Body and Blood

My brothers and sisters,
Today as we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we ask ourselves what the Eucharist means to us, how we recognize the presence of Jesus in our lives through receiving the Eucharist every Sunday or even every day. Do we really love to go to church or do we feel it as a burden or duty that we have to do?
What is your motivation to go to church? We can see there are some people who go to church because they feel that it is an obligation. Such people go to church every Sunday according to the Church Law. But there are also some people who go to church not because of the law but because they need it or they love to go. The reason is a necessity from inside, not an obligation from outside but it comes from within. You see the difference between them? Consider, for example, a child, who doesn’t like his meal, we have to push him to eat, because he doesn’t realize yet the meaning of eating. But for an older boy, normally nobody will push him to eat. He himself will look for food, because he needs it. Eating for him and for most of us is not obligatory from outside but from inside: it is a necessity. How about you? Do you feel that going to church as an obligation or a necessity?
I know an old man, who loves going to daily mass every morning. One day his daughter told me, that from Thursday to Saturday the Old man fasts, he only eats rice without meat or vegetables. He wants to prepare himself for the Sunday mass. Three days fasting for him is a worthy preparation to meet Jesus in the Eucharist. I was amazed by his faith, how he appreciates the Eucharist.
You know, we can explain how to go to church as if a young man is going on a date. For example, if he has a date on Saturday evening at six, he is thinking of that all the days during the week, on Thursday he is thinking of the clothes he is going to wear, on Friday, he is thinking of what he is going to talk to her about, on Saturday noon he takes a bath, sprays himself with perfume … he is ready, but he still has to wait 3 or 4 hours more before the time and he feels that the time moves very slowly … he is not patient anymore. Did you have such experiences? I did!
When we go to church on Sunday we are like that young man, we want to meet our loved one. Do you see Jesus as someone that you love? That is the problem! Many people have not yet seen Jesus as the one that he or she loves. In fact Jesus does love us. What he did at the last supper is the proof of His love. When he gave himself in the form of bread and wine, saying: Do this in remember of me, He wants us not to forget Him. It is the same as we do if our best friend or our loved one would go far for a long time, we give him our picture, saying: don’t forget me or remember me always. That the sign of our love. Eucharist is a sign of love from Jesus. The Eucharist is Jesus’ sacrifice for us. When he did the last supper, he did it as a self-giving that he actualized it in a true sense on the cross the day after. So every time we celebrate Eucharist, we recall Jesus and proclaim our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again. The Eucharist becomes the center of our faith celebration.
Do you realize how precious the Eucharist is? For us who can receive communion every Sunday, or even everyday if we want, may be we think that it is normal, we don’t see the depth of its meaning. But imagine a place where there is no available priest such as in many out-station parishes in Madagascar, or also in some regions in Indonesia. They only have mass once a year. In Madagascar in 1997, I was visiting several churches in a mountain, walking by foot 5 or 6 hours a day, when a group of men came to me from another mountain, asking me to visit their church also, because it had been 5 years since they had had a mass, because the missionary who was in charge for that outstation was too old to go to the mountain. It was very sad. I told them that I would come. When I arrived there, they welcomed me as if I were a King. First I heard their confessions and then we celebrated the Mass. It was really a great celebration of faith after 5 years without a mass. They joyfully sang and danced during the mass. They were really hungry of the food of faith.
Sometimes it is good if we have bad experiences, for example to have no house, so we can appreciate our home; or an experience of starving, no food to eat, so we can appreciate our food and also an experience to have no priest for a long time to celebrate the Eucharist … so we can realize how we need Jesus who is present in the Holy Communion. But you don’t have to chase away your pastor … to have an appreciation to the Eucharist. This feast of the Body and Blood of Christ will remind us how lucky we are and how we should thank God for His love for us through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus that we experience through the Eucharist. May He bless us all who participate in His Body and Blood; may he give us strength through the Holy Communion that we receive; and may we know how to response to His love by our devotion to Jesus the Lord and by our love for others. Amen