'The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.' Sunday Reflections, Corpus Christi Year A

The Institution of the Eucharist, Federico Fiori Barocci, 1609

Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome [Web Gallery of Art]

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi is on the Universal Calendar of the Church for the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, this year 19 June, and is a holy day of obligation. However, in the Philippines and in many other countries it has been transferred to the following Sunday.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)  [This link is to the readings for the Vigil Mass and for the Mass on Sunday]

Gospel John 6:51-58  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to the Jews:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.  Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

Corpus Christi Procession, Bamberg, Germany [Wikipedia]

Twenty years ago, when I was a parish priest in Mindanao, one of our volunteer catechists came to me one Saturday afternoon and said, 'My father would like to receive the Bread of Life'. She told me that though he was gravely ill he was fully conscious and so I prepared to to hear his confession, celebrate the Sacrament of the Sick with him  and to give him Holy communion.

On the way to the house I learned that the sick man had been married three times, having been widowed twice. When I arrived there were children from his three marriages and grandchildren from at least two. All who were present gathered around, except when I was hearing the man's confession. He was fully alert, knew he was near the end of his life and participated joyfully.

At the very end I asked some of the family to lay hands on him as we said a final prayer. However, the dying man turned this into something far more beautiful. He took one of his grandchildren, an infant only a few months old, and embraced it. Then he embraced each of his children and grandchildren in turn.

There was a tangible sense of joy about the house and afterwards the family served me a snack. This is not the usual practice when the priest makes a sick call.

The following morning, Sunday, the catechist came to tell me that her father had died during the night.

What really struck me was the fact that the dying man had asked for 'The Bread of Life'.

Today's feast, the Solemnity of Corpus Christ, is a celebration of the Body of Christ as the Bread of Life. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. These words of Jesus caused many to walk away - because they understood what he was saying, but couldn't accept it. Others could and did.

Catholics believe, in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) No 1374, In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 'the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained the Body and Blood, soul and divinity' of Christ'.

Perpetual Adoration, Chihuahua Cathedral, Mexico [Wikipedia]

The CCC clearly states in No 1376 what the Church teaches: The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: 'Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.'

The Catechism goes on to explain in Nos 1378 and 1379 two developments in the life of the Church: In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. 'The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession.'

The tabernacle was first intended for the reservation of the Eucharist in a worthy place so that it could be brought to the sick and those absent outside of Mass. As faith in the real presence of Christ in his Eucharist deepened, the Church became conscious of the meaning of silent adoration of the Lord present under the Eucharistic species. It is for this reason that the tabernacle should be located in an especially worthy place in the church and should be constructed in such a way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

There is an intimacy and a real 'communion' between people when they are together in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, whether they are just 'dropping in' to be in the presence of the Lord for a while or engaged in a more solemn form of adoration when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, such as in the photo above taken in Mexico. And no matter where in the world we are, we are in the presence of the same Lord, Jesus Christ, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God who became Man.

Tabernacle, Dietfurt, Germany [Wikipedia]

I recall when I studied for a year in Toronto, Canada, in 1981-82 being inspired, when I used to visit a particular chapel of adoration, by the presence of university students, men and women, some spending long periods in prayer. I remember staying on a number of occasions in a home for children run by Sisters in Iriga City, in the Bicol Region of the Philippines, to see young boys and girls, all of them from a background of brokenness of one kind or another, praying in perfect silence before the Blessed Sacrament as they waited for Mass to begin.

So the Bread of Life is kept in the tabernacle of a church for two purposes: to enable the priest or an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion bring the Blessed Sacrament to someone who is sick and to allow people to adore Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

It is customary for priests in parishes to bring Holy Communion to sick parishioners on the First Friday of each month. Pope Francis has spoken of the need for priests in particular to 'know the smell of the sheep'. When a priest brings Holy Communion to a sick person he often enough encounters the smell of illness, of poverty. And yet he is bringing the Saviour himself, the Bread of Life to someone who takes him at his word: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Irish poet Seán Ó Liocháin captures something of this, of the journey of the Lord from the tabernacle to the home of a sick person, using whatever transport is available, in his poem An Chéad Aoine, 'The First Friday'. [The not very poetic English translation is mine.]

An Chéad Aoine The First Friday

le/by Seán Ó Liocháin

Nuair a tháinig an sagart

When the priest came
chuig m’athair inniu,

to my father today
mar a thagann de ghnáth

as he usually comes
i dtús na míosa,

at the start of the month
le lón na beatha

with the food of life
                     a thabhairt d’fhear                    t

to give to a man
nach bhfágann an chlúid

who’s been bed-ridden
in aon chor le tamall,

for some time now,
ní hé an gnás ab ait liom féin.

It wasn't the ritual that was strange to me.

     me.                                       

Ní hé ba mhó

What really
ba bhun le m’iontas

caused my wonder wasn't
fear dá chlú,

a man of such repute,
dá chleacht, dá éirim

of such experience, of such learning
ar cuairt na sean

visiting the old
i dtús na míosa

at the beginning of the month
le comhairle a leasa

with good counsel
a chur ar dhream

to give to those
nach bhfágfadh clúid na haithrí choíche,
who would never leave the cover of repentance again,
ach Críost a theacht

but Christ coming
i gcarr athláimhe

in a second-hand car
a cheannaigh an sagart

the priest bought
ó fhear i Ros Comáin.

from a man in Roscommon.

Ford Escort, European model (1974-80). [Wikipedia]

Antiphona ad introitum   Entrance Antiphon   Cf. Psalm 80:17

Cibavit eos ex adipe frumenti, [alleluia],

et de petra melle saturavit eos, [alleluia, alleluia, alleluia]. 

[Exultate Deo adiutori nostro: iubilate Deo Jacob.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritu Sancto:

sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper. Amen.

Cibavit eos ex adipe frumenti, alleluia,

et de petra melle saturavit eos, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia].

He fed them with the finest wheat, [alleluia],

and satisfied them with honey from the rock, [alleluia, alleluia, alleluia].

[Sing joyfully to God our strength: acclaim the God of Jacob.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.]

The texts in [squared brackets] are from the fuller version of the Entrance Antiphon used in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, ie, as in the Missal promulgated by Pope St John XXIII in 1962, an updating of the Missal used since the Council of Trent. In Summorum Pontificum, issued in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the celebration of the 'Old Mass' or 'Tridentine Mass', using the term 'Extraordinary Form' for it and 'Ordinary Form' for the Mass as it has been widely celebrated since 1969.

A setting of the Entrance Antiphon by an anonymous composer.

From Sacrosanctum Concilium, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, proclaimed by Pope Paul VI during Vatican II:

116. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son . . .' Sunday Reflections, Trinity Sunday, Year A

The Trinity with the Dead Christ 
Lodovico Carracci, c.1590. Pinacoteca, Vatican [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)  

Gospel John 3:16-18  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

Jesus said to Nicodemus:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

The Two Trinities 
Murillo 1675-82. National Gallery, London [Web Gallery of Art]

A few years ago we in Worldwide Marriage Encounter here in Bacolod City held a family day. One of the last activities was for the pre-teens where the children were asked to share with everyone what they most loved about their parents. One boy of about ten said, 'What I most love about my parents is that they are always together'.

In my closing remarks I picked up on this and reminded the couples that this youngster had expressed the heart of marriage: that the primary vocation of a married couple is to be husband and wife, not father and mother. The latter is a consequence of the first. When children know that for their parents nobody is more important than each other they will be drawn into that relationship.

Marriage is a reflection of the Trinity, which we celebrate today. The perfect love that the Father and Son have for one another has generated the Holy Spirit from all eternity and will continue to do so for all eternity. The love of husband and wife have for each other constantly generates love, the source of which is the Most Holy Trinity, and in most cases that love results in new life.

In his Wednesday audience on 2 April this year Pope Francis said: Marriage is the icon of God’s love for us. Indeed, God is communion too: the three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit live eternally in perfect unity. And this is precisely the mystery of Matrimony: God makes of the two spouses one single life. The Bible uses a powerful expression and says 'one flesh', so intimate is the union between man and woman in marriage. And this is precisely the mystery of marriage: the love of God which is reflected in the couple that decides to live together. Therefore a man leaves his home, the home of his parents, and goes to live with his wife and unites himself so strongly to her that the two become — the Bible says — one flesh.

Murillo's painting, The Two Trinities, captures something of this. The unity between Mary and Joseph as wife and husband reflects the love of the Father and Son for each other. And while Joseph is not the Father of Jesus he is his legal father, according to Jewish law, as he named him: Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:19-21). The love that Joseph and Mary had for each other as husband and wife generated the love that Jesus experienced in his humanity while growing up in Nazareth, just like the youngster at our family day in Bacolod.

More than that, St Joseph was a real father to Jesus, his 'Dad', 'Papa', 'Tatay', as Spouse of Mary, the primary title the Church gives to this great saint on his major feast day, 19 March, and now in all the Eucharistic Prayers.

Moses 
Carlo Dolci, 1640-45. Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence [Web Gallery of Art]

And we find a wonderful example of a father-figure in Moses in the First Reading when he pleads with God: “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance” (Exodus 34:9).

We know that more than once Moses castigated his people and he acknowledges that they can be hard to deal with: This is a stiff-necked people. But in the same breath he acknowledges himself as one of them: Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance. He is a real father, pleading on behalf of his family for God's mercy while fully aware of their and his own shortcomings.

Carracci's The Trinity with the Dead Christ shows us the Trinity in the context of the death of Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, who became Man and died for us on the Cross. This is a common theme in many paintings, the Suffering Trinity. Not only Jesus suffered. So did his Father and the Holy Spirit.

Return of the Prodigal Son (detail) 
Rembrandt, c.1669. The Hermitage, St Petersburg [Web Gallery of Art]

I know of no greater expression of the suffering of the Father than the face of the father in Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son. This doesn't express the joy that we know was there but the suffering behind it. And in that parable Jesus was showing us the compassion, the 'suffering with', of the Father for each of us. 

Carracci shows us the Father and the Holy Spirit to be as much involved in Calvary as Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, God who became Man, was. They suffered along with him, out of compassion for us.

This reality too is reflected in marriage as a couple gradually prepare their children to become independent while preparing themselves for the pain of letting their children go. To a lesser extent it is reflected in the lives of all who are responsible in some way for the education, formation and mentoring of others. A teacher may feel some sadness as the year ends and students move on but a few months later a new batch will be there. However, parents never cease to be parents and will always continue to share both the joys and sorrows of their adult children, who often enough are the cause of their parents' inner suffering.

Likewise, the Persons of the Blessed Trinity never cease to be a loving God, a God who calls each of us to share in the intense and eternal Love that they are for all eternity. Every human relationship is meant to reflect that to some extent, most of all the relationship between husband and wife.

—God is my Father! If you meditate on it, you will never let go of this consoling consideration.

—Jesus is my intimate Friend (another re-discovery) who loves me with all the divine madness of his Heart.

—The Holy Spirit is my Consoler, who guides my every step along the road.

Consider this often: you are God’s . . . and God is yours. (The Forge, No 2, St Josémaría Escrivá).

Firmly I believe and truly

Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three, and God is One;
and I next acknowledge duly
manhood taken by the Son.

And I trust and hope most fully
in that Manhood crucified;
and each thought and deed unruly
do to death, as he has died.

Simply to his grace and wholly
light and life and strength belong,
and I love supremely, solely,
him the holy, him the strong.

And I hold in veneration,
for the love of him alone,
holy Church as his creation,
and her teachings are his own.

And I take with joy whatever

Now besets me, pain or fear,

And with a strong will I sever

All the ties which bind me here.

Adoration aye be given,
with and through the angelic host,
to the God of earth and heaven,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Words by Blessed John Henry Newman. Tune: Shipston, arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The fourth and fifth stanzas above are not sung in the recording. You can read more about this hymn, which may be sung to a number of different tunes, here.

Antiphon ad introitum.  Entrance Antiphon

Benedictus sit Deus Pater,

Blest be God the Father,

Unigenitusque Dei Filius,

and the Only Begotten Son of God,

Sanctus quoque Spiritus,

and also the Holy Spirit,

quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

for he has shown us is merciful love.

Pope Francis' Prayer Intentions for June 2014

Apostleship of Prayer

Christ in the Carpenter's Shop Georges de la Tour, 1845

Musée du Louvre, Paris [Web Gallery of Art]

Universal Intention - Unemployed

That the unemployed may receive support and find the work they need to live in dignity. 

Evangelization Intention - Faith in Europe  

That Europe may rediscover its Christian roots through the witness of believers. 

Videos from the website of the Apostleship of Prayer, Milwaukee, WI, USA.

'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.' Sunday Reflections, Pentecost, Year A

Pentecost Juan de Flandes

Museo del Prado [Web Gallery of Art]

Pentecost Sunday, at the Vigil Mass (Saturday evening)

NB: The Vigil Mass has its own prayers and readings. Those for the Mass During the Day on Sunday should not be used – though many priests seem to be unaware of this. It is incorrect to refer to the Vigil Mass as an ‘anticipated Mass’. It is a celebration proper to the evening before Pentecost Sunday. The Vigil Mass also fulfills the Sunday obligation.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) [This link is to the readings for the Vigil Mass and for the Mass on Sunday]

Pentecost Sunday, Mass During the Day

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)  [This link is to the readings for the Vigil Mass and for the Mass on Sunday]

Gospel John 20:19-23  (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Sequence: Veni, Sancte Spiritus

Sung by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, Spain

The Sequence may be said or sung, after the Second Reading.

Thirty-two years ago I did a number of short supplies in parishes in a diocese in the western USA. In one parish where I spent only a weekend I found a note that had been shoved under the front door on Monday morning and addressed to me. There was no signature but it was written in the style of a teenage girl.

Very often anonymous letters are negative and condemnatory of the receiver. This was the very opposite. I don’t remember what the gospel reading of the Sunday was but it highlighted the mercy of God and that is what I had preached about. Whatever I said touched the writer of the note profoundly. She wrote that for years she had hated God. I’ve no idea why or of what had been troubling her. She might well have been the victim of some awful act of another. But when at that Sunday Mas she heard the Good News that God is a forgiving God and that he loves each of us individually and unconditionally she was able to let go of the hatred, if that is what it really was, and of the anger in her heart and accept God’s love. She wrote that for the first time in years she went to Holy Communion.

As we celebrate the Descent of the Holy Spirit the gospel today tells us that the Risen Lord, appearing to the Apostles, breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

One of the greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit to the Church is the power to forgive in God’s name, to enable us to hear Jesus say to us what he said to the Apostles twice in today’s short reading, Peace be with you. This is the gift he offered at the Last Supper.

This is the gift God gives us most especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, what many of us still call Confession or Penance.   It is the way in which God, through the Church and specifically through the sacrament of Holy Orders, brings back into communion with him those who have turned away from him through mortal sin, that is a sin involving grave matter, a clear awareness that it is such and full and deliberate consent to the act. To go to confession in that situation is a matter of urgency, to be done before we go to Holy Communion again. Then Holy Communion becomes a true celebration of the full communion that God wants each of us to have with him.

But the sacrament is also a great help to those who are faithfully following Jesus but who sometimes take to byways down which God is not calling them, byways that lead into sin. Though the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not essential for the forgiveness of such sins it is the special way given by God through the Holy Spirit for that. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.

I left that parish on Monday morning and did not know who had shoved the note under the door. I’ve no idea what became of the writer. Perhaps she went to confession shortly after. Very likely she hadn’t committed any grave sin but had suffered greatly because of the actions of another; But whatever the situation was she had a profound experience of God’s mercy that Sunday, something like that of Zacchaeus, like that of the woman caught in adultery, like that of the Prodigal Son.

The gospels don’t tell us what subsequently became of Zacchaues or of the woman caught in adultery. But we know that the Holy Spirit profoundly touched their hearts, healed their wounds and changed their lives as Jesus passed by. And I know that the Holy Spirit profoundly touched the heart and healed the wounds of that young woman in the western USA parish as Jesus ‘passed by’ that Sunday morning through a priest who spent only two nights there.

The Sequence in today’s Mass, Veni Sancte Spiritus, ‘Come, Holy Spirit’, expresses something of that in the seventh stanza:

Lava quod est sordidum, Heal our wounds, our strength renew,

Riga quod est aridum, On our dryness pour your dew,

Sana quod est saucium. Wash the stains of guilt away.

English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ captures something of the presence of the Holy Spirit in every aspect of life in the closing lines of his poem God’s Grandeur:

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm heart and with ah! Bright wings.