What Jesus did he is still doing

Homily for June 7, 2015 (Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ)
Exodus 24:3-8; Psalm 116; Hebrews 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

Last weekend I attended an early Mass at a parish near my home in Chicago.  Following the Prayer after Communion, the priest invited everyone to sit down.  It was, after all, time for the announcements.  In many parishes, these have become such an ordinary (and often lengthy) part of the celebration that I sometimes think we might as well formalize things and include them in the next edition of the Roman Missal!  In addition to the ordinary items—special collections, meetings, etc.—the pastor noted that there would be a Corpus Christi Procession and Benediction the following Sunday, i.e. today.

For some, such processions seem like a relic from the past, a ritual from a bygone era of communion rails, teeming ethnic parishes and May Crowning.  But they are still very much alive.  In recent years I’ve participated in them in places as diverse as St. Augustine & St. Monica Parish in Detroit and St. Xavier Mission on the Crow Reservation in Montana.  Just as in generations past, these processions call all who join them or look upon them to remember not only the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist but also the timeless challenge to his followers to recognize and share that loving and transforming presence where they live.

When Jesus celebrated the Passover as his Last Supper with his disciples, it wasn’t a mere reenactment of a historically significant event.  It was quite literally remembering—professing in faith that God’s liberating power and faithfulness were just as real as they gathered on the eve of his passion and death as they were for those who many generations earlier shared the roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs inside blood-spattered doorways.  The covenant once sealed in the blood of bulls by Moses would be renewed and expanded by Jesus in his own blood, which for the ancients symbolized the force of life itself.

What God did God is still doing.  The life and freedom God gave God is still giving.

This is especially vital to remember in those places where people are tempted to lose hope or to become so overwhelmed with life and its difficulties that the presence and work of Jesus are forgotten or missed.  Places like a neighborhood in the heart of Chicago or Detroit or a reservation in Montana, where too many people struggle with poverty, addictions, broken relationships and violence may appear as if they could benefit the most from a Corpus Christi Procession.  In truth, however, other places could benefit just as much if not more, whether they are our own homes, corporate suites in New York or San Francisco, or the legislative halls in Springfield, Lansing, Madison and Washington, DC.  The poverty, addictions, broken relationships and violence in those places may take different forms or be better hidden, but they are no less real.  The presence, love and mercy of Christ are needed everywhere.

What Jesus did he is still doing. The life and freedom that he gave us in his death and resurrection he continues to give.

In the special Sequence that is often sung or chanted in today’s liturgy we pray:  “Very bread, good shepherd, tend us/ Jesu, of your love befriend us/ You refresh us, you defend us/ Your eternal goodness send us/In the land of life to see.”  Nourished by the food that Christ gives us in his Body and Blood may we become for the world what we share at the table. +