HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI YEAR A.
THEME: TRANSFORMATIVE EFFECT OF THE EUCHARIST.
BY: Fr Stephen ‘Dayo Osinkoya.
Deuteronomy.8:2-3.14b-16a;
Psalm 147
1 Corinthians 10:16-17;
John 6:51-58
Today’s celebration of Corpus Christ, the Body of Christ, is the feast of the very center and heart of our church, the center and heart of our faith, and the center and heart of the lives of each of us, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
The Eucharist is a celebration of the love of Jesus for us, his blood shed for us in love and his body scourged, crowned with thorns and crucified for us. The wine poured and the bread broken is the love of Jesus for us, body and blood given for us.
Because the Eucharist is the love of Jesus for us we always approach Jesus in the Eucharist with great respect and asking pardon for our sins. That’s why it is so necessary at the start of every Mass to ask Jesus for mercy because we are so unworthy of his love, and again before receiving Jesus we express our unworthiness, “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
Think of how precious a moment in our Mass it is when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion. When we receive Jesus, Jesus is in us and we are with Jesus. It is like what Genesis says about the marriage of man and woman, no longer two but one (Gen 2:24). It is the same when we receive Jesus. We are no longer two but one. “He who eats my flesh abides in me and I in him.” (John 6:57).
As Jesus comes to you in the Blessed Sacrament, ask him for whatever healing you need. Try to put words on the deepest healing of your life that you need and ask Jesus to heal you
But what is the Eucharist supposed to cause in us?
It is meant to continue into a transformation—the transformation of our lives. Through worthily receiving the body and blood of Christ, we also are given the power to become like Christ.
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And on this solemnity of the body and blood of Christ, we might do well to reflect on this transformative effect of the Eucharist.
Do we really believe that the Eucharist can change us? Do we believe that Jesus can heal the brokenness in our families? Do we believe that by His power we can overcome addictions and habitual sins—anger, lust, fornication, adultery, unforgiveness? Do we believe that his embrace awaits His faithful ones on the other side of life? Or do we believe that Jesus already dwells within us now, suffering in our pain and rejoicing in our joy?.
If Christ dwells in us and transforms us, we then are called to transform our world. Christ did not come among us in order to be contained. Christ comes among us in order to be emptied out into the whole world, in order that we might bring His Presence in us to the world in which He is not found, into that world that contains His absence.
This is an important mission we all need to be a part of. We can have most devout priest, the finest choir and most meticulous adherence to the rubrics but if we are not recollected, if we are not willing to pray or visit the blessed sacrament, go to benediction often, if we do not avail ourselves of frequent confession, or go to daily mass, if we don’t live a Eucharistic life worthy of Our lord, then everything else is vanity. We are the people the Lord has chosen, imperfect and sinful as we are, yet he wants us and loves us more.
In today’s feast we celebrate that enteral bond of his loving presence in Holy Communion and we recommit ourselves to that holy striving, that desire to be his and the need to form our lives in shadow of his passion, death and resurrection that he has left to us in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
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