Preacher: Fr Beer | Today`s Solemnity celebrated the greatest gift that God gives us, namely in this mystical sense, the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Son Jesus Christ and all veiled under the simple forms of Bread and Wine which is consecrated to become this Gift beyond price!
Of course, we all know, that the Institution of The Holy Eucharist took place by Jesus at the Last Supper on the very night before he was betrayed but the majesty of the Act is, in a sense, eclipsed by the sadness of what followed – the same Lord Jesus being delivered up, after His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, into the hands of wicked men by one of his own chosen apostles – Judas Iscariot and only a little later to be denied by the chief of the Apostle St. Peter himself and so, because of this, Pope Urban IV in the year 1264 requested that great Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, to compose a Mass and the Divine Office to celebrate and honour this divine gift!   It is too the way in which we, the Church – the Body of Christ as the Baptismal Family, can make the Church`s official act of homage and gratitude to our Saviour Jesus Christ  whereby we are able to reflect the joyous aspect of Maundy or Holy Thursday.
We heard from St. Paul`s first letter to the Christians at Corinth chapter 11 and verses 23 to 26 his description of what he had received from the Lord and, in turn, passed on to those Corinthian Christians and by implication to us who hear or read his words too, the very act that Jesus performed in that Upper Room on Mount Zion at His Last Supper which in reality became the First Eucharist which is repeated daily as the living offering in sacramental form of the Living Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus himself.   It is both a memorial of that great action and the New Covenant in Christ`s Blood.
There are some Christians, sadly, who miss the boat because they believe that what we do at Mass is simply a commemoration.    It is infinitely more for it is, each time the Mass if offered, the reality of Jesus sharing His Very Life with us as we obediently follow His command.   Jesus was specific.   He did not say, as he offered the bread, “This represents my body”, nor “This chalice represents my blood”.   No he said, emphatically, that we might know his promise to us, “This is my body” and “this is my Blood”.    Though I cannot grasp the understanding of this daily miracle yet I know in heart the reality of the gift that is Jesus Himself coming among us and into us that we might be transfused by His Divinity – yes, in it and through it, we share his Divinity.
At junior school, a small convent school run by the teaching sisters of The Immaculate Conception in Ilfracombe which it was my privilege to attend, I simply loved the Feast of Corpus Christ which, in those days, was always on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, when the school day began in the little Catholic Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, with a celebration of the Mass and then the school day closed with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the Convent Chapel followed by a Procession through the convent grounds and the school playground followed by a wonderful tea to celebrate in a very earthy sense what the Lord Himself had given us in a very Heaven on Earth sense.    It was, of course, very poignant too in a very practical sense for I`m talking of the years 1949 to 1952 – a time of post-war austerity.
Today`s Gospel reading is St. Luke`s account of the feeding of the Five Thousand – a miracle of great practicality which reveals Our Lord`s loving care and compassion for all.  Only He could do such a feeding with just five bread rolls and a couple of fish – presumably someone`s picnic lunch.
The Mass, the Holy Eucharist or “Great Thanksgiving” is not just the sign but the reality of God the Father giving Jesus His Son to us,  Jesus giving Himself to us very really in what we are eating and drinking, and Jesus offering each of us to the Father and as, indeed, we too are offering Jesus to the Father  out of obedience to that Holy Thursday command of the Saviour:  “When you eat this bread and drink this cup…do this in remembrance f me.”
When we think about what we are doing we realise that this is also the means of our being able, as part of his Body the Church, to go out and baptize and, indeed, “to love one another.”
You will remember that at the beginning of this sermon I mentioned how Pope Urban IV commissioned St. Thomas Aquinas, sometimes known a the Seraphic Doctor, to compose the liturgies for the Feast of Corpus Christi.   Such was St. Thomas`s sense of reverence and purpose that I want to paraphrase, in modern English, a couple of paragraphs that he wrote concerning the Holy Eucharist:
“Beyond measure is the dignity, dear brothers and sisters, Divine Mercy has bestowed upon us Christians from the treasury of infinite goodness!   For there neither is nor ever has been a people the gods were so near as our Lord and God is near unto us!”
“Fully desiring that we be made sharers of his divine nature, the only-begotten Son of God has taken to Himself our human nature so that having become man, He would enable us men and women to become gods.   Whatever he assumed of our nature He wrought unto our salvation.  On the Altar of the Cross he immolated to the Father His own Body as victim for our reconciliation and shed His Blood both for our ransom and for our regeneration (that we may be born by water and The Spirit through Baptism).   Moreover, in order that a remembrance of so great benefits  may always be with us, He has left us His Body as food and His Blood as drink under the appearances of bread and wine.
Could there be anything more wonderful and yet so difficult to understand ?