Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for Corpus Christi (A), Vigil

June 13, 2020

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.13.20_Landry_ConCon_2.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us tomorrow on Corpus Christi.

* If there’s ever a year in which we need the feast celebrating the Body and Blood of the Lord it’s this year.

* So many faithful have gone without the Eucharist for months. Still here in New York, faithful cannot attend either Sunday or daily Mass. We have tried to do the best we can with virtual Masses and spiritual communions, but it’s obviously not the same.

* One of the goods that have come from this pandemic has been many now are hungering more for the Eucharist, for the Mass. That hunger justifies putting up with the many inconveniences of going to Mass with masks, sitting in designated areas, constantly sanitizing hands and pews and the rest. That hunger should justify so much.

* There’s a beautiful phrase in the Sequence before the Gospel for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in which St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Quantum potes, tantum aude.” Dare to do all you can. Go overboard with love. This is a year in which we need to. In most places we won’t be able to have Corpus Christi processions, or lengthy periods of communal adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But perhaps we can do the same thing most of us have been doing: doing all we can to spread love of the Lord via social media, phone calls, letters. I’d like to ask you to think about posting something on your Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts about the Eucharist today and how grateful you are for this gift. The reason is because nothing we do could possibly be adequate to the gift.

* In the consequential conversation in the Gospel today, Jesus’ disciples as well as critics grumble after he tells them that he is the living bread that came down from heaven and whoever eats that bread, his flesh for the life of the world, will live forever. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?,” they ask aloud. And Jesus doubles down: Unless you gnaw on the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you. … Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

* They would go on to say, “This teaching is hard who can endure it,” and many disciples left. They were right in that it was a very hard teaching. To them it sounded like cannibalism. Jews couldn’t even touch blood without becoming ritually impure and Jesus was telling them they needed to drink his blood. Sometimes I think the reason why some Catholics, like some of our fellow Christians, don’t find this teaching hard is because they think Jesus is talking symbolically. He’s not. He stresses his flesh is real food and his blood real drink.

* We need to approach this difficult reality with faith. After many of the disciples had left, Jesus turned to the 12 and asked if they wanted to leave. That’s when Peter said, “Lord to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God.” Translate. Last Supper. Thomas: credo quidquid dixit…

* The teaching is hard, but that’s what’s at the origin of this feast. Peter of Prague. First Corpus Christi.

* This teaching is hard we believe whatever Jesus has said and are called to base our life o...