust to follow him, to be confident that he was
not leading them astray. If this was a test, like the one with Moses
in the desert, they failed.
But
others had stronger faith in Jesus and they trusted him and continued
to follow him. Of course, we know now that Jesus didn’t mean that
they should literally devour his human body. Jesus had a much more
palatable plan in mind for how we could eat his flesh and drink his
blood. He would make it available in a most basic, familiar,
pleasing and universal form—bread and wine.
At
the last supper he took the bread and said “This is my body” and
the wine and said “This is my blood”. He showed the apostles how
it was that his body and blood could be available to them and
consumed by them in a very proper and tasteful way. It was at this
point that Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Now,
I’d like to explain to you exactly how this works. How, while
retaining the appearance and all the physical characteristics of
bread and wine, the substance of those foods is changed into the body
and blood of Christ. I really would
like to. But unfortunately, I can’t explain it. It’s a mystery,
and it’s one that has been debated through the centuries. Most
Protestants reject the belief that this change in substance, this
transubstantiation,
really occurs. And unfortunately, many Catholics, if pressed, will
say they have some doubts as well. But that’s how it is with
mysteries, you can’t fully understand, or prove, or demonstrate
their truth. Some
can accept it on faith, others cannot.
It’s
not hard to understand how some people would have difficulty
believing that the bread and wine are changed in substance and that,
though they still appear to be bread and wine, they become in true
fact the body and blood of Christ. That’s a pretty bold belief.
But the Catholic Church is clear in its teaching that the change in
substance truly does occur.
Part
of the proper disposition for receiving Communion, besides being in
the state of grace, is believing in the true presence of Christ in
the Sacrament – presence in Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. We
don’t have to understand it, but we do have to believe it. When
the minister says “The Body of Christ”, we have to say “Amen”,
meaning “so be it” or “I believe it.” How fully do we need
to believe it? How strong does our faith have to be? None of us has
perfect faith. We all have our times of doubt regarding one aspect
or another of our faith. And the mystery of the Eucharist is surely
one that can raise doubt.
The
last thing I’d want to do is to discourage anyone from receiving
Communion. But we really should think about, and appreciate, what
we’re receiving. If we feel some question and some doubt, think
about that, pray about that – that is talk to God about that. But
in that questioning and praying, we need to be patient, we can’t be
too hard on ourselves. We need to understand that we’ll never
understand. We don’t want to put ourselves in the Catch-22
situation of thinking that we shouldn’t receive Communion because
our faith is too weak, while what we need most is the grace of that
Sacrament to increase our faith.
In
just a few minutes, we’re going to start that part of the Mass
called the Liturgy of the Eucharist. A few of our congregation will
bring up a gift offering—bread and wine, “which earth has given
and human hands have made,” part of our human participation in the
great mystery we’re about to enter. I’ll mix a few drops of
water, representing us, into the wine and ask God that we be able to
share in the divinity of Christ as he humbled himself to share in our
humanity. Father Charles will lead us in calling down the Holy
Spirit on those gifts and changing their substance to the body and
blood of Christ, and asking God to accept our offering. God, who is
not bound by time, will then open up a window through time, and He’ll
see us all present with each other and with Jesus at that point in
eternity when he sacrifices himself to the Father for us. And we’ll
all offer ourselves along with him as part of that sacrifice.
Most
of us have done this a thousand times before. And maybe we’ve let
it become a bit automatic, a bit reflexive, too common, too familiar;
like hearing “Los Angeles” and having no thought of angels.
Maybe we haven’t been participating at our peak. Today, on this
Feast of the
Holy Sacrament, Corpus Christi, let’s remember the awe of our first
communion, let's be very deliberate, let's be fully appreciative of
this greatest of gifts that God has given us.
Are
you ready?
Let’s
do it!
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